(00:00:00) Just go out there and visit the center and even visit with Cathy. Anyway, she's here to answer questions about what's going on in plant and animal life in nature this time of year and we'll be opening the telephone lines for your questions in just a second or so. Obviously Kathy the leaves are all pretty much down and in some cases raked up are the trees about his dormant as they are going to be for the winter season, or are they doing some things (00:00:26) still? Well, most of them are are dormant already. I noticed that some of The Birches in the neighborhood still have some green leaves on in a few places. The Tamaracks aren't quite dormant yet. There's still a lovely golden color in the Tamarack swamps. And I think some of the Oaks are just kind of going into dormancy. Some of them still have a few leaves hanging on it's debatable with some of the shrubs whether they're totally dormant or not. But generally yes most things are dormant. And if you were going to do any transplanting it would be safe to do it at this time because you wouldn't be disturbing the life system too much. (00:01:00) What birds are likely to stay around all winter? (00:01:05) And I think the Blue Jay will for the most part. We'll have some Jay stay around those some my grade. I had one you that I want your we banded one and it actually turned up in Texas a month after we Bandit. So some of them migrate chickadees will stay around and we have some winter visitors with us already. The tree sparrows are here now and they've nested up on the the tree line next to the tundra and let's see what else is here. The juncos a little snow birds are here already. Some of the Eagles are starting to move South the loons are certainly in migration and moving south. But a lot of the birds that you see year-round stay with us all winter like the gold finches and the Cardinals (00:01:45) about the robins there. (00:01:46) Well, I saw to Robin's yesterday afternoon, and it was a bit of a shocker. I hadn't expected to see them because I hadn't seen any for a few days. Most of our robins have already moved on through but we'll continue to have some Robins showing up especially where Have fruit trees planted things like Buckthorn and Thorn apples and and Mountain ashes will still be attractive to Robin's probably if we have a mild November right on into early December, but by that time we'll should be gone. (00:02:15) If you have a question about what's happening in nature this time of year. You're certainly welcome to give us a call Kathy. Heidel will make an attempt at answering your question two two seven six thousand is the number for those of you listening in Minneapolis. And st. Paul two two seven six thousand four Twin Cities area listeners elsewhere within the state of Minnesota. Our toll-free number is 1-800-695-1418 hundred sixty-five 29700 good anywhere within the state of Minnesota. And if you're listening in one of the surrounding states, you can call us Direct in the Twin Cities. The area code is 612 in the rest of the number is two two seven six thousand and we have quite a few lines open right now. So this might be a good chance to call us and get your question on the air for Kathy Heidel. What can people do to attract birds to their yards if they in fact want them to be around during the winter? (00:03:07) Well, I think you've said a very key thing there when you said if they want them to be around during the winter. That's the reason we feed birds. Anyway, they get along fine without us. I think what you need to put down is what they are hungry for because that's one of the most important things that in shelter but they can travel long distances to food. So if you're attracting seed-eating Birds, which is what most of our winter birds are put out a feeder, maybe just a flat tray on a post or you can go to some of your local garden stores and buy different kinds of feeders and fill them with a bird seed. I don't recommend going into the discount stores of the grocery stores and buying prepackaged birdseed because there's a lot of stuff in that mix that they don't like and it just ends up on the ground and it's Mother's your grass. So what I usually do is either ask them to mix for me. About three to four parts of sunflower seed to one part of cracked corn and during the fall in the spring when the juncos and the white-throated sparrow is in the fox sparrows and a few of those other ground feeding birds are migrating through I add some white Millet and that is the mix that I put together if you want to feed safflower seeds or if you want to feed peanuts or peanut hearts or sunflower Hearts. You're welcome to spend the money and just add more just makes a better meal. You also will want to put out suet which is beef fat that you can get at your local butcher and that you put in some kind of a wire mesh cage usually and attach it to a tree trunk or hang it and that will appeal to those meat eating birds those insect eating birds such as chickadees and woodpeckers and nuthatches. (00:04:50) All right. We have a number of listeners with questions for you Kathy Heidel. We'll take our first caller. Hello. You're on the air. (00:04:57) Hello. I was wondering how long we can expect these. Ducks to stay on Lake Calhoun. Do they go away it will they be here all winter? (00:05:04) Well Lake Calhoun freezes over and I think it does they won't stay on the lake all winter if they're migratory Ducks. Most of them will probably be heading out sometime in this month of November and I'm not sure exactly when the lake will freeze over but I went back to my records on averages of when the Twin Cities Lakes to freeze over and we can definitely expect for the most part to have them froze over by the 1st of December. So you basically have at least the next couple of weeks. I would say in probably three weeks to enjoy these ducks. However, they may not stay they are somewhat governed by an ending and influenced by day length. And as the days get shorter, the inner alarm clock will probably say get up and go and so the majority of them will leave those that will stay maybe Mallards that are quite adapted to being fed by human. Kings and hanging around the local area and some of the birds that maybe don't have a clear migratory message may stay around (00:06:09) do we do these ducks or geese any favor by throwing food out to them our as we walk around the Lakes it seems to me I can recall in years past that as the lake freezes over they swim on a smaller and smaller area until eventually gets down to practically no space at all. And in fact, some of them actually don't get (00:06:27) out. That's right. Well again people feed them because they really want to look at them. But quite frankly what you're building up is a population of hand-fed birds and we really aren't doing them a service in that case. We also aren't doing ourselves a service because we build up that population of birds through feeding them and they stay they don't migrate and it's just like the goose population now in the metropolitan area. We have so many many more birds than we really want, especially when we want to keep Goose Crap free Lawns and golf courses and we don't want them sitting on our docs because they messed them all up. So you have to think about the whole year rather than just for right now (00:07:14) two two seven six thousand is the phone number of Minneapolis st. Paul if you have a question about nature for Kathy Heidel this morning your next go ahead, (00:07:21) please. Hello. We live in Prospect Park and we've been driving around Prospect Park in South Minneapolis. And we've seen some beautiful trees. The leaves have all Fallen. There are a lot of red I would might say larger than berries like even small crab apples and we want to know the name of this phenomenon because we'd love to love to plant one (00:07:43) are the other fruits are kind of an orange red, or are they kind of a purplish (00:07:48) red? I think more toward purplish. (00:07:51) Am I guess then is that you probably have a Hawthorn or Thorn Apple Tree or some kind of a crab apple. We have at Lowry Nature Center planted some Cox / Hawthorne's and they have lovely purplish red fruits in great profusion hanging on the top of the tree and they're not in clusters. They're just all spread along the branches. Is that your (00:08:15) situation? I think you're probably going toward the orange red. They're hanging down all over. (00:08:22) Okay, then then you may have Mountain Ash and if you get a chance to look at the leaves laying on the ground underneath the tree if it's just one single leaf, like an apple tree leaf, then you would have The Thorn Apple, but if they look more like a fern then you have the mountain ash (00:08:40) Here's another caller with a question. Go ahead please Kathy Heidel is listening. (00:08:43) Hi. I was wondering at this time of the year and through the winter with the animals that don't sleep or hibernate is the most activity still at dawn or do they wait until the sun warms the air or (00:08:58) that's a really interesting question. It depends upon of course on the species for the fox who is active all winter. He still is active primarily at night for the deer that's active all winter. They're most active time is when it's just gotten dark enough that we can hardly see any more both in the evening and then again in the morning for the birds the Cardinals and the juncos are usually the first ones to get active in the morning and the last ones to go to bed in the evening so to speak and they are active until it's twilight or until it's before the sun's up in the morning they begin getting active and then they'll be active. Until after sunup other species of birds like starlings and house sparrows and not hatches and chickadees may actually go to roost earlier and get up just a little bit later and if it's a really really cold morning, it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. They've gone through a cold night and the need to get is to get out and feed and so they seem to get up and go out. Anyway, (00:10:04) how do these birds survive the 20 and 30 and 50 below wind chill temperatures that we (00:10:09) have they get out of the wind is basically what they do things like nuthatches and chickadees and woodpeckers go into cavities for the night for the most part and that cavity might be a hole in a tree or it might be a cavity which is simply a group of leaves hanging down and it'll be like a little miniature cave and they'll be inside that group of hanging down leaves which the effect stops the wind and collects their body heat other birds like crows. Go into evergreen trees and Roots there for the night where the wind is stopped. So they find a very sheltered spot and oftentimes. It's a tree that's got leaves hanging on it or an evergreen tree or they go into a hole in the tree just to get away from that (00:10:54) wind do most birds develop thicker feathers in the wintertime than summer and (00:10:58) not not so much thicker feathers as more focused more feathers and they also but thicker they get a very thick layer of fat underneath the skin and that helps them to to survive and the fact that they get more feathers and then they're able to fluff those feathers out. It's just like you putting on your down jacket. It traps the body heat in the bird's body temperatures above a hundred degrees somewhere between a hundred 610 and when they fluff those feathers out there just really kind of turning up the furnace so to speak. (00:11:31) All right, we have more listeners with questions for Kathy. Heidel will take you next. Hello. (00:11:35) Hi, thank you. I apologize if you covered this in your introduction I missed the first A minutes, but I want to know where we are. We still in time to see the whistling Swan. So the Wabasha, (00:11:45) very interesting question. It was on my list of things that I hope to be able to talk about today so far Jim Gilbert, and I have not received any news from any people in Minnesota regarding sightings of migrating whistling swans the peak period for the swan migration in Minnesota is October through early December with the big push in mid-november, so we are eagerly looking forward to hearing swans any night now and mostly they'll be migrating at night. If you get out in the evening and you hear a very high-pitched (00:12:20) whoo-oo whoo-oo whoo-oo whoo-oo whoo-oo (00:12:23) like a very high-pitched Goose you're hearing swans going over so far. We have not heard of any being done at Wabasha. And so if any of you listeners do start spotting migrating swans, I sure would like to have you give me a call at Lowry Nature Center and let me know where you've seen. Them and when my number out there is area code 6124724911 and let me know if you're seeing swans (00:12:49) the number to call here if you have a question for Cathy is 2276 thousand in Minneapolis. And st. Paul outside the Twin Cities area. The toll-free number is 1-866-560-4440. (00:13:04) Yes. Thank you. We just moved into a new home and the exterior of the home is gray stained cedar siding. The backyard is a real Wilderness Area and I've noticed occasionally woodpeckers pecking at the side of our house. Is this something that I need to worry about? Is it going to persist or can anything be done about it? (00:13:24) Well, you've brought up a really really touchy issue for woodpeckers getting off lot of bad, press this time of the year the Woodpecker seem to have have some kind of a learned behavior which they associate with. The reward of food they get out of your cedar siding on your houses. If you have this type of cedar siding that has grooves cut down it there are some insects that find that sort of siding very very attractive for laying their eggs and they go into the side Groove and they actually stick their little egg laying machines down into the holes that are already there in that ply wood siding and deposit their eggs in the one the woodpecker's come along they through trial and error have learned that there is food there. And so what I'm noticing now, we're four five years ago woodpeckers were only going to those holes in the wood that they were seeing they are now attacking siding that doesn't even have the group's because they've learned that houses give them food supply. The only thing I can think of to deter these little wood pounding Critters is too. Cock up every hole that you see made in your siding whether it be wood pecker made or whether it be naturally met because of the way they Lumber Company cut the siding but get a caulking material. That's the same color as your siding and just caulk all those holes and the sooner your cock them the less likely you are to have as much woodpecker damage and you can try doing a variety of things. Not much of anything works. You can try spraying them with a hose. You could try putting aluminum over the top of some of the more seriously affected areas and the outside of your house but nothing much works as well as the caulking (00:15:19) is this a problem that occurs more often in Fall than any other (00:15:22) season. Yes, it occurs. Usually in November in to early December and this of course is the time when there are lots of insect eggs in the wood and the woodpeckers are opportunists. They're just out there changing their their food supply a little It's a little harder to find food. So they're trying everything everywhere. (00:15:43) All right. We have more listeners with questions for Kathy Heidel. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:15:47) Thank you. Any suggestions to assist the rabbit in our backyard to overwinter. (00:15:53) Do you have any Shrubbery in your (00:15:55) backyard? Yes, I'm not heavy but we have (00:15:59) some uh-huh. Well, he's probably here. She's probably going to use that as a many shelter. Our rabbits that we have here are not burrowing animals. That is they do not go underground. If you want to keep that rabbit around you might consider maybe buying a bale of straw or a couple of bales of straw or hay and and sort of constructing a little sheltered Hutch with where they rabbit can come in and out as he wishes. The other thing you may not want to do is you may not want to put a bird feeder out near with the rabbit is because you may invariably attract other rabbits and other mice and things and thereby get owls and there is an owl which even hunts in the Twin Cities area the great horned owl, which is very partial to Rabbit. (00:16:44) It's interesting that this caller wants to keep the rabbit in his backyard because there are a lot of gardeners. I know who are very unhappy with rabbits in their yards. It just sort of depends on what your (00:16:54) interests are extra rabbits are fun to watch and if you don't have to worry about that rabbit chewing on your shrubs, that's always one thing you want to worry about if you haven't had a rabbit much before one rabbit will bring you more rabbits and you can have a real problem with Annoying the bark off the shrubs and trees in your yard and killing them. So you'll want to you want to think about that very carefully whether or not you want to encourage that rabbit (00:17:20) one is nice 20 might not be so now that's true. Okay another caller with the question. Go ahead, please. (00:17:27) I have a best wood tree. In fact, I have lots of them on my property but I have one is holding its least know why is it (00:17:34) doing that? No, that's an interesting thing Basswood trees don't usually hold their leaves past the the first part of October there usually early and dropping them. My guess would be you check the buds and c and the and the twigs and see if there's any green just scratch it with your fingernail and see if there's green underneath. My first intuition would be that maybe the tree died and that it just they hung on a died prematurely and it had before it had lost its leaves. However, there's there's green when you scratch with your fingernail, then I can't answer it for then. I don't know then perhaps check with a horticulturist at the University of Minnesota and see if they can give you some other ideas (00:18:18) naturalist Kathy. Heidel is our guest this morning on weekends. She is with the Suburban Hennepin Regional Park District, and she works out at Carver Park Reserve the lottery Nature Center not far from the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum more listeners on the line with questions and your next go ahead (00:18:34) please. Yes. Have any luck at attracting birds in a downtown high-rise on the balcony. (00:18:42) Oh sure, you would you could get sparrows and you probably could get starlings. I've talked to the number of people who live on some cases sixth and seventh floors of buildings. They have balconies. If there are any trees at all even down on the ground in the vicinity of your high-rise. You have a better chance of getting even more variety. If you do not if you're in a concrete jungle, so to speak then your your chances of getting a variety are Slimmer, but in any case starlings and house sparrows during the wintertime do nest in and Roost at night in buildings in the facades of buildings underneath Advertising Signs. They even Roost in the our light posts and our light poles and they're fun to watch some people damn them, but they can be very much fun to watch the pretty birds. Both are very attractive and You have no other birds. They're you know, they're better than not having anything at all. You also might be able to get pigeons. If you spread some corn out on the floor of your balcony. I would suggest what you put out is just a flat tray feeder rather than something with a covered roof over it. Then at least if there any birds in the vicinity, they'll be able to see the food regularly and you'll gradually begin to build up a clientele. (00:20:09) Well now once you begin to feed birds in the winter time, do you need to keep it up all season long do they become dependent on that food or doesn't it (00:20:16) matter they become dependent on the food you do build up a higher than normal population in your area. If you are the only person feeding within a 10 mile radius of where you are, I would say then yes, if you stop feeding them you could jeopardize their chances for survival. But nowadays people are feeding all over the place. So the chances of your Birds going hungry. If you go on vacation or something are so slim because there's somebody else within a mile or two feeding birds. So I rather doubt that you would really affect them adversely (00:20:52) more listeners are waiting. We also have a couple of lines open again in Minneapolis and Saint Paul to to 76 thousand is the phone number if you have a question for Cathy Heidel this morning, maybe you got a busy signal earlier. We'll keep trying throughout the program because you probably get through at one point or another to 276 thousand in Minneapolis st. Paul in other parts of Minnesota toll-free. 1-800 6-5 29700 your next. Good morning. (00:21:18) Good morning. I have a question. We have a lake place up in the Brainerd area and we've been treating squirrels and chipmunks for years and this year. We noticed that an awful lot of our squirrels were losing patches of fur, and we even had a chipmunk head was down to just having hair on its tail. You have any idea what's causing that? (00:21:42) Well, it's the first thing that comes to my mind is the possibility of mange. I don't know if mange effects rodents, which is what chipmunks and squirrels are some other kinds of skin diseases similar to what you might have in humans like eczema or something like that. My my guess is since I'm not up on animal diseases would be that you might check with your local veterinarian and ask them what kinds of diseases or defect things like cats and dogs or guinea pigs or gerbils that would cause them to lose their fur, and then you might be able to apply that information to these animals in the wild. We had a fox we have had several foxes and cover Park Reserve over past few years that occasionally lose their fur and and generally don't survive through a cold winter and we have said probably it was made but we didn't know for sure. (00:22:37) Okay, we'll move on to another caller. Go ahead please Kathy is listening. (00:22:40) Good morning. Yes. I'm just rid of calling for the name of a bird. I seen the backyard and Twin Cities here. It's Sparrow sized. And in fact travels a lot with sparrows. It seems It's a slate gray back to it and has a white breasts when it takes off and flies in the tail feathers split. There's flashes of white on the underneath side. Just wondering what the name is. (00:23:01) Okay, does it have a little bit of gray down from the chin on down to the upper part of the breast and then it becomes white? Yes, I would think so. Okay. What you're seeing is the Dark-eyed Junco and it's ju NCO. Lots of people call that little bird the snowbird because it does arrive in the winter or in the late fall with the first snows and we've already had a snowflake or two here in Minnesota and the juncos are moving Southward. Some of them will stay with us all winter and some of them will move on farther south into Iowa and Northern, Missouri. But yes, you're often times do see them when sparrows are feeding on the ground juncos like the feet on the ground too. And that's one of those species of birds that likes that Millet that you can put out for birdseed for them. (00:23:49) Okay, another caller is waiting and we'll take you next. Good (00:23:52) morning. Yeah. I have a cabin in northern Minnesota and we tend to spend nights watching the deer and this year. It seems like most of the doors didn't have fonts. What could be one of the reasons (00:24:05) for that? I'm trying to remember what last winter was like for them in northern Minnesota. If a doe doesn't drop fawns in the spring it can be and most likely is because they had a severe winter in terms of not finding enough food. The Dough's will be impregnated in the fall and factored into the rutting season right now. Those are in estrus for about a 24-hour period And if she's not impregnated during that one 24-hour period in October she will come into season again in December and then again in January of she still doesn't have access to a buck. Once she becomes pregnant if she doesn't have an adequate food supply during the winter time, the fetus is either aborted but more often it is reabsorbed and she then uses the the fetus to sustain her own life. And so if there aren't any fawns are very few phones this year, my guess would be that in your area where those You are the didn't have an adequate food supply and probably reabsorbed those (00:25:10) fetuses. Well speaking of dear Kathy. What's the outlook for the deer population this winter? (00:25:17) Well, it's really hard to say it wasn't all that bad a winner last year at least in the metropolitan area. It depends upon whether it's a really cold winter weather that whether or not there's available food within reach. (00:25:33) We're an oversupply in your part of the well system right (00:25:37) now in some of our Parks. Yes. We are Goin going to have to have control deer hunts in a couple of our Parks we found it's the most economical in the most efficient way to keep the deer population within boundaries with the resource. If you don't keep the population down, they eat themselves out of house and home and then we have a lot of starvation in cover Park Reserve last year. We had a deer hunt in November and they took out close to a hundred animals and our population is such that this year we won't have to have a hunt there. However, there are other areas in the Lake Minnetonka area. There are some municipalities that are having a real problem with over sir. Lots of deer and they're definitely wrestling with how are they going to deal with this (00:26:21) problem? Okay, we shall move on to another listener with a question for Cathy. Hi, you're on the (00:26:26) air. Hi also have the Woodpecker problem and one person told me that if I were to go to a sporting goods store and get a large plastic owl and put it out on my property where the birds can see it. The woodpecker's will be scared away from my house. Could Kathy comment on this place? Thank you (00:26:45) this sort of thing putting out a large bowel decoy does work for a number of birds and I would say it'd be worth a try woodpeckers. However, I am I when I watch owls or I watch Hawks hunting in our bird feeder area at Lowry Nature Center the woodpecker's freeze against the sides of the trees or if they're on the building their fries against the side of the building and they're colored in such a way that they really when the quiet and don't move they don't show up and I have have had little evidence that owls and Hawks. Hunt woodpeckers, but I wouldn't say I wouldn't discount it as an idea. Try it. (00:27:29) Alright, another listener with a question. Hello. You're on the air. (00:27:33) Hi Kathy. I would like to encourage people to go on the Autumn nature walks. If they're in the Hennepin County area. We've been going for 11 years and have seen various small animals and enjoyed it the other day. I saw a great horned owl it was about 30 feet away on the path to sitting there and when it saw me, of course it took off but I was surprised because I thought owls came out, you know left their their nest or wherever they stayed only at night. Would you care to comment? They did say that there had been a sick one earlier that was taken with this when I told them about about it at the at the Highland area. They said no that that was a new one to them. (00:28:14) What time of day did you see this owl (00:28:16) around noon or 12:30? (00:28:19) Was it an owl with ear Tufts or with (00:28:22) your tuft? I check my Audubon book later. And that was the only thing it looked like great Hornet was okay. We stay a foot and a half of not to be tightened like a medium-sized dog in height. (00:28:32) Yes, you saw the great horned owl and these owls have a territory which they maintain year-round the young birds that were hatched out. This spring will stay in the territory with the parents until probably late this month or early next month and then the parent bird will drive them out in these young birds will have to be moving around trying to find a niche that doesn't have a claimant doesn't have an owl that owns it and these birds Roost during the daytime in trees oftentimes oftentimes close to the trunk of the tree or in evergreen trees sometimes but mostly in deciduous Strays and my guess is maybe he was just sitting out there in the sun sunning. I've often seen Al's do that sitting out into the edge of a tree when the sun is shining even in the fall and it's not unusual to see it flying by day. If it's Disturbed they can see as well in the daytime as they can see at night. And so they can readily fly around and find their way. They just don't hunt in the daytime. They usually rest and hunt at night. But if they're Disturbed they will fly (00:29:43) but they're more active in general at (00:29:44) night much more active at night because Birds save us as much of their they don't expend as much energy anymore than they have to because they have to save their fat Supply in their food supply to keep them alive. And so they those that hunt at night will be quiet in the daytime primarily. (00:30:02) So if they're more active at night more likely to be around at night, how can you see them? (00:30:08) Well like this lady did you go out and you look for them by day and if you're lucky When you look in the right place, you may actually see a bird perched in a tree somewhere or on a platform or something. When we do our Raptor searching in the Hennepin parks in February, March April and May when we're doing our research study with our group of volunteers we go out in the daytime and we look for them by day and we find them. (00:30:36) All right, let's move on to another listener with a question. Go ahead please Kathy's listening. (00:30:40) Yes. I have a female Northern Oriole coming to a theater. It's been here now for nearly two weeks. I'm feeding it grapes and oranges and I wonder if going to have any chance of survival or do you think I should attempt to catch it and bring it into the zoo or something like (00:31:02) that? I don't think the bird will have a chance of surviving the lake the length of winter here in Minnesota. It's probably got a screwed-up timing mechanism and has not assess the day length properly and this we have cases of birds. That should migrate that sometimes don't you could probably continue feeding it. You might also consider trying to feed it diluted grape jelly. You can dilute grape jelly with water about half and see if it will take that and then maybe you could try catching it when it gets a little colder and gets a little more less active. I have known people to send them by Airlines to Florida and or you could contact the Minnesota Zoo and see what they would say their chances of taking it in at the zoo though probably are very slim simply because they have to keep wild things like that in quarantine and are not likely to put an insectivore as burden with their their birds. So With them about what they might recommend, but you may end up having to send it to Florida by plane. If you can get it (00:32:09) if you can get it, how would you try to how would you try to capture (00:32:12) it? Well, I've known people who've been able to get things like that with large Landing Nets when they've gotten a little bit weaker. (00:32:17) All right. It's about 11 minutes about ten and a half minutes actually before 12 o'clock. Kathy. Heidel is with us today. She is with the Suburban Hennepin Regional Park District actually working out at Lowry Nature Center in the car park reserve not far from the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. 2276 thousand is the telephone number to call if you have a question about what's happening in nature today for Kathy Heidel as we obviously approach the onset of the winter season, and now the time is exactly 10 minutes before noon. Those of you who are on the line do stay with us because we will get to your questions here as we continue with Kathy Idol. Go ahead, please you're (00:32:58) next. Yes. I have a question about cicadas and it's the summertime question. But my question is do we have any 17-year? Cicadas around Minneapolis? And st. Paul and if so, when's their 17th year going to come up? (00:33:12) Oh my Lord. I don't know for sure. If we have the 17-year cicadas here or not. You might check with the University of Minnesota entomology Department to see if there have been any collected in Minnesota if they have some in their collection, then you'd have an affirmative answer on that the 17-year cicadas or 17 year Locust. You have a cycle where you have a majority of them coming out at one time, but you're going to have some of those coming out all through that cycle simply because they don't all lay their eggs at the same time, but we do have a variety of cicadas and some people this We're talking about hearing this really really loud pulsing sound in that up in the trees at night. And that was one of the pulsing cicadas. That's his night singer. Most of our cicadas are day singers, but there are a few that are night singers. There's also a katydid that sings at night from Treetops, but if it wasn't and it was really loud and almost deafening and it came from the tops of the trees at night. It was probably one of those cicadas, but I can't tell you which one we have over 30 varieties of cicadas that singing this temperate region and it's hard to say which one it was. Hmm. (00:34:30) All right, we have another caller of the question. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:34:34) Yes. I have a small farm in West Hennepin County and I have lots of small bass wood trees is a possible to transplant them with a hydraulic Spade. (00:34:45) Well, I've transplanted them with a shovel. So I guess if I do it with a shovel you could do it with a spade. That would be even be better wait till they're dormant which they are now for the most part where you can do it in Spring as well. (00:34:58) Okay. It's seven minutes before twelve o'clock and we'll take another listener. Go ahead, please. Hello. Hello. Yeah, you're on the air. (00:35:06) Yes. We have a pine tree that has branches way down to the ground but towards the center of the tree. The needles are Browning. (00:35:16) And you'd like to know why they're Browning. Is that it? Yeah, if the needles are Browning all the way out to the very ends of the branches, even the most recent needles then I can't answer your question. I don't know what would cause that you I'd have to check a plant pathologist on that. But if they're only Browning on the interior, but the outside needles the most recent ones are still green. Then you have an optional natural phenomenon. Your pine tree is dropping its needles every year evergreen trees drop needles and sometimes those needles are the three year old needles. Sometimes their two-year-old needles. But yes, I have a Scots pine in my neighborhood that is dropping its needles that were formed three years ago and the dropping all over the place. So it may be just natural Leaf (00:36:07) Drop. All right, another listener with a question for Cathy. Hi - hi you're on the air. Yes. Hello. Go ahead, (00:36:13) please. Yes, we have a swamp or quit. Has kept its beautiful large russet leaves fell through the winter and before did wonderful shelter for birds and this year. It has lost its leaves for the first time in 15 or 20 years. I'm wondering whether that tells us something about the tree or something about the early drop in late rains. (00:36:37) I really can't answer your question specifically a lot of times. It's really hard. I don't read minds of trees too. Well, but if you recall we had in September and in early October, we had a very cold period with lot of rain and we also had a very early spring and I think that perhaps the season on your tree mind have been Advanced and it probably was influenced by that cold weather then we had this nice period of warm weather with winds and it just may be that the abscission which is the excision layer, which is the Corky layer that forms between the leaf and the tree and So a drop-off Point might have formed really well your tree might have been old enough for that to form this year too. I would say it's probably a combination of things the season the weird weather we had that fall and perhaps the age of the tree but I can't say it for certain (00:37:32) what sort of luck today with maple syrup out of the Nature Center this year. (00:37:36) Oh gosh, that was back last spring. I can't remember (00:37:39) for sure. Once you get some in the fall to (00:37:41) oh, we don't tap the trees in the fall. But yes at Flows In the Fall as well, but you don't usually have as good a flow because the you are some days that are warm and some days that are cool. If I remember correctly. We didn't have a real long flow period and it wasn't it wasn't the best we've (00:37:58) had. Yeah. I know there's some people that do tap trees in the fall to yes. Anyway, it's five minutes to twelve and here's another caller. Go ahead, (00:38:06) please. Hello. Yes question about off. We have a population of barred owls in our Maple Woods where we live here and the times there seems to be quite a Of them all squawking and honking at one another and this last spring. I think it was late spring. We had a new sound and it wasn't the series of Hoots of the barred owl but it was a high pissed high-pitch Screech. That was actually the alarming until we figured out that it was a bird and I managed to shine a light on one and it seemed to be a small owl and but it wasn't making the sound of the barred owl and I'd like to know Ken different owls exist in the same Woods or are they very protective of the (00:38:48) territory different owls can exist in the same Woods because they may have different food requirements this little owl that you're shown the light on. Did it have ear Tufts or did it not (00:39:01) I didn't see your tough. But neighbors were they did it look like a fuzzy Gray Bar doll in a very very fluffy and and round-headed in (00:39:11) bodied. When did you see the bird? What time of year? (00:39:16) Was this summer? I'm hung, like maybe she was warm out and there were looking at trees and it was sometime this summer either late spring early summer, maybe late (00:39:24) summer. Well, it could have been one of the smaller owls maybe a saw a wet towel or because they have a kind of a high-pitched. Is what the software does the screech owl does it kind of go call so they don't scratch either one of them. My guess is what you saw were young owls that were shrieking. It's kind of a high-pitched Whispering shrieking call that they give when they are wanting Mom and Dad to give him something to eat and they'll sit up in the trees and they'll do this whisper shrieking and that may be what you heard and sometimes if they're fuzzy if you were seeing fuzzy Birds you were seeing young birds probably barred owl young (00:40:08) as long as you talking about olds Kathy. When is the most likely spot to see a snowy owls and we're (00:40:16) wet snowy owls actually are starting to move into Minnesota. If they don't have a good food supply up on the tundra the according to chance and greens book on Minnesota Birds, where when and how many the period for snow. Oils to be seen south of the tundra and Canada and into Minnesota is October through December and the sooner that the they run out of a food supply up there the sooner they'll come South about every four years. We have an influx of more snowy owls because that's about the period that the lemming population runs on and I would expect that the our populations noise has been down for the last couple of years. I'm kind of anticipating that maybe this winter we'll have more a good place to go see them if they aren't in the metropolitan area on utility poles along the highway would be to go to Duluth to the harbor because they'll feed on the the rats and the mice around the grain elevators up there. (00:41:19) If you send it soon around the Twin Cities area yet. (00:41:21) Not this fall. No one. I haven't had any reports and many of this fall either (00:41:25) but the could be coming any time if it's through December. All right more listeners with questions. We have a couple of lines open to at to 276 thousand Kathy. Idle answering questions about what's going on right now in nature and you're on the air. Go ahead please with your (00:41:41) question. I moved up north was delighted two weeks ago and I returned from a trip East to find that wi are with Valium Trek good from Louisiana expect to get them from Miami tonight. And there is absolutely none of the interference. It was so irritated before I'm so please I'm sure you'll get a lot more new members up here is resulted fabulous station going on - (00:42:07) well good. Thanks. What's your question for (00:42:08) Cathy question is for Cathy. I'm referring to the buck. I juggle. At least she called it. I've been puzzled about that bird for your because they're here around Lake Vermilion for about two weeks each ball and very often. There are a dozen or so on the road on our Gravel Road and you can almost run over them before they will take off and that I've always called it a snow bunting but I know it is but it is it has a very white under wing. Is that (00:42:35) right? I can't recall the junko has a white under wing. I don't think particularly that it does it has white outer tail feathers and that belly and underneath the tail is very white golly. I don't ever look under the wings very much. They're always going away from me. But if it's all gray and you see those flashes of white it's the junk of the Dark-eyed Junco. The snow bunting is very white. It looks like a snowflake flying through the air when you see it with a few marks of brown on the wing. Otherwise a quite a white bird the Dark-eyed Junco in your area in the lake familiar Vermilion area would be that's just about right it would be coming through on migration and it would not probably stay in your area for the winter. (00:43:23) Did I mention that we had a couple of lines open to to 76 thousand is the number if you wanted to ask a question of Kathy. Hi, Dallas known 2276 thousand you probably could get through. We do have another caller with a question and you're on the air. Go ahead, please. (00:43:37) If I have a question about a particular bird call, I live about a mile and a half of downtown Minneapolis and I have never noticed this call until about the past year or two. And also, I think partly Garrison Keillor invoke this same mystery burden one of his monologue. So I guess he's knows this call to but it's it's two notes in the second note. If you take the first note is that the tonic isn't quite doesn't quite correspond to any note of the scale. So wait a few seconds, then you could you identify that bird for (00:44:13) me. Hmm. It's the black-capped chickadee and what you're doing is its song. Hmm. (00:44:19) Are they hard to see I hear that all the time but I don't ya they're so (00:44:23) small. They're you know about 3 inches long and they're kind of a whitish color with a black cap and a little black on the throat and kind of a grayish blue back and they flit around through the tops of the tree branches because they're gleaning the tree branches for insect eggs and for spiders and other evidence of insect matter and what they do is they fly around in flocks of anywhere from six to ten or twelve birds in when they're hunting. They don't sing that call that you just imitated. What they do is they just give a very little low-pitched whistle which is to say I'm here, where are you but when they are declaring their presence and I'm not exactly sure what it means all year round with the declaring their presence. They do that whistle call that you imitated over the phone here and it as you get into the spring season when they're setting up their Doors for nesting they do that much much more. (00:45:23) All right, we'll move on to another caller who has a question. Go ahead please Kathy's listening. (00:45:27) Well Kathy. Yes, we have two problems the first one involves cedar siding and woodpeckers and flicker that are slowly demolishing the house, but beyond that we have a problem with a cardinal appear but persist in attacking the glass in our in our upper level of our house. We have that reflective type glass that you can pin see out through in the daytime, but people can't see back in it's like a mirror. Uh-huh and I suspect that the they are the bird sees another bird there and but he's been here a year round now for about two years and I wish that there was something that could be done to alleviate his stress and the constant racket on her window. If you have any ideas, I'd sure appreciate hearing them. (00:46:16) Well, I've heard of other people who have the same problem. Sometimes Cardinals kind of a few Cardinals just get a little bit addlepated and dumb and what he's seeing is definitely his own reflection in the glass and he's very territorial very protective of his area. And he thinks it's another bird about the only thing I can think of doing would be to obscure that particular area where he sees his reflection. He may then go to another window and he may just you know, repeat the problem. You can't shoot the bird because that's against the law and chances of you're trying to catch it move it out is almost impossible. So I guess I've tried several things. I had that one year when I worked in one area, we swept the window on the outside. We hung strings done in front of the window on the outside. I hung a net in front of the window and he persisted and he persisted until I think he probably died (00:47:13) you've already addressed the Woodpecker. Yes, I have them but If it's called it into here at your basic advice is to cock up any open areas where there might be some insects because that's what the woodpeckers are after is that's insect seeds insect eggs rather five minutes past 12:00 and we have another caller with the question. Go ahead please. (00:47:30) Yes. I was wondering what a loon would be doing in, (00:47:33) Wisconsin. Are you talking about right now? You've seen a loon recently or you saw one (00:47:40) earlier that one like in the spring because I was up at it my friend's cabin and I had my book with me and my book of births and I had it marked ruins and then I studied the bird and I studied the picture in the book and it look definitely like a loon. (00:47:59) Well, it probably was loons nest in Wisconsin as well as in Minnesota and Wisconsin has some very fine loon nesting populations in the northern part of the state. My guess is if you saw the Loon there you probably had a either a bird checking the area out for a possibility of nesting or maybe a nesting pair speaking of Lunes Lunes are in migration right now going to the Atlantic coast and to the Gulf Coast and October in Minnesota is the main month for migration of loons what we can expect to still see some Loans in Wisconsin and in Minnesota right on till about the first part of December (00:48:42) how far do they go in one day would you (00:48:44) guess? Oh golly. I don't know I think loons fly probably faster than geese to and a goose can go from the metropolitan area to Central, Missouri in one night. (00:48:57) Oh, that's rather fast you bet. Okay, we'll take another caller with a question. Go ahead, please Kathy's (00:49:04) listening. Hi. I live near downtown Minneapolis. And we noticed last spring that there was a Kessler Hawk that was visiting the neighborhood and after watching it for a while. We discovered that it had decided to nest in our house in the up in a decaying area in the eaves. We have an old house and I guess the question is it some point we want to have that repaired. Is this bird we're going to be coming back or what would be a time to do that with a we wouldn't be disrupting the bird but we wouldn't be trapping at her, you know bothering it (00:49:36) or the Kestrel Castrol is also known as a sparrow hawk is a small Hawk which preys on small birds and mice. We'll probably not stay during the winter time when we get quite a bit of snow on the ground because they can't get enough to eat and the probably my greatest far south as they have to go to get where there isn't much snow. That would be the time to probably do your repair. I would advise you since that bird will probably come back again. They come back to the area where the nested you'd call the Department of Natural Resources in st. Paul here and ask them to send you your free copy of woodworking for wildlife in that booklet will be plans for building a Kestrel nesting box. You can put that nesting box up on a tree in your yard or up on your house and then there will be a safe area for that Kestrel to Nest when it comes back next year. (00:50:30) We have time for a couple more questions to to 76 thousand. If you have a question for Cathy Heidel, she'll be happy to tackle it this afternoon two two seven six thousand and we'll be able to get you on the air your next go ahead please. (00:50:44) Oh, I had a question regarding that collection of Maple sap and a friend of mine has a cabin up in the Duluth area with a lot of maple trees and he'd like to try collect sap, but only on the weekends, he wouldn't be able to empty all the containers except for on the weekends. And I don't know about how much sap can you collect on a given day or do you think that's possible? Will you be able to do (00:51:09) that? Well, if he's lucky enough to get some good days maple sap runs. Well when the day temperature is when it's sunny and it's in the 40s and the night temperature before that day was down below freezing not very low, but you know in the 20s, he will get a good run then but he probably isn't going to get more than Maybe. Maybe up to three or four gallons of sap if it gets really good day for tree. My recommendation would be if he's going to tap them to just let the bags or the pails off the tree during the week and just let it run and then he won't have any molding or fermentation in the bag, but he can't expect to get very much of it. Just going to collect when weekends. He might be well-advised maybe have somebody else collects it for him and and put it in a container and keep it outside where it can freeze if it is cool at night. It's (00:52:09) about 10 minutes past 12:00 o'clock Kathy Heidel is our guest today naturalist regular guest on this program several times a year and your next what's your question, please? (00:52:17) Hi Kathy. Hi just a little couple points of information here for you before I get to my question. First of all gimpy the gray fox was back at the picnic area the other night. (00:52:27) Oh good. She didn't get killed (00:52:28) then. Nope, and we do have Tunes out on Sunday Lake today. Oh thank Park. Good to know is when do the loons go through their mating ritual I've had three and they've been hooting and wailing and yodeling out on my leg now for about a week now as wondering if this is a mating thing or if they're trying to get their family together for the migration. (00:52:50) What you seeing right now is the type of behavior that is Advanced by Family groups in migration. It's a kind of a greeting ceremony the mating behavior goes on in the spring after their back on territory. (00:53:05) All right, grab we could answer that question for you about the loser must be fun to (00:53:08) watch them. Yeah. Give me the gray fox. By the way is an inhabitant of cover Park Reserve who has been living in a hole underneath a tree in the Ravine near our picnic area and cover Park and she comes up to the picnic area and checks out to see if anybody left any any sandwiches or anything behind and we hadn't seen it for a while. We thought perhaps you might have died. It's neat to know. She's still around. She's an old Fox. She's been in a trap. She has a bad. Leg and she still (00:53:35) survives isn't that interesting? Here's another listener with a question. Go ahead, please. (00:53:39) No, I'm calling with regard to to bird housing. It's a two-part question. First part is this I noticed some new species of birds flying around the area where we have bird houses this morning and I'm wondering if it is advisable to put up new bird houses in fall or if we should wait till spring. That's the first question part of the question second part is is there a minimal distance that should be observed in placing bird houses on property. Thank you very much. (00:54:10) Okay, putting up new bird houses and fall will simply provide them with places to roost and you most likely will get those houses being used by house sparrows. So for that reason, I don't advise putting up new houses in the fall the minimal distance depends upon what species you're trying to attract if you're talking about attracting bluebirds or tree swallows or that those two species about Fifty feet apart at the minimum 200 would be better. The other option you have would be to face them in different directions. If you have a small yard face them away from each other so they don't have to cross flight paths. If you talking about attracting house wrens, I would put at least three boxes up in my yard because they they'll take one pair will take all the boxes. So it depends on the species. If you put house houses up in your yard, they'll all get used by house sparrows to and what you should do to control the proliferation of house sparrows is to remove them after they've been in the box and built a nest for a while. So other birds that are native have a chance to do it. (00:55:13) We're just a couple listeners left on the line. We'll take them and then move on to some other things here on ksjn. Hello. You're (00:55:19) next. Hi. I'm dick Swenson Kathy and I've got a little problem with a mountain ash that I planted for the birds to get the fruit in the fall of the year in the winter. I've only had three Bunches of Root on it's about five years old and I was wondering why I've seen some smaller trees in mind that are just loaded with that fruit. Can you tell me why I don't have any more bunches of these little grape like orange (00:55:48) berries. Well, the only thing I can think of is the flowers when they if it bloomed and you have did you have a good flowering of the tree this (00:55:55) spring? No, no, I wouldn't say no. (00:55:59) Okay. Well, then I would say if you didn't have a good flowering of the tree this spring even fewer of those flowers probably got pollinated to have to be pollinated by an insect visitor. That's why you don't have the fruit. You didn't have as many fertilized flowers why you didn't have as many flowers on the tree as you had in earlier years. I can't say for certain. I can't write off the top of my head tell you what the age span for mountain ash is but I know it's more than five years and I just would I would suggest that you might look into the possibility of your mountain. Ash having some kind of a disease and being under some kind of stress and there you should get a Horticulture horticulturist who would deals with trees to maybe help you with an answer to that question try the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and see if you can find somebody to give you more help on that. (00:56:50) Our last listener question this noon for Kathy Heidel. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:56:55) I'm my question. Yes is about I turn down just as you were saying you could get this work woodworking for a while. I film I didn't hear where (00:57:03) from hits from the Department of Natural Resources in st. Paul go to your local phone book and find out what the DNR information number is and ask them to give you their Publications section and then you can get a free copy of woodworking for wildlife by just giving them your name and address and and having them send it (00:57:23) to you. Well Kathy, I think we're about ready to call a halt to the session has (00:57:28) been a really really busy day (00:57:30) certainly has there's one question that we didn't get that. I'm curious about and maybe you can take just a second to talk about it Halloween is just over and of course at Halloween. We have a lot of fun talking about vampire bats and other awful things out there what are bats really like the old myths and all accurate. (00:57:49) Well for the most part that mold myths are not accurate. First of all, we do not have vampire bats here in Minnesota vampire bats are found in South America and they are very innocuous bats. They primarily feed on cattle and native animals. They fight a little bit and let the blood flow and lap it up the bats we have here in Minnesota are insect eaters we have about I think about five species of bats to very common species the big brown bat and the little brown bat and right now they're in hibernation. They may be in hibernation. In an attic or they may be in hibernation in a cave or a mine or they may have migrated farther south where they would have better conditions. They are very beneficial animals. They are the greatest mosquito eaters. I know of and with all the problems we here in Minnesota have regarding Minister Minister mosquitoes. I think it's about time we start giving the bats a little bit of good press again. If you want to encourage bats as mosquito controllers in your neighborhood or in your yard, you can again call the Department of Natural Resources for that booklet woodworking for wildlife and you can build a bat house which you can put out in your yard. It really works. You can get bats in the bat house and it's better to have them in the bat house and it is to have them in your attic. (00:59:12) Yes. Indeed are in the Belfry is the you bet Kathy Heidel. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and fascination with nature with us today. You're welcome. Enjoy it Kathy works at the Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park Reserve. which is part of the Suburban Hennepin Regional Park District 17 minutes now past 12 o'clock and Mark high-status standing by now with more a weekend mark Good afternoon, everyone. This is Dan Olson with Sue winking Mark Heist at will be by a know about 15 minutes. He'll be talking about the 25th anniversary of the University of Minnesota immigration Research Center a very interesting institution and that he'll also be talking about Farm legislation as weekend edition continues right now. We're here to talk to you about membership in Minnesota Public Radio ksjn the news and information service of MPR 1330 on your am dial. So winking is with me to pass on to you some very interesting information bats in the Belfry loons mating. Maybe we should have as a premium for membership and NPR bat house. We don't have that but we have some other interesting things to tell you about this non-commercial listener supported service Susan Susan we have just at our fingertips. Here a matching Grant from IDs Financial Services Incorporated. So the formula here for success is for you to go to the telephone to call us at to nine eight their teen 30 298 13.