Amaya Potter, that's the latest news. All right, thank you Chris. And I think it's also specify those temperatures you talking about above zero for a change above zero second. They were having readings above zero feels absolutely balmy outside. Sure. I've been a lot of folks complaining about the Arctic temperatures of the past weekend. I wouldn't be surprised it in their own way some birds and animals were doing a little grousing of their own Studio gas today can tell us what's going on in nature during the dead of winter here and how the animals are coping Kathy Heidel the naturalist at Lowry nature center part of the Hennepin Park system Kathy, welcome nice to see you again, but nice to be back is indeed. Well, it sure is the dead of winter Now, isn't it? That's a lot of people say I was just thinking about that the other day not everything is dead. There's a lot of things that are just kind of sitting there waiting for a 20 degree to to a kind of get a Rejuvenation on Lifan and there's some things that went on just as ever like every morning my Cardinal would get up and sing even thoughWhat might have been 30 below or 20 below and so it's already proclaiming spring and the owls are out hooting they're going through their pair bonding behavior in the evening when it's cold and you know what the plants are are getting along and underneath the snow where it's just a little bit below freezing. The mice are screwing around in the shrews are chasing the mice and eating dead insects if they can find any in coming up to your bird feeders and tunneling around in the snow to get the cast off bridge scene. I saw my rabbit last night the wild rabbit. It was underneath my bird feeder hit came out every day during the cold. I think that some animals if it was windy or if it was really really cold early in the morning might just not have moved around as much conserve energy when it was really critical and then got out during the day when it may be warmed up a few degrees or the wind dropped during a. Of time. So is things are adapted and for the most part most things.Pretty well. Well, that's interesting. It sounds like really they take it just pretty much as a matter, of course about the birds. Feeders when we get the bird feed out and that would be one thing I would suggest that you put your bird feed out in the evening. So that birds have something to eat in the morning. They go into very interesting places. You talked about birds grousing around while the grass gone to the snow and it's quite cozy down there because it's like putting a great big warm blanket over you number of other birds also go down into the snow during the evening and that winter without snow if it's really cold as tough on them, but a winter with snow is great. Some birds go into the evergreen trees like crows sneak into those thick evergreen trees at night. And so do owls during the day so they find the Cozy places. If I remember right from the early morning one day last week of Morning Edition. You told me that birds were getting up in the middle of the night and trying to go find something to eat so they could make it through the next day that depends upon what species have got owls will be going out hunting at night and get them. Finish rooms that are coming out seed eating birds probably not because they wouldn't be able to see where the seed was. But any of those night hunting Raptors might might do that and we've got a lot of owls that are apt active right now some of the birds Mary interesting least or fat they eat a lot during the day. It's immediately converted into fat which is stored right underneath the skin where the wishbone is. There's a little Groove there in the throat if you've ever eaten or bought a whole chicken in the store, you might see where that Wishbone is. That's for some of the bird store the fat and they metabolize that fat during the night they may arouse and they made metabolize. Some of that fat that actually gives them energy other ones like chickadees just dropped their body temperatures. They drop their body temperatures, like maybe 10 or 12 degrees from a normal 104 down to about 90 and they literally hibernate Kathy heit Elizabeth's today. If you have a question about what's going on in the world of nature this late January, or certainly welcome to give us a call. The phone number in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area is 227-6002 276 thousand toll-free 1-800 to 4 to 2828 anywhere you can hear a spirit in the surrounding states of the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin outside Minneapolis st. Paul with in Minnesota or wherever one 800-242-2828 do any birds ever decide to fly south at this time of year. There are number of rats when they can't find food in the place where they normally live they begin to drift Southward. There are few species of birds that don't seem to have a good sense of direction and they just seem to go wherever the wind blows them. We get a number of those birds showing up in minutes. What are sometimes from the West on the other hand some of the people in the central part of the state have been seeing snowy owls this winter? There's been an incredible Southward drift of snowy owls from the Arctic. Apparently, there isn't enough food way up there on the tundra. So they're coming here to Minnesota and I suspect a lot of them aren't going to make it back because there isn't much food either. I noticed that are red tail hawks and have been hanging around as early as late as Christmastime seem to have quite a few of them moved on out and they simply go as far south as I would suspect that a lot of them go maybe as far as Iowa. We had a couple of trumpeter swans that lived in Carver Park Reserve all last summer and when are lakes froze up they went over to Grays Bay on Lake Minnetonka and until that froze up just around New Year's time and I think it was last week we discovered that they had migrated during the really cold time to Iowa and Iowa is doing the reintroduction project on trumpeter swans that got a couple of Small refuges down here Des Moines where they've opened water. And that's where I worked when I saw one day this past week. Oh, I don't know what they were. They kind of look like him. I live in Canada geese but they could have been ducks. That could have been anything really, but they were flying in that typical v formation and I want to run the world. They could have been going the twins below the power Dam in Bloomington and that so wherever there's Open Water these birds will hang around then they go out during the day and they feed in the farmer's field on scattered grain and stuff like that on the line with questions Kathy. Let's get to do Scholar's you betcha. Okay, you are first where you calling from this morning? Yes, and what's your question that we have in our area in the small urban area in The Last 5 Years answer? Now they just seem to be coming back. That was wondering if this is a trend that is really a decrease in the number of births a year at correct in your observations. Every year the Audubon Society sponsors major bird count across North America called the Audubon Christmas bird count for 2 weeks before one week before one week after Christmas and we have noticed over the last 5 years in almost all of the midwestern counts that the numbers of birds are decreasing that is a numbers of birds in a population where you might used to see maybe two thousand crores. We might only have seen 600 this year. The number of species do not appear to be decreasing. We still get representatives from all those different species, but the individuals are decreasing and I would guess that that is mostly a reflection of the change and loss of habitat are some species being more adversely affected than others. Oh, yes. There are some space. Birds that have to Nest here during the summer time in forest and we're cutting our forests up into smaller and smaller pieces some things like or Scarlet tanagers or Wood Thrush is there aren't as many of those as there used to be on the other hand when you cut up the forest and you make a lot of little lumps Fringewood lot to get a lot of blue jays coming in Blue Jays crows cowbirds. They're all increasing a number. So they they definitely are able to adapt their incredible animals real in a lot of people aren't real crazy about those pearls and blue jays. Crazy about us either a national park system 15 minutes past 11 and if you have a question for we've got some phone lines open the still at Minnesota Public Radio the number in the Twin Cities is227 6000 outside the Twin Cities area toll free +221-800-242-2828 if you're curious about what is happening in nature this time of year. All right. Thank you for waiting your next hello to your backyard in the winter. Cardinals are very very fond of sunflower seeds and you can get two kinds of sunflower seeds a big black and white striped ones or you can get the smaller ones that they called Oilers that are little heavier in oil content and they seem to prefer as far as I can tell either either one wifey toilers because they're little cheaper and their little bit higher in fat content. They also eat safflower seeds, which you can also get there very hard seeds. Most other birds cannot crack them and their little more expensive they do like Ragweed but most of us don't go Ragweed because a lot of people get hay fever from that but that is one of their natural favorite foods, which they find down in the river flood Plains section. If you start feeding the birds and you get to a really nasty cold snap, like last week is no fun to go out there and put that bird seed up but to the birds get dependent on you for it. Population of birds in a given area a little bit that is they would be somewhat dependent. If you are the only person feeding was in need of a square mile or two or three square miles then I would guess maybe it might be a little more critical but most people are feeding Birds now, especially in urban areas. And so, you know, if you just don't get your feet or failed you can almost bet on a neighbor within a mile or two having bird seed out. So it really doesn't seem to be that critical birds don't. Depend on our bird feeders for all of their food perhaps up to 25% of their food might be gathered at bird feeding stations at least 75 or more percent is gathered from Natural Foods in nature. Wabasha wondered if you have any ideas about how we can encourage them to more useful and them less destructive have it. That's a really really hard question to deal with because woodpeckers basically have learned that they're often times our insect larvae and insect eggs harbored in that cedar siding. I guess the best way to deal with it, but to the beach side your house with some other kind of siding there are several products that you could try they aren't a hundred percent foolproof, and I guess you'd have to look around one of them is called bird scare tape or Goose tape or it's a Mylar tape that comes in rolls that is red and one side and silver on the other and you just attach it over the side of the House in a few places so that it kind of move back and forth in the wind and that that sometimes keeps them from coming in and doing that. You can also get mylar big eye birds owl faces that you can put on the side of your house which tend to sometimes deter woodpeckers from coming in what I've done with my houses have gone out and I've gotten some caulking compound which is the same color as my house siding and I talked the whole every time I find a hole anywhere I just cook it shut the woodpecker's have extraordinary good eyesight. What they're looking for has little holes that look like an insect had drilled a little spot in the movie laid an egg or in their put spiders in there and then they just Show the whole a little bit larger stick in their little tongues and if they hit Pay Dirt, they keep chiseling right along that line until they no longer hit any paydirt. So the thing to do is to get those holes obliterated 19 minutes after 11 Kathy Heidel naturalist is with us on Minnesota Public Radio today, and it's your turn to put a question to her. Hi bird bath out in the yard this winter going to provide drinking water. And it's been a very effective one. That's kept the water liquid even through all these Sub-Zero temperatures, but I really been surprised at the number of birds that is bathed in it. Yeah, then don't you kind of wonder if they freeze after that? I would think so. I have some direct evidence to that. I was talking with Joan Kali the other day. She works with the Department of Natural Resources, and she relay. The bill Longley told her he had a birdbath. I heated bird bath in his yard and he had covered most of it so that it was not to encourage Birds to bathe but just a drink and he found he watched the Starling bathe in the water when it was 16 or so below zero and 15 minutes later. So that bird had died and he went out and they looked at least I think two or three more starlings that had died. I have also observed that primarily with star like they love to bathe and they don't seem to have a history of understanding acquainted with really cold weather. They had not evolved in real cold climate anyway and install it when the feathers really get wet and I can't shed that water fast enough to freeze and then they become hypothermic and I most of our native species don't appear to do that. But maybe that's a starling control never thought about that. What about the the premise of this that you need to provide some sort of water for the birds to drink? I should think until you know, what kind of drinks each snow on level of water content because most of our snow has come in below zero temperatures and so they would have to eat an awful lot of snow to get the adequate moisture and that's no of course drops their body temperatures dramatically. So if you put heated water a liquid water out today welcomed that and that does help them to keep them hydrated. I think the yard that has a heated bird bath or has liquid water for Birds during really cold weather will probably get twice as many birds in the yard as they would without it. Kathy Heil is listening for you now. Hello. Yes, hello established a roll of a bluebird houses last ball and I'm just wondering if there's anything else I need to do to encourage them to use them or out of an addition of what what time of the year do they arrived here in the metropolitan area. I usually expect to see Bluebird somewhere around the 15th of March to the first part of April though usually arrive and they'll start checking out available cavities for nesting and they check out bluebird houses. They seem to know what they are. So I would have my house is up and ready to go by that time if the house was used last year and it wasn't cleaned out or if it harbored mice over the winter. You may want to clean some of that debris out of the boxes and make them spic and span and clean for the birds. However, if they really want the Box still clean it out and they'll use it in their own way. What's Cathy idle, but she can answer all kinds of other nature related questions to let me post something on a different topic give you measure the thickness of the ice out there at Carver Park yet. Did we measure the thickness of the ice just up before Christmas and we had 5 in and then we were we measure the thickness of the ice. I think it was about a week and a half ago and we had about think it was about 12 in so it hasn't made ice as rapidly with this cold weather as it did earlier in December and of course, I was a fairly good insulator and it just freezes more slowly and Ice freezes on the underside not on the top side of the lake unless you get snowed in to get a slushie day. Like maybe tomorrow will be and then some of that will freeze. So the ice is certainly safe enough to drive on safe enough to walk on. How are the fish doing is it you can tell from what I hear from my Provisur Rodger Stein who is a great fisherman out at Lowry Nature Center where he works he fishes in the Lake Minnetonka area needs his fishing spend lousy all over that just aren't finding fish. He's going out again today to see if he can change that at all changes. Unlock Baby any reason why it would be all it was lousy last summer. It was lousy last spring. It's been lousy for a couple of years and he feels that the Espada was very poor last spring. So we just don't have a population may be like the birds though. The fish population is beginning to drop to and nobody knows for certain why we have more folks with questions for her. Let's take you next. Hello. I don't have a question, but I wanted to respond to the heated bird bath and the birds dying because they're getting into the water. We had we have two bird baths that are heated and One of them the starlings those bathing and I haven't seen them do that in the winter and I happened to be looking out the window and saw this bird sitting in the snow and in the in the evening or late evening, and I thought something was wrong by the time I got out there he had spread his wings out and he looked absolutely Frozen. But when I went out, I had grabbed my cat carrier some flannel and I picked the bird up putting them in the cat carrier and our cats don't go out by the way ever and but I I set him on a heat pad with a towel under so that it wouldn't get too hot for the carrier and I got my hair dryer out and I started to blow warm air in this bird won't be when the ice melt he crunched when I picked him up that sell Frozen he was He started to respond, but he was sopping wet and I kept blowing on that bird for a long time. And then when he seemed to be dry enough in his little eyes were open. I put him in the bathroom close the door. So the cats couldn't visit and left him in there overnight and by morning, he was up. He was standing ready to go. I took him out and the other birds of his kind would be there and I thought the carrier down open the door and he took off straight up in the sky and we had one more incident when another one did that and I did the same thing only he wasn't as wet. I know I have to do something with these these birdbath so that they can't get down in there and I haven't resolved that but I thought it might be of interest to some of the others and those birds may not really be dead. If you could get to them soon enough about one thing that I was hoping I could bring up today and that was first aid for Birds one thing my thoughts about the bird bath her if you could get Under mesh wire like you could get a hardware cloth that might be a half inch square and you can put that over the bird baths and keep the water level up enough that they could reach through the the message screen and still get the water that would preclude them getting into the water the other thing that your dad about picking the bird up bringing it in drying it off and holding it overnight is exactly what I would suggest that people do if you find a bird that seems to be lethargic it may be that it's just simply gotten hypothermic put it in the cardboard box and maybe a little bit of tissue on the bottom and just close the Box up and put it in a safe place overnight and let it go the next morning. It's about 27 and 1/2 minutes after 11 you listening to Kathy Heidel here on Minnesota Public Radio. And the phone number for those of you in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area with a question about what's happening in nature now to 276 thousand. We do have a couple lines available and outside the Twin Cities area. It's toll-free 1-800 to 4 to 2828 anywhere you are listening. Thank you for waiting your next tire. Hello my questions about turtles in hibernation during the winter. Is it possible for turtles? to be moving around in the sort of weather Oh, yes it is because the temperature under the eyes if you get down to the bottom of a lake or a pond or river is around 38 or 39 degrees and snapping turtles, particularly. Can I still move around in that kind of temperature? What they do under the ice is they basically metabolize oxygen out of the water through their skins. And so they don't breathe oxygen through their lungs. They basically absorb it through their skins right into their capillaries something awful lot. Like fish do painted turtles usually hang out where there's either inflow or outflow into a pond or lake they need a little more oxygen and so they hang out where the water is just moving a little bit. If you get an oxygen depletion, of course, they'll die just as fish to Young painted turtles and young snapping turtles that hatched out last fall may still be in the ground. They have the ability to very first season of their lives to freeze solid in their underground nests and then go through the winter Frozen and then when it thaws out in April and May they crawl out of the nest to go to the nearest Pond and and I do just fine. It's frozen solid. That's right. Their hearts are frozen and everything. Let's move out of your question. No. Hello. the Big Island Area for roughly a week and he was alone and we were just wondering if that was a a common occurrence and maybe where he came from I'll hang up and listen. Thank you. I'm I guess it's not a common current Tyler about not very far from that area on Lake Minnetonka and I think we probably have everybody keeping their kids in all the time. If they thought there was really a big dangerous wolf around if it was really calm and my guess is that it might have been perhaps a wolfdog cross. We do have sometimes seen that I had a dog that look like a wolf everybody thought it was a wolf but it really was a dog. So be reminded that Siberian Husky or Alaskan Malamute or mixes of those species can look very wolf-like because they have wolf ancestors and Why won't my dog disappeared a few years ago? Maybe he was out there. Who knows I would very much doubt that it would have been a wild wolf in the Lake Minnetonka area more likely some domestic mix if you were up along the shore of Lake Superior, however, or out on the Isle Royale sometimes when the water freezes between the mainland and the island the Wolves can go back and forth and I have seen wild Timberwolves on the ice up there. We also have Timberwolves in the area up north of Pine City in the in the Maji State Forest area south of Duluth, but north of the metro area. So there's some pretty wild country but the Lake Minnetonka area really isn't wild enough for a wild wolf. It just isn't enough space and I would guess that if it was there it sure wasn't going to hang around Long what kind of wild animals might you get. In an urban area like that. Could you see Fox deer with gray foxes and red foxes have adapted to being around people. Sometimes you may even have a an erratic moose move in if they get to the brain screwworm that they pick up from whitetail deer at sometimes it go a little crazy and you'll have years when you seem to just keep migrating individual animals South what I think they had one down in Des Moines Iowa some years back. They don't make it back because they're deathly ill occasionally. There will be wolves to that move a little farther south if they're outcasts from a particular pack of wolves, but usually not into a metro area. We sometimes see black bears coming into a metropolitan area like Duluth or Superior the northern Mary Northern suburbs up in the Blaine and farther north area of st. Paul. Minneapolis might occasionally get a bear coming into the Carlos Avery game Refuge, but otherwise, I would guess not any farther into the city's about 20 minutes before 12. You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. The lines are full right now with questions for Kathy. I also let us move along to these collars. Thanks for waiting your next she has expertise on many of these animals and birds. We have a grey squirrel that's been gone for a couple of weeks and I'll back again. But normally it's feeding on the feeders ruining our bird feed but the squirrel seems to either had a stroke or have some other physical malfunction Pine Lake is in the top of lower and then it'll scramble around and pick up seeds again and seems to be able to ingest properly the fact that it survived there the cold weather seems to indicate that it's not I'm just wondering how to throw that you and I question whether they are indeed going to have strokes or if this is more apt to be something in its brain system that are off whack. It seems to see. All right, but it's it's kind of sad to see it flopping around in the yard and then begin functioning again. I'll just kind of hard question for me to answer you might be advised to possibly call one of the veterinarians maybe a local veterinarian or you might consider calling the Wildlife Rehabilitation clinic at the University of Minnesota. St. Paul campus. They might be able to point their finger right to what this malady could be. Some things occurred to me human beings could a variety of diseases and ailments one of them can be an inner inner ear condition which causes the balance mechanism to go a little bit off and I can be caused by virus. I don't know if Girls get something like that. But there's a possibility that Wildlife can come down with a number of things that might be a response to their environment or certain situations that animals are tough. Maybe the animal will get over it and still be able to survive. Okay do squirrels typically run around all winter or do they hibernate squirrels and really really cold days are gray squirrels and fox squirrels. Usually Den up in their holes in trees or in those leaving us that they make up in some of the trees and if they're starving if they really haven't got enough food that they can everyday go out and feed them know they're going to have to come out even in cold weather. This is a year like that. We haven't had a whole lot of fruit and nuts produced last fall. So a lot of our squirrels are having to get out on cold mornings, but if you live in a particular area where you had trees that produce acorns or other kinds of seeds they may be getting adequate food. So on a cold series of days they may just stay. Inside the dance and not come out until the weather ameliorates body temperature. So they just basically hanging out like we did how many people went out during that cold weather. We saw a lot fewer people out sledding and skiing and stuff like that. Next question, please Kathy I was listening for you. Where you calling from? What's your question birds of a feather 2 or 3:17 for the time we were gone for about 10 days. After that time was empty, of course, never know and because Albert's can we refill it a second time with the same feet? Still no birds. Can we use a different type of food? They come for breadcrumbs in scrap on this reminder to feed her or her near vows and then one Burger to Atlanta without time really giving us repeat business. We started this back in November when the weather was mild. We still haven't seen any quantity of beers like we have before could you maybe give us an idea of what it is how we need to do. I think probably those bridge that were used to coming to the feet of that you had on the window, which was not quite as obvious to your normal run-of-the-mill Bridge coming through they probably saw that another feeding area and and just simply haven't come back or they might have migrated. I always recommend to people if birds are not seeing your feeders if they just aren't there discovering them then come up with a different kind of feeder your comment that they were feeding the chromosome things are right on I would put a flat feeder out without a roof on it out in the open not too far from a shrub where they could land and then come to the feeder and find something to eat there. If that doesn't do it then I guess you probably have to just assume that they last time I went somewhere else and the population as we stated earlier in this broadcast is not quite as high as it used to be even though there are the variety of individual of a species around I'm calling from the st. Cloud area and I have a question about Chipmunks. We recently moved into a relatively new house on the Mississippi River and we moved in and there's a lot of chipmunks and we found several nests in our basement this winter and we're thinking about getting a cat to control the Chipmunks. However, I'm worried about the birds. Can we have a lot of wonderful Birds here? And I'm wondering if you could suggest any way of trying to control the population of the Chipmunks here. I'll hang up and listen. Thank you for the answer to that. I wouldn't have them under my house either. I think the thing is if you have a lot of Shrubbery around your house if it's like it's in the woods, you're going to have Chipmunks. It's going to really be tough and I would say seal up all the possible places that they could get into your house and they kind of holes anywhere possible. I don't know cat is in a bad idea. You just have to decide whether or not you want to run around out there and you probably have some loss of bird life. But on the other hand Chipmunks can also undermine the foundation of your house to a dog would also do it. I had a dog for a while and there wasn't a single chip on a monk around as long as I had my dog running around outside. So that's another thought ultimate. If you really come down if push comes to shove and you have to get rid of those Chipmunks. I hate to say this, but people do poison them. Yeah, and then I suppose that somebody eats The Poisoned Chipmunks and then gets poison to like a raccoon cat might I might pick it up at night even a mink or or something like that might I just don't really recommend ever poisoning animals. If you know if you can find another way to do it 20 minutes before 12 you listening to Minnesota Public Radio Kathy Heidel naturalist from the Hennepin Park system is in today. She works out at Lowry Nature Center, which is part of Carver Park in my right and what's going on up there right now folks were to go out there and take part in programs. What we'd be doing a lot of interesting things with ice and snow. We're in the process of building a Quincy Quincy Quincy is a Athapaskan snow house Powell the snow all up into a big Heap and let it sit there for a few hours so that it can recrystallize and then you dig it out and you dig it out until the walls are only about 9 to 10 in and the temperature inside. There is really nice and cozy. It's a wonderful place to sleep out overnight. So we're making goes we've been studying about survival. We've been out sparking and it's a Norwegian or Swedish word for sliding around on the kick sleds a little seats on long-run Harris and the one person could sit and other people another person can push and ride the runners. It's a wonderful wonderful winter activity when you can't get out and go snowshoeing or snowshoeing to we've been studying deer. We've been studying the water under the ice. Did you know that the water at the underneath the Isis above freezing? If you're a duck that's where you would go on those cold days to stay warm under the ice frozen. It would be nice, right of course, but how did they how do they get out then? Well, if you keep water moving at all fries and a paddle around a lot at night and they could keep it from freezing. So especially when there's open water that would be a place where they could go to get warm. No weed this year let our refuge area in one of our parks and chiropractors. Are we left it freeze over so are geese early on in the winter went South there aren't nearly as many candidates around the Twin Cities area this year because most everybody let their pants Go Frozen so that they would be encouraged to go south. I mention the phone number once more. We do have a pretty full tank lines, but occasionally one will open up in the Twin Cities to 276 thousand were talking with Kathy Hale about what is happening in nature now here in late January to 27 6004 Minneapolis-Saint Paul area this news anywhere else. I can hear us anywhere else one 800-242-2828. Okay, thank you for waiting. So patiently you are next. Hello. I was out driving is 13 degrees below zero according to buy Potter on know and driving along the East River Road right between the Minneapolis and st. Paul border. I thought bald eagle sitting up in a tree could you tell us about the bald eagle population in the metro area in the metropolitan area of Minnesota as well as all of Minnesota has exceeded our fondest dreams for increasing a number is a number of years ago. In fact, when I first came to Minnesota about 25 years ago, everybody was concerned about bald eagles being an endangered species in Minnesota had the highest population outside of Alaska. So we have to really credit some of the people in this state with some good management plans and are bald eagles have really come back on their own. The metropolitan area of a lot of quite a few eagles which I think are the result of the fine work for doing at the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. They've released the number of rehabilitated Birds who have stayed around and have recruited mates either from a wild population or from some of the other restored birds. So you are most likely to see bald eagles in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area as well as down Mississippi River towards Hastings and towards Wabasha all the way down to La Crosse and then on into Iowa which one of the largest overwintering populations of bald eagles in the country right here in Minnesota, but here in St. Paul, we had a a pair of eagles that I believe nested this last year. There was a pair of Eagles at attempted to National on the river in Bloomington. They have attempted to Nash down in the Hastings area. So your chances of seeing them are pretty good seed Can I don't think that we had one up in Fridley to that nested in the Mississippi River and I think this year one of the birds hit a wire or something like that and and died. So I'm not sure what happened to the youngsters, but the population seems to be doing really well. I've heard somewhere that they were thinking that it takes him off the endangered species. That's right. We had a desire to have over a hundred nesting pairs in Minnesota by the year two thousand and we've exceeded that by the by 1990 we exceeded it quite well or another question. Are you calling from today? I just wanted to tell Kathy that we have had a lot of success live trapping squirrels and chipmunks and moving them to a different area after we got onto another question. I should have mentioned that thank you very much appreciate your call and 15 minutes before 12 you listen to Minnesota Public Radio. Kathi heide lives with us. And now it's your turn. Hello. Raven said moved into our neighborhood on my living actually downtown Minneapolis, and we had about four Ravens that moved in this fall, and we haven't heard them since the cold snap it and I wonder if if they were likely to survive and what can we do to keep them around. I really actually like them very much and I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you. Ravens are not normally found this far south Minnesota. They tend to pretty much nest in the northern part of the state and sometimes during the winter the drift a little farther south to find them in Minneapolis is really quite unusual. They feed on mice they are in the same family with crows and blue jays and some people can confuse them with crows that you have to listen to him and look at the real carefully and you can tell the difference if there are mice around that we doing just fine because that's probably what they feed on they also will find birds and they kill them and then they cash them just like Blue Jays do they remember where they put their caches are their winter Food Supplies and they will go and actually use that food when they have days when they haven't found any food. My guess is that Raven's would not stay here year-round. They might drift into the area when they may be had to be expanding to find another location to go to but I would guess that they probably move back North again. Moving on to this next question, LOL kathi heide listing for you. Hi, and I have a large two-story house that has lied. He's about Sandy's underneath and we have pigeons at fine. That's a wonderful place to nest and we've called exterminators who giving them supposedly medicine or food that makes them sick. So they don't want to return and we've tried chasing them out all kinds of things. Do you have a way that we can remove them? So we don't have the the dirt in the manure and the feathers and things we have little kids around and we're worried about them getting sick from that kind of stuff. I hang up and listen sickness is certainly a valid one because they can have through their manure pass on some respiratory ailments that aren't very good for people. I guess I would try to either screen off those under Eaves or something like that so that they wouldn't be able to get in there and actually build nests they tend to go in and it's just like little boxes underneath the so that's Could be kind of going into it. If you could somehow either keep them from getting into that area. That would be the best bet. The other thing would be to encourage peregrine falcon to set up housekeeping nearby because peregrine falcons are what feed on fidget spinner, How would you attract a peregrine falcon? I think they have tried to send Peregrine's released Peregrine's in Rochester area, and maybe you could talk to somebody at the University of Minnesota and see whether or not in your cash and area there might be another place or maybe they could do something like that. Well, they are. They're doing very well in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area as they are and some of the other places were they Brought them back to all right, and she is waiting with a question for Kathy idle high. Thanks for waiting. Yeah, sure on this is John from Nature Center calling. We had a tree frog come in this morning. Someone had found it on their cupboard. Oh, yes, those little tree frogs tree frogs stay of the might of gotten into the basement of the house tree frogs climb up and they get into holes just like they go into bird nest and they freeze solid just like I was talking earlier about the turtles during the cold weather the tree frogs freeze solid when the temperature is gotten as warm as it has today. They thought a little bit and the liver kicks in and helps to avoid some of the poisons in the system and they start crawling around the best thing that you can do with that tree frog is to put it outside in the snow as soon as down underneath in the leaf letter as soon as that skin of the tree frog starts freezing. It'll go right back into its winter hibernation. How big is a tree frog little green or gray animals are when their adult probably about 2in long it can be a Small as an inch if it was a young one from from last year, but the thing to do is to Take It Outside dig a hole down to the leaf litter and just stick it down there and it'll be just fine. Just fine. Okay your turn next to to put a question to Kathy Idol 10 minutes before 12. Hello there little Snap-on. I found this narrow trois and snow about maybe 3/4 inches wide and it sure looked like there are tracks was the signs of a deal drag. It could have been tracks that what kind of slurring once know before the footprints but look like again little tiny not raccoon hands with hand side track the tracks went from my front yard Where the Wild Things Are by the street by the driveway. They went in around a cross freeze whole front of the house up over the steps in town and they tracked off across the I went back to the other guy's house and then down to the willow tree down toward the Frozen. Yes, I would very much gas. It would be and my guess is that where that muskrat was spending its time of the winter was maybe getting a little bit low on food or a little bit low on oxygen and then what they have the ability to do is to not a whole right up through the ice or to chew a hole right through the den that that humpy house that they've made and they start wandering around over the top of the ice looking for open water. So they can go back down and find another better place to live when they're out on top of the ice and snow that's when they become food for great horned owls and for eagles and things like that and this year there are lots and lots of muskrats. So the competition for space is a little Keen underneath the ice if you find out what your question today around their ears and neck. Disease of some kind yes it is. It's it's the type of disease that has given rise to the mythical animal called a Jackalope rabbit. Skip this step reticular. It's like a virus or bacteria something when the population gets high off of times. They start getting maced fingernail type growths on their had somebody look like they've got antlers and horns and ultimately eventually they die. But it's one of Nature's ways of dropping the population of rabbits down if it gets a little high antlers and such. How are the deer doing know? How did they fare during the cold places where there are too many deer. There are deer that are starving particularly as some of the phones are starving in other places where there seems to be enough food or they can get out in the cornfields. I think they're doing all right. I noticed that there are very few deer anymore with antlers on I noticed that most of them have fallen off all red. January and February are the times and most of the Bucks lose their antlers don't need them anymore might mating Seasons finished. When do they grow back then in April fuzzy growth coming out and then by the end of summer, they have completed their growth The Velvet will fall off that set too nice skin that nourish them and then they get shiny and they start getting ready for the next meeting. Okay back to the phones and some more questions High. Where are you calling from this morning? Hello my garage without closing my door mats you say Okay, that's a tough one. That's without closing your doors. I don't know that if there's a place for a bad to get in and it wants to go in there. If you don't close that place up. I don't think you're going to be able to keep them out. Sometimes these creatures that we admire nature become pests don't they know that's probably because we didn't use a very good design on either our housing are our area and they take advantage of whatever they can when we mess up their world. What do bats do this time of year and email batch on a warm day like today when maybe it gets about 15 degrees are up above 20° might start to move around a little bit. They have been getting some bats at the wildlife rehab Clinic that have had frostbite. So yeah, they do kind of start moving around a little bit but there's nothing to eat and so all of them don't make it 6 minutes before 12 you listen to Minnesota Public Radio Kathy. Heidel is here. Talk about what's happening in nature this late winter and your turn. Hello and enjoy paddling around there. I'm wondering what I can expect to see of the the Ospreys that were hacked out on Cedar Lake last summer in the coming season. We've had very good success in the metropolitan area from the first project that was begun by Hennepin Parks ever since we have hacked out Us Praise we've always had asked for is coming back. So I think your chances should be very good. If not this year within a year to I having Ospreys back frequently some of our birds that we hack out come back and they even recruit mates from a wild population. So maybe in a few years you might even have breathing aspiration your area in about three minutes left here with Kathie Lee hour goes by so quickly but time for one or two. More questions, it's your turn of all here on on the bird that issue if getting screen isn't very convenient. Something easier might be and I've done this successfully fill the bird bath with rocks so that you are eliminating any amount of water that it could immerse herself in and yet the water is is free-flowing for the birds to Landon and drink from it. And one other thing we we keep our bird bath Bowl on the ground and that makes the water available to creatures that can't get up right pedestal. Thank you very much. Okay, one more or two more questions, baby, LOL you're on. Like I'm noticing it earlier and earlier and I realized that they're probably coming on the trees really early in the winter. And I wanted to know when when I really want I really do start budding. And also if you can recommend a book for me to find out more about that my trees begin forming their buds for the new season as soon as they begin to go dormant in September and October if you have a really warm December after I've had a cold. They will break dormancy and begin to swell up cold weather that it like we've had now look slowing down a little bit but they'll be able to survive and when we get our first really really warm weather start to swell a little bit more and eventually. Come out and the regular ordinary time that they do. There are several books about trees. I would suggest that you might consider calling the Science Museum of Minnesota to be nice book store or the Blue Heron book shop at the University of Minnesota Valley Museum of Natural History are some of your local booksellers and just see what they can tell you about. Trees and buds twigs and stuff like that or give me a call at Hennepin parks and I'll see if I can help you a little bit more calls 80 million phone messages for you on Monday morning Kathy item one more question. Okay how you're on? Is there moisture from the juicy Buds and the bark of the trees that they're eating in the winter time? Also, they eat some snow. They don't really need a whole lot of moisture. If you're feeding them about corn they will probably that also eat some bugs that will give him some of the moisture out of the out of the bushes and trees guess we have just about a half a minute left her. So are you seeing any signs of this is ridiculous. Are you seeing any signs of spring out there yesterday? My friend Tom Yawkey was driving to or Thursday was driving to Carver Park from someplace up in the central part of the county and he saw several flocks of horned Larks. Those are first migrating spring birds that begin to nest on the bare ground in March. So they've come up with it during the cold weather. I've been hearing the Cardinal singing and I've been hearing the chickadees screaming spraying every morning. So listen for this song. If you get outside, I can't whistle. My whistle is shot. Okay, Kathy, great. Thank you for the tips and we'll see you again before too long. I hope Kathy Heidel naturalist at to Carver Park. Turn things back to Chris Roberts. Now you brush your Bob. Thank you very much. Bob Potter and Kathy Heidel of Hennepin car Parks. Midday on Saturday is supported by the oriental rug company specializing in sales and service of handmade oriental rugs and located in Minneapolis at 50th and Bryant minute before noon will check the weather forecast. Mostly cloudy in the Duluth area with a Chance of afternoon flurries highs in the mid-teens partly cloudy around Rochester with high-rise in the lower 30s this afternoon the updated forecast for the Twin Cities partly cloudy highs in the upper twenties. Mostly clear tonight. Some fog is possible overnight in the Twin Cities Lowe's from the middle teens to the lower 20s and partly cloudy and Mild on Sunday with highs in the mid to upper 30s of a warm-up continues in the Twin Cities and across the states and current weather conditions cloudy in Duluth. 14 St. Cloud partly sunny in 23 degrees in the Twin Cities right now partly sunny skies and a temperature of 20 degrees. Hi, Mark, Sheldon, a Bonafide choral music nut. And if you're the same way will join me for Coral Expressions where you'll hear some of the best choral music performances around every Wednesday night at 10 p.m. On the classical music station of Minnesota Public Radio. Ksjn 99.5. You're listening to know 91.1 FM and know 1330 AM Minneapolis, St. Paul the Twin Cities news and information station.