Well, that's what we call this kind of weather. You know, his Dog Days the indeed dog days and Kathy Heidel is with us today to tell us what wild animals and plants and birds and things of that sort are doing in the dog days. Why do we call him dog days? Anyway Kathy weather call the dog days because their name their name by the Ancients hundreds maybe thousands of years ago for the dog star Sirius which happens to rise during summer with the sun and sets with the Sun during the month of July and August and so it's not because the dogs flop on the sides and they pant heavily on these hot days. It's simply because it's name for the dog star, which is the brightest star in our Heavens in the northern hemisphere. So you can see that night. You can't see it right now. That's the problem that rises in touch with the son. And of course, it's tougher to see the stars. If you're right in the heart of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area than if you're out of a bit.Yeah, we do we get to it's getting a little bit more difficult as the suburbs build a little bit West but Michael and still comes out and does astronomy programs for us and he seems to think it's a pretty good place to be. We had a question such a very early spring this year. We had no winter to speak of it's true. And then we had a very early spring. We have had a hot summer. How does this number compared with yours past? I went to my phenological notes to check to see so I thought I was speaking from Marilyn's accurate data. And I find that we're still ahead of normal a normal year by about a month. We actually started that much earlier to Apples ripen about a month early this year some of the stinging insects like the Katydids a lady asked me the other day about katydid singing now katydid is a long greenish grasshopper that sings at night at 2 to go. Anyway, they started singing on the 9th of July weather start about the 9th of August. There's several other things that are ahead of normal to farmers are harvesting their crops ahead of normal at is everything right from the little bit better just to go Play some percentages corn development in the state 95% of its in the milk stage this year. Where is normal would be 48% So that's almost double that much of the same things true while they're out harvesting wheat and oats everything is all a little bit of head. There are some things though that haven't changed migrations of some of the birds are right on time. And I think it's because they're responsive today likes more than temperatures or available food or things like that. The oak trees drop their acorns a little bit earlier this year, but not significantly not as much as the crops had moved ahead of time and of course, so Some of the early signs of fall or right on time regardless of how advanced the the summer season is. I was going to ask you today. I don't know after last year. I mean my predictions last year. I was very nonchalant about saying all this will happen this and win but it kind of threw us a curve last year that year did and so I'm a little bit less ambitious about making big predictions. I don't know that we could have fall come a little earlier when to come a little earlier one of the things that's interesting. I think it's that feel pumpkins are are ripening there orange already and that may mean that we'll have to celebrate Halloween a month early folks little bit till later in the evening if you have a question for Kathy Heidel about what's going on in nature right now, you can call us. Telephone number is 227-6000 area to 276 thousand. In other parts of Minnesota are toll free number is one 800-652-9700 and finishing in one of the surrounding states. You can call us directly in the Twin Cities at area code 612-227-6000. Kathy is one of our most popular and frequent guests and a lot of you like to visit with her. So here is an opportunity for you today. I want to ask you something else though. I know you said you are seeing some early signs of fall, but I that I noticed that in the few places some of the younger maple trees are starting to show tinges of orange and red. Send some of the leaves and I think it's a response to fall rather than a response to the stresses of of the Season Butternut cir are ripening and starting to fall which is right on on Time Butternut leaves are also starting to turn yellow and I noticed that a few of the sumac plants along the roadsides where it hasn't been sprayed if it's been sprayed with an herbicide. They turn colors earlier in response to the herbicide but in some places where I know no spring has occurred some of the sumacs are already ready beginning to show their rent in their purpose. So it won't be long now. It's good happens and it's kind of neat. Some people are getting awfully sick of Summer already. Liberty won't be long. That's true by your first. This year they seem to be just terrible. We can't go on picnics or sit on her back porch or anything with we have any pop or sugar or anyting out there. They seem to be just converging like flies. What does that mean? Well this year if you recall we had a very very early spring and we had a winter that was very mild. So many of these bees that overwinter bumble bees and hornets and some of the Wasps the Queens are the only ones that overwinter and in a very severe winter many of them would die. I think there was very little mortality this past winter and so all of these has re-emerged from their hibernation and they started their their colonies whether they were above ground or in the ground the yellow jackets that come to your pop in your picnics live underground and they were nailed it is it just got along fine, but they all started their their life cycles a little earlier in response to the warmth. Temperatures and so there a month farther along in their life cycles and therefore they've had a month longer to produce more young that therefore gives us a higher population and in response to the time of that they've been active they are converting to their fall foraging patterns a month early also wasps and bees primarily go from feeding on Nectars and sugars and and pollin's with the proteins in the fall to feeding on was largely on carbohydrates and they're very attracted to garbage that has anything sweet in at the picnic foods particularly any sweet substances that you might drink or eat and they're just there with us. You're just going to have to be for very careful. Try not to have any quick movements around them. Try not to slap them and swap them away. It simply will trigger a defensive Behavior, especially on the part of the Yellow Jacket. Not terribly friendly Yellow Jackets aren't and they can sting repeatedly not like honey bees only sting once and then lose the Stinger. So my recommendation for you is to keep everything covered when I go on a picnic in the fall, I pour a little bit of pop and some shallow saucers and set them on the ground some distance from my picnic table and hopes that I can lower them away while I'm trying to eat without swallowing wasps. Nothing absolutely works. And if it really really panics you if you happen to be allergic to bees than my suggestion this year is to change your behavior either go inside of some kind of a screened in porch or maybe take your picnics inside. It's so terrible thing to say because I mean I work and in the outdoors and I want to encourage people to go Outdoors, but if it's dangerous to your health, then you have to change your behavior that they just don't do anything. While but I'm sure that in the broader scheme of things they do serve as food for somebody or they eat somebody that that needs to be taken care of some insects that would otherwise causes problems. What is their role or roll? I think the greatest role that we can applaud them for is as pollinators of many of our food crops Alfalfa, which many of our Farmers depend upon him and you wouldn't have hamburgers for wouldn't have some of those Clover crops which are pollinated by bees and wasps and you wouldn't have a lot of other plants almost all of your melon family plants are cucumbers and melons watermelons everything all pollinated primarily by bees and wasps and so their largest role is as pollinator and therefore are very beneficial to us. They also provide food for certain numbers of birds and other kinds of animals, but primarily as pollinators. And so I think we need to we need to look at them with a different point of view and say Sorry world. This would be if we didn't have them because we wouldn't have replacement pollinators. They're structured to somehow either they've evolved over time so that the Beast tongues and the bees face is the structure fits exactly the configuration of the flowers, they pollinate and if you wiped out that space is of be you wouldn't get those flowers pollinated and therefore they would be no fruit or seeds. Alright, here's another questioner. Go ahead. Please run with Kathy play Adam and we're wondering if it could be that will be giving these birds that badly unbalanced diet. I don't think you have to worry about that birds are are very wide-ranging feeders. They may be feeding at your your feet is quite heavily, but they are also going to satisfy their other needs by feeding on insects and other kinds of of materials pollen and so forth this time of the year just like the bees the Orioles are also building up reserves for either the winter for migration. And so a lot of that comes from feeding on carbohydrates and sugars, but they're also feeding on insects because I need that protein as well. And I don't think that you have to worry about doing them damage. They they are probably every bit as smart as we are may be smarter in and they're their physiology will cause them to feed on other things as well. Okay. Let's move on to your question then hello Cathy is listening. Hi. Advanced about a month of dance this year. Are they at the traffic conditions? normally, I think of We have our Seasons because of the Earth's Tilt it is. Well, I think if you go back and in the history of weather keeping the year of 1936 was very very much like this year except that in 1936. They had an awful lot of snow, whereas we did not this past winter, but summertime temperatures and 1936 were very high. The season was Advanced if you go back to 1887, I believe it is that was the year. Also when they had no winter it has occurred before in in recorded history and I rather doubt that it's because the Earth is has changed its position or we have I rather doubt that there's a response to any ozone depletion in the northern hemisphere that would could this could be related to I think it's it's It's probably a normal event. It's good thing. It doesn't happen all that often I guess but I don't know if there are any atmospheric things maybe in retrospect a hundred years from now. We look back we will say yes, there were maybe it was greenhouse effect. Maybe it was ozone depletion. Maybe it was a changing of the of the seasons and and the various hemispheres. But at this point in time, we don't know that somebody tomorrow another difference between now I remember hearing people talk about it. Is that only the movie houses were your condition back then in those days 25 minutes past the hour and you're on with Kathy. Hello. Hello there. Macon County we got up here for the summer in the last week of May and we had very little if anything is going right outside. We see lot of hummingbirds. We see a lot of other birds. I think what we're seeing this year because we had such a mild winter as I mentioned earlier. We've had and very large supply of insects lots and lots and lots of insects came out of the ground came out of their egg supply where in previous years, they might have suffered winterkill and there is a very very large food supply out. There. There also are a lot of flowers that are blooming early that are carrying nectar that are appealing to hummingbirds. I just thought I feel that there's enough in the natural Countryside for these animals to primarily be feeding on when we have our feeders out in our yards. We are simply supplemental a feeding their normal diets and if there's enough in the wild, they aren't going to come in We've got some more lines open now to 276 thousand is the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area number if you would like to ask Kathy Heidel something about what's happening in that you can give us a call to put you on the air with her to 276 thousand in the Twin Cities and then other parts of the state toll free one 800-652-9700. If your listing of all the surrounding states you can call us directly in the Twin Cities area code is 612. It'll be on your nickel not too bad on Saturday and tell Dorothy that you're calling long distance and she'll put you on right away your next go ahead, please. I'm coming from Medina. We have rain houses here around the place and every year we had them all occupied. But this year we didn't have one single and not in the Toronto area in Parks or any place. I heard any rain suit all day. This same observation has been made about several other species in the metro area. We've had people saying that this is true about Rose-breasted grosbeaks and little green green backed Heron. I don't know exactly what to lay this to. The only thing that comes to mind is that Ran Zan a number of other species that we've been talking about that were missing go to Central and South America for the winter and we know that the rainforest where these birds spend the winter is being cut down at an astronomical rate and with the loss of winter habitat, I would guess that probably great populations of wintering birds in Central and South America would probably die and I'm wondering if perhaps our local population your local population of rennes may have gotten wiped out and with no birds with a memory to come back to your area or the instinct to come back to Your area it would take a while for surrounding populations of rennes to move into the area. The other thing you might want to do is take a look at those rent houses and see whether or not they may be full of sticks. And or they may have insects Harvard in their clean them out and make them ready for the wren's next year and hopefully some will come in from surrounding areas and you'll you'll have Ren's again. Okay, it's your turn out. I asked Kathy. Hila question. Hello. Several observations, but I think that we should note the passing of Leon Snyder tremendous outdoor person, but the observation that I made it that the ringneck pheasants where I live across from the 70 Acres Park The Departed maybe two years ago and haven't returned. The second one is that we got a bumper crop of crab apples because of tremendous Bloom with the mild winter somebody harvested for pictures of their trip, which is unusual for a Minnesota plus the bronze and then some of the leaves on the paper birch in the front yard and always appreciate your comment. Thank you for calling I don't know why you're ringneck pheasants are gone from your area in Edina. Maybe the local populations us like the wren's with the previous caller mentioned. May you make mocha population may have been dispersed. I was talking with a hunter yesterday who is a pheasant Hunter and he says all this is how about a bumper year for pheasants in the seven or eight County Metro area and I have to say that in Carver Park Reserve where I regularly work. We are seeing more festive than I've seen in 10 years. The mild winter was good to pheasants. And if you have the habitat for pheasants, you probably will have them but habitat loss will also mean loss of pheasants. They they are like the grassy partially shrubby areas and will be found in some of them are just now in Edina you had a lot of rain this year and if there were any there they may have gotten flooded because they would be in some of those those marshy areas. Yes to the bronzing of The Birches. I have looked at The Birches and I I I think the bronzing of the leaves is somewhat of a normal occurrence, but I also believe that are Birch is this year were very very heavily stressed burges are shallowly rooted trees and they are generally very dependent upon a regular water supply. We have dropped this year early in the growing season when The Birches were leaving out and I think that the birches are showing showing stress and the bronzing of the of the leaves and the yellowing of the leave this early in the season may be a manifestation of that stress and you may want to take a look at those Birches next year and see if you if they're coming through I know last year in my neighborhood. One of The Birches bronzed up really early this year. It's dead. We had that huge amount of rain in the 10 inches of rain in July that was primarily concentrated in the in several Minneapolis-Saint Paul Area Counties, but are you aware of any particular problems that is caused to wildlife of any sort. I don't know if it's caused problems. Most of those animals that were mobile could could move away from it. Unless they were caught in the flood but most of the animals are fairly mobile one of the things I noticed that my home I have a pain that normally has water in it than this year. It's a dried-up for the first time in the history of the city that to anybody can remember maybe it was dry in the thirties, but nobody there remembers that anyway, I'm as soon as we had the rain the frogs began croaking him getting active in the raccoons change their feeding habits from scrounging around garbage cans to actually going out and hunting the edges of that watery pond. So I think it probably was good for while I more than it was damaging to them 20 minutes before 12 your next Kathy's listening. Hello. There's going to be an extremely bad one as a result of Oaxaca. I heard you say something about the acorns dropping. We're dropping early. I heard somebody say they were what is there any truth to that dude? You expect this winter to be a real nasty one, or is it just what kind of projectors are there for that sort of thing. I know you were you said you were reluctant to go out on a limb with predictions but here's a listener who demands it so hard he'll respond to that what we're seeing all this early-season and the tremendous fruit and nut seed crop is all a response to last winter. I'm seeing what trucks have fattening up and I'm seeing insects coming into their fall Behavior early. They are not predictors. We play way too much credibility with the wildlife in terms of predicting the next season, they're responding to this the present conditions and I don't believe If that there's anything that I noticed in nature in my work that is going to predict what this weather is winter is going to be I would go with a meteorologist and with Bruce Watson's records of of past winters and and the gulf with averages and then look at moisture and and those Trends in the upper atmosphere and then make make a prediction on the winner. And right now I'm not cognizant enough or smart enough for some of those things to make a prediction. We could we could get another snow last winter. We could have a Whopper of a of a snowy winter. So I don't know which way to swing at this moment. Today's guest is Kathy Heidel. She was a naturalist with Hennepin Park she work specifically at Carver Park, which is west of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. Where Kathy for those who might like to take a trip out there sometime. I park lies between State Highway 5 and State Highway 7, and it's approximately 8 528 miles west of Excelsior and it lies just west of Chanhassen most of it lies within some part of the city of Victoria. It's about 30 miles Southwest of downtown Minneapolis, and I hear father from downtown st. Paul, but you can't get there from downtown Saint Paul. You don't have to take your sleeping bag of done it myself for our recordings on remote. Here's our next question or go ahead, please. I do it myself. Fiat can you describe the shape of the sickness that you're speaking of? Is it underground or is it above ground looks like okay. That's not a yellow jacket Nest that's a bald-faced hornet nest, especially if it's if it's sort of in clothes and there's a small hole in the bottom is that the case is in the holes on the side on the side? Okay, that is a bald-faced hornet nest and they go into the nest at night. And if you're going to want that come down now then that would be the time to take it down. You might be able to spray it all over with some sort of a insect killer rather than just a repellent and then you could you could dispatch a butt that way if you are not being bothered by these insects greatly you could wait them out because I only live for the summer early fall season and I went the first killing Frost or even before if we don't have a killing Frost they go into a a. Of what we call senescence. Basically they get old aged and they die. The only one that survives is the queen and she will crawl out before it gets really cold weather and go and overwinter underneath us some tree bark or inside a hollow log, but all the rest of those yellow jackets are those. Cornett will die and as the days get colder they can no longer sustain flight. They just get too cold to fly. So if you can wait them out if they're not bothering you they're not going to try to come into your house and not going to overwinter in there and they will face Hornets really aren't too much of a bother to human beings cuz they can sting repeatedly or more like these are they lose their stinger how they can sting repeatedly almost all of our native wasps and bees can sting repeatedly honey. Bees are rather unusual and they're not natives either that came from Europe. But in any case the bald-faced hornets feed almost entirely on flowers and their feet on the fall Asters and Goldenrod primarily Gathering Paul and among other things that pollen and nectar, but they they are easily aroused not as easily as yellow jackets. So you're swatting away at the more you try to disturb The Hive disturbing The Hive is probably most dangerous thing you could do one and that's why I say at night if you really want to get away right now, you might want to consider getting somebody who maybe has had a little experience with that kind of time the people from the dial you plant an insect clinic on and they are very helpful in dealing with these answer problems and you can get ahold of them probably through calling somebody at the University of Minnesota and they're very hopeful your next. Go ahead, please. What's your question for Kathy Idol? And the appear to be feeding on the apples and I also have some crows at seem to want to nest in that tree. And my question is are the crows opening up these apples on the bees are feeding on it or the bees are opening up these headphones themselves. And is there any way to prevent it because right now the bees are so bad that you can't even go back and can pick the apples. The doubt that the crows will be opening the apples. My guess is that the crows might actually be using the the tree for a roosting spots because their past the nesting season right now crows primarily feet on animal matter and seeds very often. They do not attack Fruit at all, but the bees are capable of eroding the surface of the apple and getting to the Sweet in Hope of the Apple. They have very interesting mandibles is what we call the the mouthparts of the bee and they are sort of corrosive. They're they're rough and they can literally scrape away at the the peel of the apple and get to the inside. It may also be that maybe you have some apples in there that may have been opened up in a windstorm that smell is definitely there and they may actually be responding to the smell. I really don't I've never run into a report of something like this before and I really don't know how you how you beat those insects to Get those apples harvested short of putting on very protective clothing such as beekeepers. Where were the head nut and covering up your your skin tan your pant leg shut so that you can't get them up your sleeves or or up your legs and then wearing gloves to pick those apples you can do it, but it's going to require that you're going to have to cover yourself Mandeville Parts Honda Joe Niekro, maybe make you so much. It's like sandpaper the next Call Kathy we had a bath in the house here few days ago and it caused quite a bit of Hysteria little bit of quick questions. When do they carry rabies to how can I exist on insects are there that suits me they have to eat enough lot of mosquitoes to get anything out of it and 3. Is there anything you can do to encourage bats like a build a bat house outside the house or what the bats like but how could you do it so that they wouldn't be in the house. That was a really interesting questions. Let me take them in order as to whether or not bats can carry rabies. Yes, they can but very few of them. Do there are fewer bats that check carry rabies or come down with rabies in there are dogs that get rabies or cats that could rabies so I don't think we really have to worry about that unless you make a habit of handling back. Students of bat behavior in people who actually banned bats and and lock them. I have to be a little bit more careful about that. But you as a homeowner with one bat in your house don't really have to worry about it because of the bad isn't going to come in and bite you they're not vampires the second question that you asked how can they possibly exist on insects insects are high in protein and of course high in fats and so forth and I just literally feed almost all night. They're very very efficient hunters and yes a little brown bat can subsist on mosquito. So thank goodness. They do because otherwise would have a whole lot more around one of the concerns in this country about that populations. We are losing bat populations and various Geographic areas in in large proportion sent scientist or rather concerned about this loss of bats because again bats are good insect controllers and and they all So in some cases far as the South anyway are pollinators of some of our important fruits down in the in the tropical areas. But in any case we think that bats are are suffering because of our indiscriminate use of herbicides and pesticides and that's a very important part of the whole ecosystem might hate to lose them and the three question you asked regarding how you can encourage bats to be in your area. But outside of your house, you can do two things one you can When the bats are out of the house preferably after they've gone out for the evening close up all the possible places where they could get into your house check underneath your roof and check around where you might have louvers that maybe I have a screening loose and any little space that's a half inch away from the house even underneath the siding the bad can get under something even that narrow. The other thing you can do is build a bat house and there are plans available to you for building that houses. You can the easiest place I can think of right now to get that information is to contact the Department of Natural Resources. They had don't know if they still have them available or not, but they have had a booklet called woodworking for wildlife and there are our plans and therefore building bat houses if you want to attract a little larger bat than I was Suggest you might want to consider expanding the size of the house just a little bit at seems to me for this Northern climate where we have very cold Winters that may be that bad house size is just a teeny bit small, but I would go with the plans first just to see how they work out how many species of bats do we have in think it's somewhere around 7 that I am now off the top of my head I could be wrong and that it could be as high as fifteen. There's a very good book called the mammals. I think it's a Minnesota mammals that describes all of the bats that we have and I think it's somewhere around 7 the big brown bat and the little brown bat are our two most common that some of the ones that you mostly see flying around in your yard that night but there are a number of bats that are migratory that I overwinter farther south from here. Some of them during the time that they're here with us on this summer are considered tree bats and actually go into sick trees and Bruce during the day in in the trees under the leaves or some of them actually go into Hollow logs. All right, we have about 15 minutes left with Kathy Heidel. So let's move on if we can I call Kathy. Yes. I was a teenager in South Dakota during the thirties and winter 35 was very cold in the summer or 36 is very hot and also dry but just wondered is too and I've heard some talk about degree days. Does the temperature started average out? I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Degree Days at something that's used more by meteorologists and that's not a real strong area of mine. But I would guess that the temperature's do averaged out over time. You know what you should listen next week because Jim Campbell the new Man In Charge out at the Twin Cities office. The national weather service will be in here at this time next weekend. So you can put all kinds of weather and climate and other sorts of related questions to him next week. We'll move on to your question about nature for Kathy. I don't know their Hello. I have a bird feeder stuck on the window of my apartment and get a lot of blue jays. And this is the second year I've noticed but they're kind of bald. I'm assuming that that's a molting situation and wondering if you could describe what happens if they lose all their feathers at once or is going on there Creston head feathers the adult feathers or the old feathers fall out in the new ones will be coming in but you should be seeing if they're in molt. You should be seeing a new feathers that look like a little little pin feathers coming in and sort of a whitish gray color. If you're truly seeing all kinds of skin with no feathers on it had all then we're not looking at molt. We're looking at feather loss and that could be due to a variety of reasons could be due to enter intra-group competition or some sort of supposed to fight. You know, what you think about it? Where they might be picked a lot. I know it seems unusual. It could be due to some kind of a bacterial disease that might be affecting the feather follicles. I'm I'm I'm just not sure I guess a question like that might be one you would direct at somebody at the University because they might be more into bird physiology and bird diseases and maybe even someone who rears birds in the home or in the pet shops might have a little bit better handle on what the reason is for this baldness. I have noticed it too and several species of birds, but I'm not absolutely sure what causes it. 12 minutes before noon Kathy Heidel is with us. She is senior naturalist it with a Hennepin Parks working out at Carver Park, and we will take some more folks with questions here including you. Go ahead please. Hi. I am in the Minneapolis area in a wooded area near the lakes and feed the raccoon and this summer. I've noticed there are hardly any compared to what I've had in the previous few Summers. Could you make a comment on that? Thank you. Well, most people in the metro area have have refrained from feeding raccoons. I think because the raccoons have gotten so much bad, press in the last few years. The population of raccoon has been very very high for the last number of years. And usually what happens in nature when you get an overpopulation of something like that, is that a natural control in the form of disease sets and and that would be perhaps what might have happened to that population it usually if you have food out for them. They're going to come if they're in the area. Well, let's talk about the other thing that I viewed as pests now the geese when are the geese going to start flying there flying already a little bit earlier than normal that and of course geese Nest it a little bit earlier than they normally do. So they're probably had by about two weeks in their flight pattern, but they're definitely flying around. I don't think that the geese are Migrating yet in the metro area. I think what we're seeing is a lot of just flying around from one area to another getting to know each other and finding places to feed and am I great places to go to see loons migration begins around the end of August and extends until about the first part of December with the peak. In Minnesota during the month of October one of the places that you can go to see loons and numbers actually are two places. If you want to see adult loons, most of the adults are many of the adult Moon's going north before they actually fly south to go North to Lake Superior and the young looms of the Year generally don't migrate North to Lake Superior. They will congregate on interior Lakes of a larger size and the lake where you can go to see a really spectacular Congregation of loons is Milacs like black. Sometimes you can get How many is 200 to a thousand words together out on Lake Milacs all yodeling and being Looney and that those are primarily juveniles and maybe it's important that they meet other ones. We don't know a lot about the biology or the or the behavior of loons. Maybe that's a. When they look over possibilities of Liaisons down the line. I'm just not sure you have a rough time frame when you might be able to see that display up there at the Lacs. What I would do is probably keep in touch with the with local birdwatchers who might have a little bit handle that we here in the in the metro area in in the birding group have several phone numbers that we can call with different people who keep kind of a finger on the pulse of bird movements in when the birds when the Loon start gathering on Milacs the word spreads pretty pretty rapidly. The other thing is you Can keep in touch with the somebody who's up there in the blacks area maybe at the state parks up there or something like that to get a feeling for when they gather. It usually is sometime in in October. All right, we'll move on to some more folks with questions about nature for Kathy Heidel today. Hi there you're on with your now. problem and I'd like to state that the honey bees do not open Fruit. They are attracted by fruit that has already been opened by damage or other Berger or such and they do get to be a problem when they are attracted at this time of year. They are not dangerous. There's no need to tie pant legs or put on Devil's to pick up the food because they will not attack. There is a danger that you might pick one up accidentally and get stung but merely by walking right in and picking up the food shaking the bees off you can be done by Safeway. Thank you very much. The caller who I had that question may have been talkin about other kinds of insects that we that we commonly think of his bees, but they might really be wasps or yellow jackets Hornets or something like that. I know that folks who really know about these make a big distinction between all those but a lot of us, you know, like a duck and so on are all right. We're moving out of your question, please hello there. Hello. Thanks. I wonder if Kathy my talk a little more about what bird species of a, Minnesota. Do go south and are in Jeopardy from loss of rainforests and maybe a little bit about the landscaping for wildlife, which I know Kathy is doing. Okay, let's see what I can do about the spaces that go south hummingbirds go south to Central America and Central American forests are coming down at it just a tremendous rate bobolinks from our our field go down to Brazil and Argentina primarily into the to the grassy Fields down there, but they're also cultivating those putting them on to the plow at a rapid rate. They're phasing out there prairies there as well of lot of her or insect eating birds. Most of our warblers go to the Caribbean islands Central America and South America into the Northern parts of South America. Let's see Orioles and and See if I can just off the top of my head think of some others. But anyway. I'm not doing too well on my instant recall. I think if you if you look at a good bird book like oh Rodger Tory Peterson Field Guide to the birds or all the National Geographic bird identification books. They will show the range of The Byrds. I'll tell which ones don't stay here during the winter and you can also get information. If you have specific species that you are interested in finding out about you can contact the US fish and wildlife service bird migratory migratory bird population Center in Washington DC and they can give you a specific information as to where some of these Birds go exactly as far as landscaping for wildlife. Yes. I've been For several years now trying to create a yard that's going to be attractive to Wildlife and I've discovered that multiple height plants are good thing to go with I also have been trying to plant things that are good fruit producers or have attractive flowers with lots of nectar. If you are interested in doing landscaping for wildlife, I think that you should contact the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources the non-game division, which is headed by Carol. Henderson is engaged at the moment in probably just about ready to pull it off the presses if it hasn't already come off a new book called landscaping for wildlife. It will not be very expensive. I think it will probably a be under $10 and it will be just it's going to be just chock-full of the kind of information that you will need to landscape on Northern yard for wildlife including how to plant a hummingbird Garden. We got two more people with questions. Probably more question, isn't we have time but let's fit in as many as we can handle your next. I used to be a beekeeper several years ago and I gave it up because the weed inspectors in the laws of our communities cause these weeds but they call weeds which was the Sweet Clover and everything they cut down and that was the end of the 4-H for my bees as well as a habitat for are ringneck pheasants, but my question is across the street and we have a ash tree with a large paper wasp nest in it, and they're huge black wasp. It looks right out of us, but it seems to me that just because they look bad. It shouldn't have to be destroyed and I'd like to know if you could comment on whether that should come down or whether it should be left alone. I think we talked about that a little earlier in the broadcast if it's a rather blah Bueller shaped nest and that's not open on the bottom. It's probably the nest of a Bald Faced Hornet just leave it there. They will be dead by the end of October end of September most likely. All right. We have another caller with a question. Hello there you're on. Animals might like to know Kathy's opinion on that. I guess I think I mentioned that earlier. I think it's a response to the present conditions. And also if this is the time of the year when fur-bearing animals are getting their new coats, and if you have a cold or weather cold at night, so I would guess that the fur coat would get a little thicker earlier in the season so far. We are not seeing that sort of thing and I've been watching raccoons particularly and I should have raccoons getting a new car but I don't see it being any sicker than than I would normally see you in another year and I've been watching them for 10 years and I think they're just doing what's natural gas. You let me throw a couple of mosquitoes questions at you. We didn't get any today kind of surprising who stings you the male and female female or males. I'll get a lot of bad press the half of the mosquito population is the owner of the conference. The other than males are pollinators and they pollinate a lot of flowers the female locates you only once in her life When she is sexually mature and ready to actually do eggs, and she has to have a meal of blood from a warm-blooded animal to produce eggs. So she comes in a few homes on You by sensing the carbon dioxide that you give off when you breathe and your body temperature and which ones are the ones that Well, I'm not sure I I think the females probably that is a high-frequency how much probably is helping them to locate their their blood me up. I don't know but what I would think they'll probably home a little too just because they fly. Well, can I see it's been fascinating as always to hear what you have to say about all these things Kathy Heidel comes in three or four times a year to answer questions about what is happening in nature at the time. She is a naturalist with hanafan Park. She works out at Carver Park and you might want to take a trip out there sometime and visit with her and see all the things that the right to see their Weekend is made possible by Ecolab Incorporated providing products and services for household institutional and Industrial Cleaning worldwide. This is Bob Potter speaking.