The legend of the crow

Al Batt, Nature's World

Published Saturday, November 7, 2009

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. One of my boys got himself a Bluetooth. It hangs over his ear like a demented dragonfly. I told him that a Bluetooth is nothing new. Grandpa has had one for years.”

“I know he has convinced many a dentist to consider other career options,” I say. “Your Grandpa just bought a rocking chair from me. He said he likes to have something to do while he’s not going anywhere. He gave me a check and he signed it ‘XXX.’”

“Yes, he signs his name with an X. He can read and write, but he’s found it easier to sign an X instead of his name. There is less spelling. Grandpa excels in smelling and smells in spelling.”

“But XXX?” I wonder aloud.

“Well, he used to sign his name as XX. One X for his first name and one X for his last name.”

“But why three of them?” I ask.

“Oh, since he abandoned his income-free lifestyle when he started getting his Social Security retirement checks umpteen years ago and got a little money, he started to sign his name as he thought a prosperous man would. The one X is for his middle name.”

Birdwong

I was enthralled with the song of a bird. It reminded me of the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley wrote this about the song of a skylark, “Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert — That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.”

“Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know; Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.”

The legend

According to Native American legend, when the crow came into the world, it wore all the colors of the rainbow, but the other animals and birds were completely black. The crow wanted to look more like the other animals, so it shook itself until all the colors flew away from the crow and landed on the other birds and animals. The crow had quaked so frenetically that it had only one color left — black. It has stayed black to this day.

Nature lessons

The Arctic tern, a bird weighing about 4 ounces, makes a 22,000-mile round-trip migration from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

The buckskin was a unit of trade for Native Americans in frontier days. Deer were hunted for meat and skins to make moccasins and clothing. This is likely the derivation of a nickname (bucks) we use for money.

Scientists have discovered a carnivorous plant large enough to devour rats whole. A member of the “pitcher” family, the plant grows more than 4 feet long, smaller than the man-eating plant Audrey in the film Little Shop of Horrors. The plant, discovered during an expedition to Philippines, has been named Nepenthes attenboroughii, after famed British naturalist David Attenborough.

A study published in the Journal of Mammology said that minivans driven by families with children who leave behind a trail of juice boxes, cereal, and other snacks are broken into by bears more frequently than other types of vehicles.

Q and A

“Why is a migrating flock of hawks called a ‘kettle’?” Because as the birds rise and fall on air thermals, they look like bubbles in a pot of boiling water.

“When do white-tailed deer have antlers?” Antler growth begins in March or April, ending about six months later. The antlers are covered with fuzzy skin, called velvet. In September or October, the velvet dries and the antlers harden. The buck scrapes its antlers against trees to remove the velvet and expose the sharp points. In December or January, a separation layer forms at the base of the antlers and they eventually fall off. In the spring, as day length increases, hormones stimulate the growth of a new set of antlers. The size depends on the buck’s genetics, nutrition, and age.

“Do coyotes eat a lot of rabbits?” Coyotes are omnivorous and eat whatever is handy, including garbage, insects, rodents, rabbits, birds, deer, fruits, berries, and carrion. Coyotes are important in controlling rodents with as much as 80 percent of their diet consisting of rabbits, squirrels, gophers, mice, and rats.

“How can I tell if it is rabbits that are eating my plants?” Cottontail rabbits use an anti-predator strategy wherein they eat fast and then hide in dense vegetation or brush piles while digesting their food. Rabbits eat succulent greens such as clover, dandelions, plantain, alfalfa, ragweed, lettuce, peas, beets, tulips, beans, and grasses during the growing season. When the temperature drops, the rabbits switch their menu to woody plants. Evidence of rabbit browsing can be recognized because their sharp incisors clip twigs cleanly, leaving behind a sharp diagonal cut. A deer tears off the twigs leaving ragged edges.

I’ve been reading

This from “Birds That Every Child Should Know” by Neltje Blanchan, published in 1907, “In this inconspicuous dress the reedbirds, or ricebirds, as bobolinks are usually called south of Mason and Dixon’s line, descend in hordes upon the rice plantations when the grain is in the milk and do several millions of dollars’ worth of damage to the crop every year, sad, sad to tell. Of course, the birds are snared, shot, poisoned. In southern markets half a dozen of them on a skewer may be bought, plucked and ready for the oven, for fifty cents or less. Isn’t this a tragic fate to overtake our joyous songsters? Birds that have the misfortune to like anything planted by man, pay a terribly heavy penalty.”

Thanks for stopping by

“Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.” — Robert Ingersoll.

“When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.” — Adlai Stevenson.

“You know he’d be a poorer man if he’d never saw an eagle fly.” — John Denver

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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