Winter marches on

Winter Marches on

  March didn’t come in like a lion or a lamb. Nor did it come in like a robin. Migrating robins experienced weather delays.

  March is the month of peak robin migration. Some robins are around all winter, but usually in wooded areas. Singing robins are signs that winter might not be endless.

Birding the Bog

  Minnesota is a blue state.

  A visitor from Florida said that he was so cold, he was turning blue. That was OK. It was a good color for him.

  "What's the temperature?" he asked.

  "It's up to nearly 11 below," I said cheerfully.

  There was a sigh before the visitor said, "I'm going to need a bigger cup of coffee."

  It was so cold, some Minnesotans wore thermal flip-flops. I needed an ice scraper app for my cellphone. PowerPoint programs suffered real freezes.

  I bird the Sax-Zim Bog near Meadowlands, the Arctic Rivera, every year. It’s where birders get balmed. Lip balmed.

  I’m attracted to shiny objects such as a snowy owl perched at the top of an evergreen.

  A deer ran down the middle of the road ahead of our vehicle. We slowed our speed, but the deer seemed to enjoy the competition. I thought it would run until it found a snowmobile trail to jump off onto. It must have grown weary, as it jumped into the road ditch. It was as if the deer was a capable assistant of a magician like David Copperfield. There was a deer and then there was no deer. It had disappeared completely into the deep snow. The deer shot up and out of the snow before disappearing again. It repeated this process until it found a trail in the woods.

  A northern hawk owl, about the size and shape of a football, perched at the top of a tree. Snow buntings fed on spilled grain along railroad tracks. Spruce and ruffed grouse fed on spruce buds in trees before and after goshawks were active. Ruffed grouse dig into snow for the night.

  Great gray owls like the old growth forest and tamarack trees. A great gray owl can hear a vole under two feet of snow from 100 yards away. They prey upon meadow voles in the meadows and red-backed voles in the woods.

  Many birders travel to the Bog to see great gray owls.

  Each year, there are birds that don't want to be seen. I respect their wishes.

  Not everyone gets to see a great gray owl.

  One day, science will have the capability of freezing people until it’d be possible for them to see a great gray owl.

The news from Hartland

  Veterinarian barred from performing future surgeries after police busted him for operating on our national bird and confiscated his patient. The case was thrown out of court on a technicality. It was an ill eagle surgeon seizure.

Nature lessons

  According to Cal State University in Long Beach, the part of a chickadee's brain responsible for remembering the location of cached food expands in volume by approximately 30 percent in the fall and remains enlarged over the winter before shrinking in the spring. It grows more brain when it needs the memory.

  Snakes are venomous, not poisonous. You could eat a rattlesnake and suffer no ill effects.

Thanks for stopping by

  "I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven."--Emily Dickinson

  "We lift ourselves by our thought. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere."--Orison Swett Marden

DO GOOD.

© Al Batt 2014