Harbinger of hope

Staff

Published Saturday, December 27, 2008

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Fair to partly cloudy. I went shopping. What an experience. I went to a big store that had an automatic water mister to keep the produce fresh. Just before it went on, I heard the sound of distant thunder and smelled fresh rain. When I got near the milk, I heard cows mooing and smelled the scent of mowed hay. I walked near the egg cartons and I heard hens cackle and the air was filled with the aroma of bacon and eggs frying. The vegetable department featured the odor of buttered corn.”

“Wow! It sounds great,” I say.

“It would have been had I not been there to buy toilet paper.”

“At least you got a tree this year,” I say in an attempt to change the subject.

“I bundled up from head to toe, carrying my axe and a coil of rope to tie the tree and drag it home. Then I couldn’t find the right tree. I searched for hours, slogging through knee-deep snow. The wind was howling and my thoughts were freezing. Finally, as the sun was about to set, I said, ‘That’s it! I’ve had enough! The next tree I come to, I’m cutting down, whether it has lights on it or not!’”

A harbinger

I saw a robin in my snow-filled yard one day. It was a serious looking robin, appropriate for a cold, winter day. Not all robins migrate and this might have been a bird that found traveling distasteful.

It was unlike the robins of spring. They arrive like birds on a holiday. They are nervous and noisy, yet full of purpose. They chirp, “cheer-up, cheerily, cheerily.” I make a wish upon the first robin seen in the spring. The spring robins typically arrive too early. Their beyond punctual habit caused my mother to say that they needed three snows on their tails before it would truly be spring. They were called harbingers of spring, but were in reality “harbingers of nearly spring.”

The robin in my snowy yard was silent. It was no harbinger of spring.

The earthworms were no longer available and the trees in my yard had been stripped of most of their berries, so the robin fluttered to the suet feeder and gathered mouthfuls of that foodstuff.

It fed earnestly and had disappeared by the next day.

It had likely moved to another yard to fill another person with wonder. That person and I would share a hope for this bird who had decided to hang in there with us. We hope that troubled times are followed by good ones. The robin knows this to be true. It realizes that spring follows winter. 

This robin was a harbinger of hope.

Nature lessons

Squirrels find buried nuts by smell and not by memory.

Not littering is a way of showing respect.

According to the DNR, a great horned owl may eat more than 4,000 mice per year.

The great egret was nearly wiped out from hunting by the end of the 19th Century. Its plumage was used in women’s hats.

Q and A

“Why do geese honk while flying?” The honks act as contact calls that help coordinate the movements of family groups and the flock.

“Do squirrels live in those leafy nests all winter?” Squirrels build nests in tree hollows, construct dreys (another name for a squirrel nest) made of leaves and twigs and nest just about anywhere they consider safe and secure (like an attic or crawlspace). Squirrels are “endotherms” just like us — they produce their own heat internally fueled by the food they eat. Winter is a stressful time for squirrels due to cold temperatures and the scarcity of food.

They do not hibernate. They store food during the fall for the winter and forage for food as well. Cavities offer more protection from the elements at all times of the year, especially in winter, but they are not always available. The familiar leafy nests high up in trees are quite substantial and heavy. They are usually well constructed of tightly packed leaves and lined with a variety of shredded material including vines and grasses, often with a mass of twigs on the bottom. They will utilize an abandoned crow’s nest, adding twigs to the structure and then building their dreys on top. This provides a very secure platform. When stick nests are not available, they lodge their dreys into the forks of trees to hold them in place. In late summer through fall, grey squirrels begin working on their dreys. They often refurbish the ones used in summer, but will also construct new ones, especially if their old ones had fallen or been removed. They nip off leaved branches and gather fallen leaves to incorporate into the nests. The nests are warm and cozy and the squirrels may stay inside their dens or nests for a few days in bad weather. They prepare for the wintry days to come by packing on the fat, growing a thicker coat and stockpiling food. With other food scarce, they will feed on the bark and twigs of trees, especially maples and sumac.

“How do crows find food so quickly?” Crows have extremely acute sight and hearing, as well as a keen sense of opportunity. They quickly notice things. Crows are extremely intelligent and have a cultural transmission of information; they do pass knowledge along vocally and one of the matters communicated to other crows is the location of food.

“Were wild turkeys native to Minnesota?” Yes. Their ancestral range included the counties of Blue Earth, Cottonwood, Dodge, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Houston, Jackson, Martin, Mower, Murray, Nobles, Olmsted, Pipestone, Rock, Steele, Waseca, Watonwan and Winona.

“What’s the difference between a cobweb and a spider web?” Cobwebs are spider webs long abandoned by their creator.

“What is your favorite bird field guide?” There are a number of them. I like one with paintings instead of photographs. To me, paintings better convey the plumages and identifying field marks of their subjects.

“Why do you feed the birds?” Seeing one chickadee makes it all worthwhile.

Christmas bird count

Please join the Albert Lea Christmas Bird Count on Saturday, Jan. 3. Count birds either in the field or at your feeders. Contact me at 845-2836 or at SnoEowl@aol.com.

Thanks for stopping by

“I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody.” — Ben Franklin

“The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.” — Francis Bacon

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I wish you everything that you wish for yourself.

DO GOOD.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. E-mail him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

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