Take a few lessons from nature

Al Batt, Nature's World

Published Saturday, April 18, 2009

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. Doc Splint Eastwood just told me that I’m not as overweight as I thought I was. I’m just four feet too short. I’m on that NBC diet — Need Bigger Clothes. Oh, the preacher told me he needed a lawn mower. I told him I would sell him my old one at a clergy discount. We went out to the shed and looked at it. He agreed the grass muncher was a beauty and gave me $100 for it. Well, the preacher hadn’t had the thing home for more than day or two when he decided to see if the mower would start. Then he came back to visit me. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he had pulled and pulled on that starter rope with no luck. He asked me if I knew how he could start it. I said that I did. He would have to cuss it.”

“What did the preacher say?” I say.

“He told me that he was a man of the cloth and that if he ever did cuss, not saying he had, he’d forgotten how to do it after all the years.”

“And you said?” I ask.

I told him, ‘Preacher, you keep pulling on that rope and it will all come back to you.”

Nature lessons

As robins move northward, they follow closely the advance of the average daily temperature of 37 degrees. 

An Ethiopian proverb says, “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.”

Contrary to popular belief, a grackle is not a crow that is just not trying hard enough.

When you step on an ant, is it a victim of spontaneous compression? If ants ever take over the world, I hope they will remember all the picnic lunches I shared with them.

The frost comes out of the ground with the pocket gopher mound.

Doors and drawers stick before a rain.

A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar.

The only sure thing about the weather is that a dry spell always ends with a rain.

Nature’s witness

I watched a red-tailed hawk hovering above a farm field this spring. Suddenly, the hawk descended with talons extended. A crow interrupted the raptor’s hunt with a fly-by harassment. A hen pheasant burst from the ground and flew away in a panic. It was still not safe, but it was uneaten. It seized the day instead of being seized as prey.

Q and A

“Do bald eagles mate in mid-air?” No, this persistent folklore is a romantic thought, but it would be impossible. They do court in the air.

“How much has the population of red-headed woodpeckers declined in Minnesota?” According to Audubon, the population of that woodpecker has declined 89 percent since 1967. Other birds with drops in numbers since 1967 include eastern meadowlark 71 percent, whip-poor-will 57 percent, northern pintail 77 percent, field sparrow 68 percent, purple martin 78 percent, horned lark 56 percent, indigo bunting 62 percent, snow bunting 64 percent, common grackle 61percent, American bittern 59 percent, evening grosbeak 78 percent and loggerhead shrike 71 percent.

“Do chiggers burrow under the skin?” Everything was put on earth for a purpose — except chiggers. The tiny red bugs are most active after the Fourth of July. Chiggers are able to penetrate only thin skin and that’s why they tend to attack knees, ankles, and hips. They do not feed on blood. They use powerful enzymes that dissolve skin cells into a straw-like structure that sucks up liquid tissue. This straw stays embedded for weeks and causes itching long after the chigger has left. Chiggers do not bury themselves under our skin.

“Do mallards nest in trees?” Mallards nest primarily in grasslands away from the water’s edge, but will use old bird nests, tree cavities, road ditches, stumps, and meadows with woody vegetation. Mallards will nest just about anywhere — under tree roots, brush piles, in brambles, and on floating logs. I have seen their nests in the crotches of trees, but never very high. There have been isolated reports of mallard nests as high as 25 feet up in a tree. The babies jumped without injury. I visited a nursing home where a mallard flies into the courtyard each year and nests in a flowerbed. When the babies hatch, the staff and residents open doors so that the mother may lead her babies to the water. A policeman watches to allow the family to cross the street safely.

“Why is the robin fighting with the window of my house?” The bird feels a powerful urge to chase any males away from his territory. The window turns into a mirror at times when the light hits it just right. Reflections in windows refuse to retreat, so the bird keeps fighting. Cover the outside of the glass with cardboard or paper. This will eliminate the reflection.

  “Why do a mourning dove’s wings whistle?” That wing whir is caused by the flow of air over the long, streamlined wings of a dove during takeoff. There is speculation that the sound is intended as a warning signal to other doves. So put the WD-40 away and enjoy the sounds.

Sapsuckers

Sapsuckers make evenly spaced holes, one-quarter inch in diameter, on trees. When sap flows, insects gather. Sapsuckers visit the wells and use their bristled tongues to feed on the sweet sap and protein-rich insects. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is about 8 inches long, black and white with white wing bars, white rump, and a bright red forehead. The males have red throats and the females have white throats. The yellow on its belly is as pale as the red on a red-bellied woodpecker’s belly. Sapsuckers drill rows of sap wells on the trunks of a variety of deciduous and coniferous trees. The sap also attracts warblers, hummingbirds, and squirrels. The damage to trees is usually cosmetic.

White clover

Soon my lawn will present a display of white clover with its three oval leaflets and ball-shaped white flowers arising on stems. It is a species of legume originally from Eurasia and northern Africa. Grazing animals eat it, it provides nectar for honeybees, and its roots fix nitrogen that enriches the soil.

Thanks for stopping by

“Laughter is an instant vacation.” — Milton Berle

“Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.” — Josh Billings

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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