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Health & Fitness

The crabapple caper

 

The crabapple caper

  Tony Guggisberg of New Ulm has some red splendor crabapple trees with fruit that persists over the winter. Pheasants flew into the trees and ate all the crabapples. Tony said that he planted some Black Hills spruce trees and chipping sparrows, robins, and grackles built nests in the trees almost immediately. Tony has a Christmas tree farm. He reckoned that every fourth Christmas tree contained a nest.

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  A caller said that gangs of Tennessee warblers slurped up the nectar from the crabapple blossoms in her yard.

Breaking and walnutting

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  Cindy St. John of Fairmont told me that her parents once brought a harvest of black walnuts into their house. While they were away from home, squirrels got into the house and had their way with the walnuts. Eating walnuts must be thirsty work, as the squirrels removed the cover from the back of the toilet so that they might have a few drinks at the banquet.

Opossums to the right of me, opossums to the left of me

  A friend named Bill lives in Omaha. He feeds the birds. He noticed an opossum in the yard. He live-trapped it and hauled the opossum to a park near Boys Town. The next day there was another opossum. He caught it and deposited it at the same place. He caught and delivered a number of opossums.

  Several weeks passed. A man told Bill’s wife that he was thinking of quitting feeding birds because his yard was being overrun by opossums.

  She asked him where he lived. His residence was near Boys Town.

When wrens attack

  Don Selvig of Winnebago said that he was puttering around in the yard when he was attacked by a house wren. The attack consisted of the tiny bird flying straight at Don. Don took refuge in his house and shared his tale of woe with his spouse. His wife didn’t believe him. Don had to show her. He ventured back outside and the attacks began anew.

  My tower has been buzzed by robins mistaking me for a worm.

Q-and-A

  "How can I tell a Eurasian collared-dove from a mourning dove?" Eurasian collared-doves look larger than mourning doves and are slightly lighter in color. The collared-dove has a diagnostic black collar on the back of its neck and has a squared tail as opposed to the pointed tails of mourning doves. It looks as if the end of the tail had been cut off with scissors.

  "What eats dandelions?" The flowers of dandelions are nectared by bees, butterflies, and flies. Chipping, field, house, song, and white-throated sparrows, American goldfinches, and indigo buntings are a few of the songbirds that eat dandelion seeds. Dandelions are devoured by wild turkeys, pheasants, ruffed grouse, rabbits, deer, ground squirrels, mice, and chipmunks. Cooked dandelion greens have long been food for humans. The leaves and roots could be served on buttered bread or used in salads and the flowers dipped in batter and fried. During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers used dried dandelion roots as a coffee substitute. The plant is a great source of iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, carotenoids, and vitamins A, B, C, and D.

  Tom Jessen of Madelia asked about robins calling in the middle of the night. Studies have shown that robins in areas with much artificial light begin singing before robins in low-light areas. I’ve noticed robin songs early after a storm or under a bright moon. Call notes in the night might indicate the presence of a predator. The robins in my yard begin vocalizing as early as 3:30 in the morning. I suppose it’s on their list of things to do.

Nature lessons

  The snowy owl is likely the oldest bird species recognizable in prehistoric cave art.

  Charles Darwin was a pigeon fancier.

  The oldest state park in Minnesota is Itasca State Park, established in 1891. The newest is La Salle Lake State Recreation Area (2011). The largest is St. Croix State Park (31,775 acres) and the smallest is Franz Jevne State Park (118 acres). The top three state parks for visits in 2013 were in descending order, Fort Snelling State Park, Gooseberry Falls State Park and Itasca State Park.

  The extinct dodo was a dove found only on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

Thanks for stopping by

  "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."--Marcel Proust

  "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."—Richard Feynman

DO GOOD.

 

© Al Batt 2014

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