A bird feeder benefits more than just birds

Published Saturday, January 24, 2009

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

“Wow! You are chipper. Have you figured out a way to get Gilligan off the island? Or did they give you a refund when you returned your Christmas tree?” I say.

“I just learned that my pickup won’t survive another car wash, yet the whole world is in the palm of my hand.”

“You found your TV remote?” I ask.

“I’m happy because my back feels better.”

“How did you hurt your back?” I query.

“I was lying on the sofa when the Oprah show came on the TV. I wrenched my back reaching for the remote. It caused me to no longer handle well on corners. My sister Cruella stopped by. She said to tell you that you are tighter than Uncle Burly in an armchair. It only takes five of him to make a dozen.”

“That’s just because of that time we all went camping,” I protest.

“That’s where you taught us that in the right hands, anything can be toilet paper. I don’t think your brain takes up the full space your head has allowed. Cruella says she’s eating for two.”

“You don’t mean?” I ask.

“No, she’s eating for two — herself and Iowa. She’s teaching me how to play chess on the computer. I can’t beat it at chess, but it’s no match for me at kick boxing.”

Nature lessons

Paul McCartney liked birds so much as a boy that he considered becoming an ornithologist. Just think, he could have become a famous bird geek, a name on the tip of everyone’s tongue, instead of a forgotten musician with a little known group called The Beatles.

An egg tooth is a hard, sharp projection on the beak of an embryonic bird that is used to break through an eggshell upon hatching. The tooth-like prominence falls off later.

Great horned owl pairs have been hooting since Thanksgiving. The duet consists of a series of muffled hoots with the male, though smaller than the female, having the deeper voice. They claim a nest built by crows or red-tailed hawks. Incubation takes about 35 days.

Q and A

“I have seen robins this winter. What are they doing here?” In years when fruits and berries are readily available, more American robins do remain in Minnesota than in years when food is not as plentiful. Birds that successfully overwintered here return to their breeding territories earlier than those that wintered farther south. Those that arrive on breeding grounds earliest are able to select the most optimal breeding territories. Robins search out crab apple trees, hackberry trees, mountain ash trees, highbush cranberry shrubs and other sources of plentiful, small fruits. When snow is deep, making food difficult to find, robins move farther south.

“There is a hawk hanging around my bird feeders. How many birds will it kill and eat?” I can often tell when there is an accipiter in the neighborhood as the birds disappear from the feeders. When a Cooper’s or sharp-shinned hawk first hunts a feeding station, it may take three or four birds in quick succession. The other birds become wary, which forces the hawk to find hiding places from which to burst from ambush to capture prey. Usually the hawks visit a feeding station for only a short period each day and take a bird or two. If a feeding station is especially busy or there are exceptionally good hiding places nearby, the hawk may continue to visit for one or two weeks, but eventually the prey birds stay away and the hawk moves to another location. Hawks pluck birds, leaving piles of feathers on the ground.

“I saw a blue jay that was mostly white. Is it an albino?” The jay was an example of something called “leucism.” Leucism is a reduction of or a lack of pigment in the feathers. Leucistic birds differ from albino birds, which are typically all white with pinkish eyes.

Looking for birds on money

On July 4, 1776, a committee was appointed to create a seal that would symbolize America’s ideals. The committee included John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Designing the seal proved a difficult task that took six years and three committees. Charles Thomson, a Philadelphia merchant and secretary of the Continental Congress, submitted the proposal accepted by Congress on June 13, 1782. The result was the Great Seal of the United States. On the back of the $1 bill, you will see a pyramid and an eagle, which together constitute the Great Seal of the United States. In Thomson’s, own words, it is “an American eagle on the wing and rising.” The eagle flies freely, independent of any support, holding in its left talons 13 arrows, signifying war and in its right talons an olive branch, signifying peace. It’s important which talons hold the arrows and which talons hold the olive branch. The right side signifies dominance. From 1801 to 1807, the eagles on the backs of our silver coins were shown with the arrows in the right talons instead of the left. Some European journalists and diplomats interpreted this as an expression of American hostility and used it as an argument for promoting war with the United States. The coins were redesigned with the olive branch, representing peace, in the right talons.

Feeding birds

Birds search for reliable food sources in order to survive cold temperatures and dwindling supplies of natural foods. A bird feeder benefits more than just the birds. You’ll enjoy entertaining guests. Your feathered visitors need to consume from one-third to three-fourths their body weight each day to have the energy to find more food and stay warm in cold weather.

Birds in the news

Berlin, Germany, city officials, summoned by a noise complaint to the apartment of a 60-year-old man, found the man sharing his apartment with 1,700 parakeets. The man said he had adopted two birds because he felt lonely and that nature had done the rest.

The Falcon Research Group has documented a one-day flight of a peregrine falcon of 954 miles. The bird, equipped with a tiny transmitter that beamed the bird’s location to a satellite, flew from Baffin Island in Canada to Orlando, Florida. The trip took 25 hours.

Thanks for stopping by

“A fellow who is always declaring he’s no fool usually has his suspicions.” — Wilson Mizner

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” — Mother Teresa

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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