Naturally

Naturally

By Allen Batt

The robin sang, “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.” It was a good morning. The rain had fallen. It rarely ascends. Flowers stuck their noses out of the ground to sniff the spring air. I wondered what a wet squirrel smelled like as I watched one move dexterously through the wet trees like a mini-Tarzan without a vine to swing on.

I tossed some millet onto the ground for the native sparrows. Juncos enjoy that seed, and their gray and white bodies covered the seedy ground. Between the snowbirds and the American tree sparrows, there was little room for anything else. A couple of song sparrows, a few purple finches and house finches, and one more species. I watched the double-scratch behavior of a handsome fox sparrow. It used a backward kick it performed simultaneously with both feet to find food in the leaf litter. I want to give that a try, but I’m afraid I’d fall beak first into the scattered millet. Each time I see fox sparrows, I want to do for them what the Trashmen did for Surfin’ Birds.

During the last couple of snowfalls, I’ve put raisins and bits of suet out for the robins. They sampled those products but were more interested in eating the millet. I took photos to make sure that’s what they were eating. Mourning doves like millet, too.

In times of war, some soldiers used ground acorns as a coffee substitute. Acorn coffee was made during the American Civil War, and the Germans made their version during the World Wars, calling it ersatz coffee. It requires a leaching process. It could serve as a highly nutritious substitute in any recipe where you would use cornmeal. Acorns are also used in flatbreads, tortillas, cornbread-type confections, pancakes and honey cakes.

Lynne Wasmoen of Emmons sent me a photo of a shrike that had met its demise by colliding with a window. A shrike in Minnesota in the summer is a loggerhead, and one in the winter is a northern. But in April, who knows? They’re often called “butcher birds” and are both a songbird and a predator of songbirds. Shrikes sometimes kill more prey than they need, but don't let it go to waste. They store food for later by impaling their prey on the spines of trees or barbed wire. The shrike’s facial band tells the tale as far as ID goes. I couldn’t see where the mask met the bill in the photo. A loggerhead shrike has a thicker eye band. A northern shrike has a noticeably thinner eye band that doesn’t extend over the eyes or above the bill. The Lone Ranger wore a mask to keep his identity a secret. Not being able to see a mask kept this shrike’s identity a secret.