Last Updated: Monday, July 28, 2008 10:25 AM CDT
Blue jays are bullies at the feeders
Ced Vig - wisconsin woodsmoke
“How early in the year it begins to grow late.”
Thoreau’s Journal
July has been quite a month for us. My wife observed her 100th birthday and we enjoyed our 71st wedding anniversary. Commenting on our anniversary, my wife said, “The nicest three words are ‘Let’s eat out.’
Blueberries are ripe
It’s as much fun as fishing—picking blueberries. Freshly-picked berries are a deep-blue covered with tiny grains of wax which give the berries a frosty look. A pint of the berries weighs about 14 ounces, two cups in a pint. One-half cup of fresh blueberries has only 41 calories. Many country folk grow blueberries in their garden and are most successful. Robert Frost, a poet, has been quoted as saying, “A man could do worse than be a picker of blueberries.”
However, those shiny blue berries growing on the forest floor are the fruits of the blue-beaded lily plants, and if eaten by humans, result in pains of discomfort.
Black-oil sunflower seed
This seed is the hamburger of the bird world. Almost any bird that will visit a bird feeder will eat black-oil sunflower. Birds that can’t crack the seeds themselves will scour the ground under the feeders, picking up bits and pieces. Bird feeding in North America took a major leap forward when black-oil sunflower became widely available in the early 1980s. Why do birds prefer it? The outer shell of a black-oil sunflower seed is thinner and easier to crack. The kernel inside the shell is larger than the kernel inside a white- or gray-striped sunflower seed, so birds get more food per seed from black-oil. This last fact also makes black-oil a better value for you, the seed buyer. Striped sunflower is still fine (evening grosbeaks may even prefer it slightly), but black-oil is better.
Bits about birds
It is our hope that the family of blue jays that frequent our backyard decides to stay here for the winter rather than go to warmer climes. They pep up the backyard activities with their alarm cries and their bullying at the sunflower seed feeders. This autumn the blue jays are busy gathering acorns. A Virginia research study found that 50 banded blue jays transported during one fall 150,000 acorns and buried them one-by-one in the ground in 28 days. This averages out to 60 acorns per bird per day.
It is said that a lucky man is as rare as a white crow. Just how many white crows are there? The records show only two! One was shot in Maine in 1965; another was seen flying with his two black brothers in Dearborn, Mich., in 1953.
Owls have best all-around vision
Are you aware that hawks may have the keenest eyesight in the animal world? Eight times better than you and I. A red-tailed hawk can see a mouse one-third to one-half mile away.
A barred owl that visits the bird feeding area both night and day has excellent eyesight. For him the stars at night are 50 times brighter than they are for us. They can see in almost total darkness. Owls can see well in daytime, too — two or three times better than we. It is possible that owls have the best all-around vision in the animal kingdom.
When it comes to our senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, smelling and tasting, many of our furred and feathered backyard friends are better equipped to live in the environment than you and I are.
Backyard chippie is color blind
The matador’s cape in a bullfight is white, but a red cape would be more easily seen by the bull and more effective. Why? Because the bull is color blind. Only humans, monkeys, and apes among the mammals have color vision.
Birds that are active during the day see color as do most reptiles and fish. Frogs and salamanders are almost color blind. Insects vary in their ability to perceive the colors that we see.
Man’s color spectrum ranges from blue to red. We are unable to see the ultraviolet and infrared which are on either end of the spectrum. Bees can see the ultraviolet but not the infrared. That’s why they seldom visit the red flowers as do the hummingbirds. A bee visits the red poppy because the flower reflects both the infrared and the ultraviolet. A bee is only attracted by the ultraviolet. Because only the tips of a white daisy flower reflect ultraviolet, to the bee a daisy appears as a ring of ultraviolet dots.
Don’t swat the bees
There are some 4,000 native bee species in the USA, including the bumblebee. The creatures play an important role in pollinating both commercial crops worth billions of dollars a year and wild plants.
The amazing honeybees tap two million flowers and fly 55,000 miles to make a pound of honey, and during this activity they pollinate most of our fruits and vegetables, herbs and flowers.
How could you ever swat such a valuable insect?
Still here
While raking my yard the other evening, I was tormented by the biting of mosquitoes. Wanting to know more about them, I went to the Internet.
The word “mosquito” is Spanish for “little fly,” and its use dates back to about 1583 in North America (Europeans referred to mosquitoes as “gnats’).
Mosquitoes belong to the order Diptera, true files. Mosquitoes are like flies in that they have two wings, but unlike flies, their wings have scales, their legs are long and the females have a long mouth part (proboscis) for piercing skin.
Up Close
Mosquitoes are insects that have been around for more than 30 million years. And it seems that, during those millions of years, mosquitoes have been honing their skills so that they are now experts at finding people to bite. Mosquitoes have a battery of sensors designed to track their prey, including:
•Chemical sensors - Mosquitoes can sense carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to 100 feet (36 meters) away. Mammals and birds give off these gases as part of their normal breathing. Certain chemicals in sweat also seem to attract mosquitoes (people who don’t sweat much don’t get nearly as many mosquito bites).
•Visual sensors - If you are wearing clothing that contrasts with the background, and especially if you move while wearing that clothing, mosquitoes can see you and zero in on you. It’s a good bet that anything moving is “alive,” and therefore full of blood, so this is a good strategy.
•Heat sensors - Mosquitoes can detect heat, so they can find warm-blooded mammals and birds very easily once they get close enough.
Something with this many sensors sounds more like a military aircraft than an insect. That’s why mosquitoes are so good at finding and biting you. One of the only ways to stop mosquitoes from finding you is to confuse their chemical receptors with something like DEET.
P.S.
Aren’t the hanging baskets of petunias downtown just gorgeous?
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Comments
GeorgiaCaldwell Zanskas wrote on Aug 2, 2008 8:01 PM:
Best wishes,
Georgia "