Nature’s Q and A

Al Batt, Nature's World

Published Saturday, July 4, 2009

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. If Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, how come sleeping in church is frowned upon? I have another question for you. What’s that metal job stuck in the ground near your deck?”

“It’s a sundial. The sun hits the small triangular spike and it casts a shadow onto the face of the sundial. Then, as the sun moves across the sky, the shadow moves across the calibrated dial, allowing me to tell what time it is.”

“Wow! What will they think of next? I should get one of those at work. It would give me something else to watch while I should be working. I’m helping out at the Inconvenience Store. The owner has taken a few days off. He’s worried just because one of his ears is bigger than the other two. Before he took off, he replaced the chairs with toilet seats to cut down on the number of bathroom breaks his employees take.”

“I understand your boss had a big shindig at his home,” I say.

“That he did. I was so mad that I wasn’t invited that I almost didn’t go. I had to be there to put my two cents in. The trouble is that I get only a penny for my thoughts. Where is that extra penny going?”

Polecat parable

There had been a skunk in my yard. It occupied itself hunting and digging up my lawn. When he had a full belly, he retreated to his bedroom that was located under my deck. He showed little concern when I was near, ignoring me like my in-laws do. My lovely bride, The Queen B, told me that I should do something about the skunk under the deck. I considered a number of methods of eradicating a skunk, but most of them involved skunk spray. I tried a live trap. The skunk avoided it like the plague.

My neighbor Crandall stopped by. He assessed my problem and advised me to put some lutefisk under the deck. He informed me that lutefisk and skunks have been steadfast enemies since time began.

I went to Oslo, Minn., and picked up a lutefisk TV dinner. The meal was comprised of mashed potatoes, peas, and lutefisk. I tossed the TV dinner under the deck. It wasn’t long before the skunk came running out with fear evident in its rapid retreat.

The skunk is gone. Does anyone know how to get rid of Norwegians under a deck?

I’ve been reading

This from “Big History” by Cynthia Stokes Brown, “Catal Huyuk spread over an area of thirty-two acres on the Konya Plain of south central Turkey near a marsh surrounded by well-wooded areas — one of the first cities in the world, established in 7000 BCE and abandoned in 4500 BCE. What people in Catal Huyuk believed about death cannot be known, except that food offerings have been found with the bones, suggesting they believed in an afterlife. Their murals indicate that after death, the bodies of people in Catal Huyuk were exposed to vultures. When the bones had been cleaned, they were buried in the shrines or under the sleeping platforms in the houses that they had occupied in life.”

Pelican

The American white pelican can weigh 20 pounds, has a wingspan of 9 feet, and can hold 3 gallons of water in its bill. The sexes are similar and this pelican does not plunge into water from the air, but feeds while swimming. During the breeding season, both male and female pelicans develop a 3-inch bump on the top of their beak. This conspicuous growth is shed by the end of the breeding season. Dixon Lanier Merritt wrote the famous poem that begins, “A wonderful bird is the pelican, his bill will hold more than his belican.”

Q and A

“Which direction should the entrance hole of a nest box face?” As a rule of thumb, it’s a good idea not to have the nest box entrance face into a prevailing wind. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology conducted a study using data collected by participants in their Birdhouse Network Project. They discovered that more young fledge from boxes that face an easterly direction, especially northeast. East-facing boxes warmed up sooner in the morning, providing some thermal advantage to the birds. Boxes that face east are unlikely to overheat in the strong afternoon sun.

“If I handle a baby bird, will its parents pick up my scent and abandon it?”

No. Birds generally identify their young the same ways we do — by appearance and sound. It’s perfectly OK to pick up a fallen nestling and put it back in a nest or to carry a fledgling out of danger and place it in a tree or shrub.

“What should I do if I find a baby bird?” In most cases, the young bird doesn’t need our help. If you see signs of injury, take it to the nearest wildlife rehabilitation center. If there are no clear signs of injury, the best thing to do is to leave it in its parents’ care. If it’s sparsely feathered and incapable of hopping, walking, or flitting, it’s a nestling. If so, the best thing to do is to search for the nest and put the bird into it as quickly as possible. If the bird is feathered and capable of hopping, walking, or flitting, it’s a fledgling. Fledglings are in a critical stage of development similar to the language acquisition stage in human infants and their parents provide them with much more than food. The vast majority of baby birds that people find are fledglings that cannot fly well, but are healthy and are being cared for by their parents. Many fledglings are not ready to fly until a day or two after leaving the nest. If you return one to its nest, it will hop back out. If a fledgling is in danger from cats or dogs or on a road, pick it up gently and put it in a safe spot nearby—a shrub or tree is generally a good choice. Fledglings will call to their parents who will continue to care for them.

Pelican Breeze

Please join me as I host tours on the Pelican Breeze as it cruises beautiful Albert Lea Lake on July 19, and Aug. 16 at 4 p.m. Call 383-2630 to make reservations. I’d appreciate your company.

Thanks for stopping by

“Never does a man portray his character more vividly than his proclaiming the character of another.” — Winston Churchill

“Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude toward us.” — Earl Nightingale

DO GOOD.

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

---

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THIS STORY?

---