Our Window on Nature

Today may be Groundhog Day, but regardless of whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow this morning, I think we’ll probably have a bit more cold weather before Spring arrives.

In case you’ve missed out on this exciting bit of nature lore, Punxsutawney is a village in Pennsylvania, and each year at this time the local groundhog, Phil by name, comes out of his burrow to make a weather forecast. If he sees his shadow, it means we’ll have another six weeks of cold winter weather, so Phil heads back to his burrow. But if it’s cloudy this morning, the rest of the winter will be mild. Sounds about as accurate as a few weathermen we’ve known.

Last month, with some unseasonably cold weather, the water we put out for the local animals froze solid — that ice cube up above was about four inches thick. When a resident squirrel kept licking the ice to quench his thirst, it reminded us of the importance of water for wildlife.

But be careful how you keep that water liquid. Each year some well-meaning people try to have water available in their backyards but poison the animals by diluting it with anti-freeze. Or they will use glycerin, which can also lead to fatalities.

If you’d like to see several commercial solutions, follow this link. Or play handyman and run an outdoor electric cord to a light bulb covered by a clay flower pot. Place your bird bath or water container on top of the pot and it will keep the ice from forming during all but the coldest weather.

Or do as we do — make a morning ritual of saying hello to the birds as you scatter some seed and then chip the ice from their water. It’s a nice way to start the day.

As for Punxsutawney Phil, we just got word that it was cloudy in that part of Pennsylvania this morning. No shadow. That means a mild rest of the winter. The local residents have been keeping track of these predictions since 1887, and Phil has been correct about 39% of the time.

Acorn woodpeckers leave very little to chance. Pessimists by nature, these birds devote their waking hours to storing insects and acorns from late summer through fall, making sure that they’ll have ample food for the coming winter.

In much of California and the Southwest, you can’t help seeing or hearing acorn woodpeckers. They’re common wherever you find a mixture of oaks, junipers, and pines. You won’t have to look hard for them either, because they’ll be sharing your backyard or campground. These birds rank among the noisiest of the woodpecker tribe, and their loud “jacka, jacka, jacka” announces their presence long before you spot the clownlike pattern of their facial feathers. More than most birds, they seem to take pleasure in the sound of their own voices.

Of course, they have a lot to discuss. Whereas typical woodpeckers move about in pairs, acorn woodpeckers live in groups of six to a dozen or more. It takes a lot of hemming and hawing, screeching and cawing to live, work, and raise young in close quarters.

As one might expect, such communal living produces distinctive behavior patterns. The most noticeable - and perhaps the most interesting - of these behaviors is the acorn woodpecker’s habit of storing food in communal granaries.

All North American species of woodpeckers are woodworkers, but none approaches the efforts that acorn woodpeckers make to build and stock their community larder. Find a dead snag in acorn woodpecker country, and it’s apt to be so riddled with holes that it looks like a sponge. (Read the rest …)

A rose by any other name looks better without aphids. And eating aphids is the specialty of the ladybird beetle, affectionately known as the ladybug. The ladybug earned its nickname by devouring pests that have been tormenting man ever since the Garden of Eden.

Back in the Middle Ages (and before the Age of Insecticides), these beetles appeared just in time to gobble the bugs infesting Italian vineyards, leading farmers to christen them “The Beetles of Our Lady.” That name caught on (except in France, where they’re considered “The Cows of the Lord” of all things.) Englishmen call them ladybird beetles.

We’re in error when we shorten the name to ladybug, for at least in a technical sense, these insects aren’t bugs, but beetles. But at least the name is a short one, more appropriate for their diminutive size.

Several species of ladybugs exist in this country, their names being descriptive of the patterns of lines on their heads and number of spots on their bodies. Most of the insects possess bright red-orange wings, yet in the Southwest you find some ladybird beetles colored a stylish celadon green. Elsewhere, species wear yellow wings marked with black spots. Still others have their colors reversed — orange or yellow or green spots on shiny black backs. (Read the rest …)

It was cold before dawn on the first day of the New Year as Kaye broke ice off the water container outside our office window. We put it there for the birds, but the squirrels and an occasional deer make use of it too.

We don’t make too much of New Year’s Eve, but look forward to the excitement of the following morning. It’s not only a new year, but time to start a new list. We join millions of birders around the world who keep close track of the comings and goings of their avian neighbors.

For some this is a casual pastime, for others a meticulous duty, and for a few an obsession. You’ll have to guess where we fit into this mélange of birders, but we certainly write down what we see.

Not surprisingly the first entry was a Dark-eyed Junco, one of the most common birds at winter feeders across the United States. Number two was a White-crowned Sparrow, and these two birds will be with us for the entire winter. But the list goes on for the following 365 days.

Why do people keep bird lists? Although there can be some scientific value, I think for most birders it’s a sense of competition, but in this case the competition is personal. Everything is on the honor system, and only you will know whether you really got a good enough look at that bird to add it to one of your lists.

You read that correctly – lists, plural. We have a year list, a life list, multiple state lists, an area list, and of course a backyard list. Oh yes, there is also a list for each of the nearby National Parks, and one for every wildlife refuge within driving distance. Let’s not get into our other animal and flower lists. We use a computer program, Birder’s Diary (see below) to help us keep track of all our lists.

We don’t think we’re really obsessive about this enjoyable pastime. But we have some friends that are. We were bird watching with a couple we have known for years when Phyllis suddenly called out “Lowell, get the name of that bird!” Up came my binoculars, but the flying object disappeared before I could identify it.

When I asked what the excitement was all about Phyllis said “I needed it for my s**t list,” wiping her face with a handkerchief.

Birder’s Diary Life List Program - North America

In winter we find more birds’ nests than at any other season. It’s not that we aren’t looking the rest of the year; it’s just that the leaves get in the way. But after autumn comes and goes, the bare limbs of trees are decorated by the deserted homes of our avian friends.

An expert can identify a species of bird by its nest, for each robin and wren follows its own species’ master plan. But not all birds construct an actual nest.

The simplest nest we’ve found was that of a killdeer in North Carolina. We drove into an overflow parking lot and noticed the bird standing surprisingly close to our motorhome. As we got out and walked closer, the killdeer put on the “broken wing” display typical of the species. She tried her best to draw us away from what we now knew must be a nesting site, but there was nothing in the area but golf-ball-sized gravel covering the field.

A careful search turned up the nest - a slight depression in the gravel, filled with four eggs that perfectly matched their surroundings. We drove around the “nest” on our way out, hoping that the eggs would soon hatch. It was nearly summer, and time for that parking lot to get heavy use. (Read the rest …)