Sunday, June 27, 2010

Birds in June

(Robin's nest in a Syringa.  Why are the eggs of the American robin blue?)

I spent an hour this morning appraising the avian situation in my forest.  Male singing has changed over the past month in an interesting way.  Species that were quite vocal earlier in May are now fairly quiet, but others are singing constantly.  Dark-eyed juncos, chipping sparrows, song sparrows, black-capped chickadees, wood thrushes, all the woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, eastern phoebes, American robins, gray catbirds, and blue-headed vireos are relatively inconspicuous now.  I assume that the frequency of bird song is correlated to the stage of the nesting cycle.  Males sing to keep other males at arm’s length and to attract females.  When the male or female (usually the female) is incubating eggs or tending nestlings, males tend to be quieter.  I am sure this is to avoid attracting predators to their territory, where the nest is located.

But other species are quite vocal.  Ovenbirds, red-eyed vireos, great-crested flycatchers, eastern wood pewees, and veerys are still waking me up early in the morning.  Because they returned from migration later than the group of silent species, some of whom are year-round residents, these late arrivals may be further behind in their nesting chronology.  If they are mated, then they must be at an earlier stage of the nesting cycle.

Some of this can be documented.  The phoebe nest hatched five nestlings about three weeks ago, and they are now working on their second brood of the season.  By the way, I covered this bird in a blog several weeks ago.  It turns out that this pair nested on a window ledge on the back of my house rather than on the light fixture on the front.  The chickadees that I described last week are now incubating eggs.  And I found a nest yesterday of an American robin in a Syringa shrub next to the house with four eggs.

But let’s review songbird nesting chronology a bit.  Males establish territories, sing, and, if fortunate, acquire a mate.  One or both adults build a nest, which is distinctive to that species (i.e., mud, moss, grass stems, twigs).  Bird nests are truly marvels of the animal world.  How birds actually build these structures amazes me constantly.  During this stage, they copulate, which is done by the male hovering in flight above the female; their cloacas touch, sperm is transferred, and voila. When the nest is complete, the female will start laying eggs.  Egg-laying occurs early in the morning, and the female lays only one egg per day.  Even the famous while leghorn chicken, which has been bred to do nothing but produce and lay eggs, can only lay one egg per day.

Clutch size varies from about 3-6 in temperate species, but the number is relatively fixed within a species.  One of the parents, usually the female, then begins incubating the clutch after the next-to-last, or penultimate, egg is laid.  Eggs do not begin developing until the heat from the female’s body is applied during incubation.  The last egg laid, which occurs one day after incubation starts, will hatch about 24 hours after the rest of the clutch; this “runt” of the litter is often the one not to survive because it is always one day smaller than its siblings.  Incubation takes about 10-14 days, depending on species, and then the real work begins.

One or both parents must then find food, and I mean a lot of food, to feed the hungry nestlings.  These morsels usually consist of insects or other invertebrates, which are high in protein.  Nestlings fledge from the nest after 10-12 days.  For large birds like hawks, incubation and the nestling period are about three times as long as for small songbirds.  If you have never found a nest of a small bird and followed it, you should do so.  The rate at which nestlings grow is truly astounding.  You can see the difference in size and feather development every 24 hours.  But here is a puzzle.  Those nestlings have to defecate several times per day, and yet you will see no feces in the nest.  Where is it?

Will you cause the adults to abandon the nest if you find it and check on it up close once or twice a day?  It depends.  If the adults are only at the nest-building stage, they may abandon that effort and relocate because they “think” a predator has found the nest.  Why continue if something is going to eat your eggs?  But once they have reached incubation stage, they will usually not abandon the nest.  Too much time and energy have now gone into that nest to just walk away.  So find an active nest, observe it until the babies fledge, and report to us here.  There are worse family activities in which you could be involved.

Once the young have fledged, many males will begin singing all over again in the hopes of attracting a new female who wants to nest.  And on it goes, throughout the ages—the stuff of which poems are made.

Friday, June 18, 2010

On the importance of homemade strawberry jam

(Scotch and homemade strawberry jam.  A nearly complete diet for DrTom, leading to order and homeostasis.)

There are certain stabilizers in our lives that become absolutely essential to our feeling of order and homeostasis.  For some, it is finding the morning paper on the front porch by 7am every day.  For others, it is that hot cup of organically grown Cafe Britt coffee about mid-morning.  And for still others, it is watching the Yankees play on tv during the summer.  One of mine is having a single-malt scotch and a cigar in the evening, something I have discussed many times.  It is during that hour or so that I contemplate the day's activities and life's memories--of children and grandchildren, of gardens and plantings growing around my property, of former students who left an impression.  I am counting on having those memories until senescence and lack of eyesight completely take over and all I can do is pet the dog or the woodchuck, or whatever that furry thing is that is lying at my feet.

But there is one other stable element in my life-homemade strawberry jam. Most years, my wife and I visit a local farm where you pick your own strawberries.  We bring them home, clean them up a bit, and my wife makes jam.  That's right.  Women make the jam, men mow the lawn.  This division of labor has worked pretty well for centuries, so far be it from me to change it.  But this year, my wife couldn't pick berries because she had some eye surgery the day before and was instructed not to bend over.  So, I went to the berry patch alone, wearing my white head band to keep the sweat from rolling into my eyes and sporting an Aussie hat.  Bending over those raised beds of berries is tough on a "mature" body like mine, so I found that actually lying down in the narrow row next to the bed worked best, and then inching forward as I depleted the ripe fruit that was close at hand.  No one else in the field was using this technique, possibly because it looked like I was a Navy Seal crawling up the beach to surprise the enemy in Mogadishu.  I didn't care.  It was more comfortable than bending over, and this color-blind naturalist needs to be close to his work to find red berries easily.  I picked 20 pounds and went home.

When I got home, it became clear that my wife was busy preparing for guests who were arriving the next day, and the chore of making jam would pretty much fall on the now ex-Navy Seal.  Amazing how some men can lay aside their M-16 and grenade launcher after a successful mission in the berry patch to don an apron and to manipulate a canning jar in the kitchen.  But on this day, that is what I did.  

As my wife barked instructions, I snapped to attention.  Clean fruit, cut it up, and mash until you have 5 cups.  Put in pan on stove, add a pat of butter, and one box of Sure-Jell.  Bring to a boil.  Then, add 7 cups of sugar.  Bring to a rolling boil for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Skim off solids on top of liquid.  In the meantime, I had a very large pot on the stove containing boiling water and the jars, lids, and rings.  Steam everywhere.  Lots of heat in that part of the kitchen.  This is why old farmhouses used to have a summer kitchen to do this kind of work.  Remove the jars, fill with cooked jam, wipe off the rim of jar with a hot, wet paper towel, place lid on top, and screw on a ring.  Then place all the filled jars back into the water bath to boil for a few minutes.  Two fingers and 1 thumb now burned.  Remove from heat, set on table, and enjoy the sound of those lids snapping down into place as the vacuum inside the jar takes hold.  As one batch is finished, begin the assembly line for the next load of fruit.  Two more fingers burned.  Keep going.  Don't stop or slow down, or you will find something else to do.  It is hot, sweaty work, but someone has to do it.  It is essential work, because we are talkin homemade strawberry jam--nectar of the Gods, sweet memories, winter morning comfort.

I made 20 pints of jam, so this should last until next June.  But my wife has a tendency to give our jam away as gifts.  And our grandchildren are always asking for "Grandma's jam".  But not this year.  Because I labored over the brew, I now hold the keys to this year's supply.  I love my grandkids, but all that sugar is probably not good for them.  And little kids need to learn that life is not always fair.  And maybe they are allergic to red things.  That you don't always get what you want, when you want it.  And that "Grandma's jam" is sometimes "Grandpa's jam".  And Grandpas can be stingy.

So, toast with strawberry jam in the morning, and a single-malt scotch and a cigar in the evening.  Throw in a couple of vitamin pills, and I suppose this is a nearly complete diet leading to order and homeostasis.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Our grown children are having all the fun

(Would you rather go birding at DrTom's, or go dancing with Paris Hilton?)

I thought I was enjoying my life in retirement until earlier today when I talked to my son who lives in Las Vegas.  I mean, I have my gardening, and my forest, a great wife, a good dog (about which Mark Twain said each man deserves one of in his life), some aging friends, and the internet.  But my son was describing to me how he went to what is probably the most beautiful swimming pool in the world this week, how he goes to after-parties that are even after the usual after-parties, and that he is so busy chumming with celebs that he barely has time to sleep.  For example, last night he walked into a Japanese restaurant, saw one of his bosses across the room, and went up to the guy to say hello.  Only then did he realize that the man was having dinner with Paris Hilton, who he is dating.  (Of course, the two of them are not having such a good week now, given their arrest due to that "stuff" Paris had in her purse.)  In contrast, this morning I met with some students who were graduating from Cornell.  We met at the annual breakfast under a tent on the lawn in front of a decaying 100-year old building, where I ate half a bagel slathered with cream cheese.  Something is wrong with this picture.

Until today, I thought that hearing a Tufted Titmouse singing in my woods was pretty exciting.  I thought that anticipating the first bloom of a day lily behind the house was stupendous.  I thought that going to Punk's Place in Candor, NY on a Saturday night to get a reuben sandwich was rewarding.  I thought that eating a radish I grew in my garden was miraculous.   But when I think about my party-going, snowboarding, cave-exploring, topless-pool spectating, Texas Hold-em playing sons living under the clear Western sky I'm not so sure.  What the heck was I doing when I was young?  I was married with children, in debt, in the Army or in school trying to educate myself for the good life that was to come.  And what do I have now?  A pithy radish and bird poop all over the place.

So just now, this very minute, I made a commitment to myself.  DrTom will do something at least once a week that can stand up against the social reports of his kids.  For example, this fall we can attend the Candor Senior High School football games.  That marching band of theirs is supposed to put on a pretty entertaining half-time show.  Instead of just listening for birds on my place, I will start turning rocks over for salamanders.  There must be a whole world I am missing by always looking up.  I'm not going to just grow radishes in my vegetable garden; I'm going to try some pak choi.  And that Kama Sutra book that has been sitting in the drawer next to our bed needs to be dusted off.  We use it to press flowers between the pages.  But there are actually some interesting pictures in there.  Management and I need to study those.

So kids, just wait until you call us next time.  Ryan, I won't just be killing tent caterpillars on my fruit trees by squishing them between my fingers like I was when you called today.  I'll be doing stuff.  Lots of neat stuff.  Stuff so neat that you'll want to spend every vacation here at home instead of hiking the high peaks of Colorado or dancing at fancy clubs with those girls who star in Cirque du Soleil or going to comedy clubs with Jarvis Green (the Broncos' new defensive linesman) or going to Cancun for tequila tastings. You might even start bringing people like Paris Hilton, or Alex Rodriguez, or Leonardo diCaprio with you because they have all heard that Danby is now the place to be seen, not Vegas.  And Danbyites are discreet about what celebs do here.  Cause you know what everyone is saying these days: "What happens in Danby, stays in Danby."

Monday, May 17, 2010

On Roger Maris, baseball, and heroes

(There are lots of memories associated with this baseball card.)

I was absolutely consumed by baseball until I was about 13.  I played on a Little League team, I practiced pitching in front of a full-length mirror in my home, I watched games on tv incessantly, and I collected baseball cards.  At the end, I had 3,333 baseball cards, mostly from the 1950s, which my mother overlooked in the basement when she moved from my childhood house.  I never saw them again.  Oh Mom!  Because of this addiction and the data on the back of the baseball cards I had memorized, I knew nearly every stat about every player on nearly every team.  In 1958, one set of stats I committed to memory was the following: right fielder, batted left, threw right, born in Hibbing, MN, rookie year with Cleveland Indians.

Roger Maris only played for the Indians during 1957-58, the first year of his famous career.  He was traded to Kansas City in 1958, and then to the Yankees in 1960, where he played with Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra.  But even in his first year as a pro, there were high hopes for Maris, who later hit 61 homers in the 1961 season, breaking Babe Ruth's record that had stood for 34 years.  So Maris was already one of our heroes among my baseball-loving comrades on the northwest side of Lima, Ohio.  His Rookie Year baseball card of 1958 was hot within trading circles, one of those prizes where you instantly threw away the gum inside the package as soon as you saw the "Roger" and the Indians' uniform.

In those days, it was a common field trip for boys' groups at school to go to a professional baseball game.  Given where I lived, the trips usually went north to an Indians' game in Cleveland; on occasion, we got to travel south to a Redlegs' game in Cincinnati.  The cost of a ticket was about $2, and the stands were never even a third full back then.  (Many years later, I thought I would take my family to a Blue Jays game when we were visiting Toronto.  We walked up to the stadium at game time and were promptly told they had been sold out for weeks.  And if they had tickets, it would probably cost our family of five about $150.  I was in disbelief.  I don't remember reading that stat on the back of a baseball card.  I guess I had been out of touch with my childhood game for a long time.) 

So it was sometime in 1957 when the group of boys (it was always only boys) with which I was traveling headed to Cleveland for a game.  I can no longer remember who the Indians played that day or who won the game.  Our excitement was focused on the habit of congregating around the outside door on the back of the stadium where the players emerged after the game and their showers.  If you were lucky, and the players were in an accommodating mood, they would stand there for a few minutes and sign autographs.  After one of those games, I remember an angry Mike Garcia emerging into the light and the throngs of baseball-loving boys only to shove us aside and to stomp his way to his car, signing nothing.  He had pitched badly that game, and he was bringing his work home with him that day.

But the highlight of my baseball celebrity memories was the day that Roger Maris and Al Smith walked out among their faithful disciples.  We rushed to get their signatures.  I got Al Smith's right away, and he had hit a home run that day.  Then I jumped over to the Maris crowd, and eventually worked my way to a position right in front of the guy.  He signed my baseball program.  But the immense pressure of all those young male bodies was incredible, pushing me forward well within the personal space of the soon-to-be famous ball player.  It reminded me of the feeling I had at the Pussycat Dolls' concert I attended at Cornell last year outside on the lawn.  Students pressed so hard toward the stage that I had to get out of there.  I staggered toward the edge of the crowd as best I could, inadvertently groping students of both sexes.  I was embarrassed at the looks I got, but it was not my fault.  I wanted to scream that I have been married to the same woman for 41 years, and I'm the father of three grown children, and I have peripheral neuropathy so my balance is not so good, and I am not a pervert.  But no one would have believed me.

So to extricate myself from the crowd of autograph seekers around Roger Maris, I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl out of there.  I swear to whomever you believe, I crawled right between his legs to escape!  It did not seem that weird to me at the time.  I was desperate, I couldn't move, and I was not big enough or strong enough to push my way out of that mess.  So I saw daylight about 18 inches above the ground and I went for it.  I was successful.  I escaped intact with the guy's autograph, which was worth significant bragging rights for many months after.

Men like Maris and Mantle were a big deal to boys like me.  We had little chance of becoming famous or of mingling with the famous, so our brief moments of encounter with them were worth a lot.  Those brief moments gave us something to talk about back home, and made watching them on tv even more magical than it would have been otherwise.  They were heroes to us in every sense of the word.  Maris' autograph, for which I was so proud, was written in pencil.  That signature later faded badly on the glossy paper of that baseball program, which disappeared along with my baseball cards.  But the memory of that day is still very fresh in my mind.

Those men informed our dreams and kindled our imaginations, in spite of any personal problems or improprieties they might have suffered off the field.  I think Bob Costas, the sports commentator par excellence, said it best.  Although he was referring to Mantle, I hope his sentiment still applies to many stars who young people emulate today:  "In the last year of his life, Mickey Mantle, always so hard on himself, finally came to accept and appreciate the distinction between a role model and a hero. The first, he often was not. The second, he always will be. And, in the end, people got it."