Maggie's Farm

It's fun to check in with HawkCount and to explore their site to see what people are seeing during our wonderful raptor migration season.

Image is one of my favorites: The rugged, late-migrating Rough-Legged Hawk.

 

The road out to our village in the Berkshires. It is indeed over the river and through the woods. Woods, fields, and swamps:

 

View from the upper barn. Trout stream down there in the valley. Those are our woods up on the hills too - insofar as anybody can "own" woods. The hawks, owls, deer and and bears own them, really. Well, God owns them, but I can harvest firewood there. You can see the White Pine infestation in the upper meadow. We have been at 'em, but it's a lot of work to cut them down. It's a shame that you cannot really burn White Pine in the fireplace. Too much resin, burns too hot.

 

To get a taste of central Ohio, we stayed at the very pleasant Honey Run Inn outside Millersburg in Holmes County, the heart of Ohio Amish country where every other name seems to be Yoder. Excellent dinner menu there, but pricey. 

If you don't get lost, it's only a 45-minute beautiful country drive down to Gambier in Knox Co. Gotta watch out for your turns, though, on those nice two-lane county roads or you can end up far from your destination with no gas station anywhere.

When I visit a new area, I like to get a close-up feel for the woodlands and their outdoors, so I took a couple of early morning hikes up there in Holmes Co. I'd say the bird life and the tree life are similar that of southern New England, and the woodlands are similar hardwood forest - except that the density of nut and mast trees is remarkable: Walnut, Beech, various oaks, Hickory, Shagbark Hickory, Butternut, Ash. When you walk through the woods in late Oct. as I did, you hear the startling thunk of walnuts falling constantly. Also different - I saw no pines and no birch. Plenty of majestic Tulip Trees as one sees in southern New England, and Maples all over.

You cannot have familiarity with a woodland without knowing each tree, and I try to do so. Was mann weiss, mann sieht.

4000 years ago much of Ohio was short-grass prairie and full of Bison. A cooler, wetter climate since then has made possible the hillside woodlands of today (everything flat seems to be farmed) - plus there are no more Indians to burn the prairies to suppress woodland growth.

From the size of the trees, this patch of hilly woodland below was pasture 40 or 50 years ago. Why I did not see or hear lots of Wild Turkeys I do not know, but these woods definitely hold plenty of deer.

 A few more snaps from my hikes in the morning drizzle below the fold -

As a nod to huntin' season, our current image on top is from Currier and Ives' American Field Sports series. I do not see Snipe too often anymore, but I do not know why. Last time I saw them in any numbers was in a Manitoba marsh.

 

We posted on the sad story of the Ash Tree diseases recently, but I didn't have a good photo of a White Ash, the fine northern hardwood and pleasant shade tree from which the Louisville Slugger happens to be made.

I took a photo of one - a young one - on the Kenyon campus in its orange and yellow autumn splendor.

 

Either the Emerald Ash Borer, or more likely Ash Yellows, killed a 100 year-old majestic White Ash which provided welcome shade to our place.

The wonderful Ash is under seige from diseases spreading across the country. It's a damn shame, because these shade trees were fairly good substitutes for the old Elms that succumbed to the Dutch Elm disease.

Photo is some sort of Ash, but I'm pretty sure it's not our Eastern White Ash from its shape.

If you want to bring a Screech Owl family to your neighborhood, put up a nest box. They will find it, if you have any in the vicinity. They don't mind suburbia at all as long as they can find open places to hunt.

We like the Coveside products. Of course, other critters might want to use them - flying squirrels, Kestrels, etc., but you might get lucky with a nesting pair of Screeches.

(Note to the FTC: Coveside paid us $475,000 for this product  endorsement)

For the past four days, we have been visited by the noisest Eastern Screech Owl I have ever heard. For an hour or three at dawn and dusk he doesn't shut up, and drives the pup nuts. Maybe it's the full moon that is doing it?

I have always been fond of these little owls, but they are rarely seen, just heard. I hope this guy sticks around.

Here's a sample of their calls, but their calls are more varied than that.

It's been interesting to me to see how many searches land on our post from last year: The mice, rats, voles, shrews and lemmings of New England.

It's gratifying to be useful to curious people.

Photo: The good old Meadow Mouse, properly named the Meadow Vole, common across the nothern part of North America, and good wholesome food for numerous predators. A lil' critter to be welcomed, because his presence means you have healthy lands.

h/t, Bits and Pieces:

 

 

The autumn hawk migration has begun around here. It's a wonderful phenomenon.

I had a Red-Shouldered (as in photo) high overhead this morning, but on the hills in September you can find "kettles" of Broad Wings - possibly our most commonly-seen fall migrant hawk on the Atlantic Flyway, circling as they ride the morning thermals up to catch a long free, coasting ride south until they reach the next thermal updraft.

The identification of raptors is difficult, and I have no skill at it but I have a couple of pals who are. Like so many things, you have to learn from an expert: a book is almost useless because hawks are almost always seen in flight and, during migration, usually at fairly high altitudes so you only have a profile and, perhaps, a flight style. Furthermore, many migrants are immature first-year birds without the mature plumage.

The species pass by in phases. In late October and November come the most interesting ones: rugged birds like eagles, Goshawks, and Rough Leggeds.

I easily identified my passing Red Shouldered because of the "windows" in his wings.

(Speaking of migration, I have seen almost no migrating Monarch butterflies this year. In fact, far fewer butterflies in the gardens all summer than usual. Missed them because, in my view, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are part of the vitality and fun of gardens.)

A re-post -

In a comment on our piece about clear-cutting, a reader let us know about this book: 1491: New Revelations about the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles Mann.

Human fantasies about the Garden of Eden, like human utopian fantasies, just never give up. You might almost think we all wish we were back in the womb.

I ordered the book, but here's a quote from Charles Mann's 2002 essay in The Atlantic on the subject:

Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought—an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. New evidence of both the extent of the population and its agricultural advancement leads to a remarkable conjecture: the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact.

It's a fascinating subject to me. Here's the whole essay.

Image: An early version of Edward Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom

It's the time of year when Tree Swallows head for the coasts to assemble for their migrations. I have seen them flocking by the hundreds on Cape Cod in August (even saw an albino among them a couple of years ago), and by the thousands in places like Jamaica Bay NWP.

These fine birds bother me in the spring, when they successfully compete for the 25 Bluebird nest boxes I have gone to much trouble to clean etc.

Bugs and berries are their food, and they like to breed near water. More about them at the new, and less informative, CLO.

Photo is a male. The females are brown.

An annual re-post:

We mentioned in our piece on cicadas that the Katydids would begin their singing in mid-late summer. They are beginning to go strong now here in New England.

Open that window, shut off the TV, and let those wonderful, soothing, romantic, sentimental, poignant, sleepy-time night sounds roll in to feed your soul. And engrave it in your heart - we only have so many Augusts in our lives. For the katydid, it's their one and only - no wonder they sing their hearts out, until a hard frost kills them all.

You hardly ever see a Katydid - they are well-camouflaged in the green leaves but they are all over. Early evening and nighttime are when they make their music - more like Kay-did than a three-syllable tune. It sounds as if they are singing to each other. With the crickets providing the chirping background theme, it's a fine choir out there right now, at night. The bugs own the world.

Here's more info about Katydids.

If you live in the Northeast, your gardens and plantings are, right now, being attacked by the unwanted and unwelcome alien Porcelainberry.

This aggressive Asian weed vine was introduced as a decorative ground cover, but it is a cancer with the ability to grow 15' or more per year, and to smother anything you have planted. If you pull it up, get the entire root - or poison it.

The birds poop the seeds everywhere, so they come up everywhere around here. Especially in gardens. Their roots are tenacious.

As its leaves demonstrate, it is a member of the grape family and it can be confused with the native wild grape, which is a much less aggressive plant. You can read all about Porcelainberry here, and about how to try to get rid of it.

An experienced outdoorsman can identify most of the plants and trees in the areas with which he is familar - but not so much elsewhere. Like learning languages, though, he can learn a new area quickly because he has woods-sense based on the types of habitats he already knows.

An experienced outdoorsman can also predict what birds and critters are likely to be found in a given habitat. Woods-sense is one of the few talents I have. I like to attribute it to my Iroquois blood.

It used to be called Woodcraft, then Natural History, and now it's called Science: Barcoding plants by their DNA. It's sort-of cool, but it is soul-less and not woodcraft.

Photo: An Alder thicket - a common lowland and streamside habitat in the northern US. I have busted my way through more of these nearly-impenetrable things than I can count. The branches pull your hat off constantly, and sometimes you feel like you are in jail, with no exit. And if you try to raise your gun for a Grouse or Woodcock, there's always a branch to stop you. Good stuff.

Remember when Calvin insisted to his teacher that "Bats are birds"? (Correction - thanks, reader. I guess it was "Bats are bugs...". I was wrong again! That makes wrong twice in one week.)

New England is the home to around 7 species of bats, all nocturnal insectivores and most with some migratory habits.

Our most common bat is the Little Brown Bat (photo above) often found sleeping behind shutters or in crevices in sheds and attics during the summer and early fall. We had one who got into the house a few years ago. We managed to scoot him out a window. Wonderful - no, miraculous little critters, but worth keeping away from because they can carry rabies.

I noticed seeing very few bats around at twilight this year. I miss them dodging, diving, and ducking around in their bug-catching aerial antics. I checked it out. It turns out that there is a contagious bat disease in the Northeast. Whether this fungal infestation is the cause, or an effect of something else, is still not certain. It's a damn shame.

I hope their populations bounce back in my lifetime because these silent fluttering critters are one of the delights of the evening sky around here.

Marginal Revolution is a Puffin guy. 

More info about Puffins at All About Birds. Tyler Cowen linked to this Puffin video:

.

One of Tigerhawk's young Bald Eagles at his place in the Adirondacks. Is he echoing the silhouette of the pump on purpose?

 

MIT atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen's short essay is rightly making the rounds today. One quote:

...all models predicting significant warming are greatly overestimating warming. This should not be surprising (though inevitably in climate science, when data conflicts with models, a small coterie of scientists can be counted upon to modify the data. Thus, Santer, et al (2008), argue that stretching uncertainties in observations and models might marginally eliminate the inconsistency. That the data should always need correcting to agree with models is totally implausible and indicative of a certain corruption within the climate science community).

 Read the whole thing. Related, a wamist read Prof. Ian Plimer's book, and was converted.

At the Okinawa Aquarium (borrowed from David Thompson). Note the Remoras on the Basking Shark - or is it a Whale Shark?:

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

I had no idea this sort of thing was going on. h/t, NRO

5 minutes ago. I love storms. Cameras cannot capture thunder, wind, and driving rain:

 

"Were you out there praying in the garden?" Mrs. BD asked me later. "No." I said. "I was watching ants."

I spent around a half hour on Satuday afternoon sitting in the dirt watching ants. Few things can be more absorbing. (Or maybe I should say that everything in life can be absorbing if you sit for a minute.)

In doing final garden clean-up, I had to move a big old 4X4 garden edger to another spot and, naturally, uncovered a black ant nest full of eggs or pupae - I think pupae because you could see something inside the egg-like shape.

Almost instantly, the worker ants (both the big ones and the little) and the soldier ants grabbed an egg and ran for cover, scattering in all directions. After about 5 minutes, each ant with egg in mandible headed over to the right, over a rock and into a hole in a pile of garden mulch. In about 15 minutes, every one of around 200 eggs had been carried off to safety by a line or marching ants, back and forth like Chinese coolies.

Ants are said to represent 18-25% of the animal biomass of the planet - higher in the tropics. There is nothing as adaptible as the family Formicidae. They are hymenoptera - evolved from wasps, and all still have tiny stingers.

Ant social behavior is interesting, but their specialization, their physical specialization, and their chemical communication is more so.

Here's a good brief intro to ant behavior. The Wiki entry isn't too bad.

I don't know how we missed this story. Never a bad idea to be armed in Cougar Country.

Their dog wasn't too helpful, was he?

Roy Spenser presents the hypothesis that the Pacific Decadal Oscillator, a strange oceanic and atmospheric thingy that happens in the North and South Pacific, explains atmospheric temperature changes better than anything else.

Ever tried growing Blueberries?

I have tried any number of times and man, are they picky. I place them on the list of plants that only thrive where they feel like it. If they aren't happy, there ain't nothin you can do about it.

You just have to admit defeat. 

Even if you have some modest success, without netting I would lose all of the berries to the Robins and Catbirds.

On the farm where I spent my weekends growing up, wild blueberries grew all along the hayfield edges, reaching out from the woods over the barbed-wire fences. They grew up to 8' high, so every age had his own level to pick. They were so productive that it was no problem sharing with the birds. My Mom took coffee cans, made two holes with a nail and strung a string through them to hang around your neck, and painted our names on them with blue paint spots to indicate "berry can." Those cans hung in the barn for years.

I have seen similar wonderful areas of wild highbush blueberries on Cape Cod, but was never there much during blueberry season. Despite what is said about growing them, the wild bushes seem to like boggy edges, or at least lowlands. There is no doubt that they need acidic soil. Not being a Maine guy except during grouse season, I have no experience with the Lowbush Blueberry.

After a picking, my Mom would always make a Blueberry flat cake with hard sauce. Wow. Such memories. It's too bad there are no wild Blueberries on Maggie's Farm, but there are none.

The Blueberry is not a true fruit. Furthermore, it's in the Rhodadendron family. It's in the (marketing) category of "superfruits" because they are supposed to be "good for you," whatever the heck that means (probably nothing).

With some new full-sun garden space, I was considering trying again with a row of around 6 Blueberry bushes. Problem is, I want the small dark wild ones that look more black than blue with the intense wild tang, and not the fancy, fat, overly-sweet hybrids that you can get at the store anyway. Plus I don't want to bother with netting.

Wiki has a good Blueberry entry. So does the US Highbush Blueberry Council.

"Tobacco netting" for berries. Other ways to keep the birds from eating all of your berry crops.

Also, in the NYT, a little story about a family of Scarlet Tanagers - a splendid bird - getting caught under bird netting. The netting has to be well-secured.

These Tanagers are not rare in Eastern deciduous woodlands, but they aren't seen often because they tend to forage high and quiet. Here's the CLO bit on them.

 

Reader LS took these photos in FL last week. Can you name them?

 

 

Except for the twitterings of some migrating warblers and thrushes, the morning bird chorus here has suddenly gone silent.

That's because the local breeders have now laid their eggs, and no longer want to draw attention to their presence with their territorial calls. 21 days for a bird egg to hatch, and then comes the long hassle of feeding, protecting, worrying over, and keeping track of the bird babies.

All parents know what that is like.

The first Barn Owl I ever saw was in the headlights swooping low over a marshy field on the North Shore of Long Island. It did, indeed, look spooky in its whiteness.

Barn Owls have a worldwide distribution, but they stay away from the colder regions. In North America, they aren't found much north of southern New England.

Barn Owls are prodigious mouse and rat killers. As such, they are birds of farms and meadows, not of woodlands nor of suburbia. In the Northeast, their numbers were surely higher when the countryside was filled with small farms and cow pastures. Midwestern industrial-scale farming offers them little of interest. I suppose they are the night-time analogue of the Marsh Hawk. The rodents never get a break.

I have never seen or heard one at Maggie's Farm, which would seem to be perfect habitat for them, but which might be towards the northern edge of their range. We even have an open shed with a loft which would be perfect for them to raise a family in. (The Barn Swallows think they own it, though, so maybe they would pester the owls too much.)

The subject of Barn Owls came up because Samizata, of all places, posted a piece on Barn Owl nest boxes. Nobody is going to make a lot of money producing these, but it's a great idea as the wooden barns and silos of the past are falling down.

Here's the CLO bit on the Barn Owl. Wiki has a more extensive write-up.

Photo is a Barn Owl family in an old silo.

Everybody is showing this one, so we might as well too. The old guy is shameless, isn't he? A good thing he prefers elephant-style to missionary style or her riders might be in a heap of trouble.

She is a cute lil' thing, if a bit on the heavy side. They both seem to be smiling, and that's what matters.

 

We have posted many times about the tragedy of the commons here. This handy concept goes far beyond the original meaning.

It is the most basic human nature to take care of your own. Unless you have a close, small, closed society with strong affinity and who are on the same page, people will rape the commons for their own purposes.

We posted the other day about plans to try to maintain the fisheries.

John Stossel discusses Eat the Tigers! Same point. Most people need a sense of ownership to really care about stewardship.

It is in full force right now. I can hear, out my window this morning, the songs and calls of Pine Warbler, Black and White Warbler, Redstart, Red-eyed Vireo (not exactly a warbler), Magnolia Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Black-Throated Blue, Parula, Prairie Warbler, and a few more that I am not sure about.

My idea of watching the spring warblers is a chaise lounge lawn chair flat, under a big old oak tree with binocs. Preferably, a big oak near some juniper trees - which is why I planted my junipers and Japanese willows: to watch the warbler migration with minimal exertion. Let them come to you. Just wait for them to pass through the trees. Otherwise, it's a day of neck pain. Knowing their calls simplifies it: you don't have to try to see them. But plenty of them forage silently in the treetops. Especially the odd vireos.

Get out there and see these little jewels of Creation as they pass by on their trip north.

Image: A Peterson pic of a few Spring Warblers

Wizbang has a piece on the Osprey today. Can you name that fish?

 

From the NYT article:

Honeybees can tell their sisters how far away the food is up to a distance of about 15 kilometers. For good measure, they can also allow for the fact that the sun moves relative to the hive by about 15 degrees an hour and correct for this when they pass on the information. In other words, they have their own built-in global positioning system and a language that enables them to refer to objects and events that are distant in space or time.

Photos from the NYT piece.

A fellow turtle-lover send me this discouraging article about the overharvesting of wild turtles in Asia.

Controlled harvesting of eastern America's Diamondback Terrapin continues today. It's a wonder to me, because I know nobody who eats them. This handsome turtle of salt marshes and brackish estuaries lives from MA to Texas, but is endangered in some states.

They eat snails, small mollusks, and crustaceans that they crush with their beaks. Fish, if they can catch 'em. They only leave the water to lay eggs. They sometimes get ensnared in crab pots and drown.

Whenever we went to Chinatown when I was young, I would always bring a box and some money to buy as many of the terrapins that I could afford from the big crates full of them on the sidewalk. I think they were $5 apiece. I would release them in a couple of good salt marshes in CT. My Dad would chip in a bit for the cause.

Some good folks are farming them to restore populations from which they had been harvested to extinction. That is a wonderful mission.

Readers know we love our turtles at Maggie's, except we do not love Snapping Turtles. I once stepped on the back of one in a marsh, thinking it was a mossy rock. Big surprise when it moved and a long neck with an open, hissing mouth shot out. It's time I did a post on them, though, unloveable as they are. God made 'em all, right? This is the time of year when they crawl out the swamps and people see them on roads. I hear they are tasty to eat, but I never have tried one.

Of the three white egrets that breed in New England (American, Cattle, and Snowy) the largest is the Great Egret, which I persist in calling by its old name, American Egret.

A reader sent in these photos of one from this weekend in salt marsh in CT. You can see some of their fancy breeding plumage, for which these birds were hunted to near-extinction through the 19th and early 20th Centuries until the Audubon Society was created to protect them. More about the Great Egret in CT here.

The populations recovered fairly well, as long as they have safe places to nest in their tree colonies - usually on small islands or the tip of a peninsula.

 

 

Out my window early this morning (35 degrees F): Two fat Easter Bunnies (Eastern Cottontails), four Grey Squirrels, one flock of Blue Jays, one flock of Grackles, one hen Wild Turkey, two Carolina Wrens, a pair of Cardinals, a number of sex-addled, amorous Mourning Doves, and a few Song Sparrows, Robins, Red-wings, Cowbirds, and White-Throated Sparrows. And one pair of lingering SC Juncoes.

Phoebe had a baby boy. h/t, LGF

 

When I was a kid, my babysitter would take me fishing for Blue Crabs off the dock. What it required was a string with a hunk of bacon tied to the end. When you gently pulled it up to just below the surface, you needed a crab net to scoop up the crabs clinging to the bacon. Otherwise, they would let go of the bacon.

My Mom was never disappointed to find a bucket of two dozen crabs when she got home.

We have posted, somewhat disparagingly, about the Blue Crab's natural history and the Blue Crab as dining material, (too much effort, basically) but we never have disparaged good Maryland crab cakes, especially when consumed in volume with volumes of bad beer in low-life Maryland tatoo pubs with dogs walking around, after a day of duck hunting.

The subject comes up because we noticed projects about the aquaculture of Blue Crabs. Very cool. Fresh water? Who would have thought it?

Here's how they raise them from broodstock.

What a clever country we are. Speaking of clever people, Sippican sends this recipe:

CRAB CAKES
            1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
            4 large eggs, beaten lightly
            6 tablespoons sour cream
            1/4 cup minced fresh parsley leaves (preferably flat-leafed)
            2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
            1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
            1 teaspoon paprika
            1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
            1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
            2 pounds lump crab meat, picked over
            2 cups fine fresh bread crumbs
            1/3 cup cornmeal
            1/2 cup vegetable oil

            tarragon tartar sauce as an accompaniment
            lemon wedges as an accompaniment

            In a bowl whisk together the butter, the eggs, the sour cream, the pa rsley, the
            lemon juice, the Worcestershire sauce, the paprika, the salt, and the cayenne and
            stir in the crab meat and the bread crumbs gently. Form 1/2-cup measures of the
            mixture into twelve 3/4-inch-thick cakes and transfer the crab cakes as they are
            formed to a baking sheet sprinkled with half the cornmeal. Sprinkle the crab
            cakes with the remaining cornmeal and chill them, covered with plastic wrap, for
            at least 1 hour or overnight.

            In a large heavy skillet heat the oil over moderately high heat until it is hot but
            not smoking and in it sauté the crab cakes in batches, turning them once, for 3 to
            4 minutes on each side, or until they are golden, transferring them as they are
            cooked to paper towels to drain. Keep the crab cakes warm on another baking
            sheet in a 200°F. oven. Serve the crab cakes with the tarragon tartar sauce and
            the lemon wedges.
            Makes about 12 crab cakes, serving 6.

I'd skip the bread crumbs. They dilute the crab meat.

The Bald Eagle is technically a fish-hawk - never far from water, especially big water - and his favorite way of hunting is stealing fish from Ospreys. However, he likes to catch ducks too. This photo from a series of photos of two eagles fighting over a diving duck on Lake Tapps, a man-made lake in Washington State.

 

We'll quit putting out bird seed as soon as our diminishing supply runs out: the bugs are coming out despite our sub-30 degree nights (the earth is cooling, you know - climate change), so the birds can go off welfare for a while. What's been around ye olde feeder today?, you ask.

Cowbirds, Redwing Blackbirds, Mourning Doves (tons), White throated Sparrows (lazy ones - should have migrated north by now), Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Blue Jay, Purple Grackle, Cardinal, Goldfinch, Red Bellied Woodpecker, House Finch, BC Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, WB Nuthatch. All in their splendid breeding plumage. 

Plus some Chipmunks and, of course, Grey Squirrels working the system. 

Photo: A male Goldfinch, before fully changing into his Spring plumage.

Or maybe the angle of the sun. It surely isn't the temperature here (below freezing at 5 am) which made every local bird wake up this morning and begin singing or twittering his territorial song for the first time this year.

I heard Robin, Tufted Titmouse, Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Cardinal, and Song Sparrow singing. Most migratory breeders won't be here until the buds pop open, and the tree buds aren't even swollen yet.

Today was really just a warm-up for the welcome Springtime morning chorus to come. It will last the next 6 weeks or so. Once their eggs are laid, they tend to go quiet so as not to attract attention.

Photo is a Tufted Titmouse, a fairly common songbird in New England.

The blackbirds are now up from the South and back at the feeder: voracious Purple Grackles, Cowbirds, and Red-wings. Also visiting today: Song Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, White thoated Sparrow,  Mourning Doves in droves, Tree Sparrow, Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmouse, BC Chickadee, Goldfinch, Cardinal, Blue Jay, a few remaining SC Juncoes. Nothing exciting, but all comers are welcome.

With all of the snow and cold, it's been expensive keeping these critters on welfare this year. It's getting about time to cut out their free lunch anyway, although it was 29 degrees F. this morning.

Plus the dang fat squirrels eat half of the bird seed, thus resulting in healthier, more fertile squirrels producing more babies to eat even more of the bird seed next winter.

Photo: A male Cardinal. We have plenty of them here. They nest in the evergreens and brambles.

I saw a Right Whale with calf from a schooner in the Gulf of Maine about 20 years ago. I had no idea there were so few of them, or that the european Right Whale population had been long hunted to extinction.

Along our American coast, with a few conservation efforts, their numbers are slowly recovering. Still, 350-400 is about as close to extinction as a species can get. Whales are as easy to kill as cows.

Magnificent critters.

Photo from the NYT article.