Hummingbird Banding: All You Need to Know

I witnessed an hour's worth of hummingbird bandings, when hummingbirds fly into a cage they can't figure their way out of, then are grasped and put in a net bag, then measured, placed in a tiny fabric bag, weighed, and are gently given leg bands the width of a pinhead, stamped with a four-digit numeral -- if they haven't one already, because since the 1990s volunteer and federally certified bander Lanny Chambers of Missouri by his own count has banded 6,000 hummingbirds -- and 30 more today.

Lanny and wife Linda travel to state parks in the summer and invite the public to watch and learn. After banding and measuring each bird, giving the figures to Linda who wrote them down, he stepped out into the open and let a spectator hold the hummingbird, urging us to feel its astonishing heartbeat (20 beats per second), until the bird up and flew, btw always leaving a pool of pee in the spectator's hand.

Chambers and his wife answered every question I had, and after 18 summers with Divine Cabin hummingbirds I had plenty.

Q: Why are you banding them?
A: For a federal science database with bird migration information.
Q: What information are you taking?
A: Their gender, age, length and weight, and the number on the band they are assigned. If they have a band already, we take a note of that and add it to the bird's history. Banding is the only way we can learn more about them.
Q: Why do you look at the beak with a magnifier?
A:  To tell their age. Juveniles will have little marks along the beak, sort of like growth rings or stretch marks. Adults don't have those.
Q: What's your background? How did you learn to do this? Is this your life work?
A: I majored in anthropology. I had only one job in that field for one summer. Now that I'm retired, this is my science hobby. It's my way of contributing to science. And some kid might see what I'm doing and get interested in biology. So many kids these days don't know nature.
Q: How were you trained for this?
A: I took an expensive course and then was certified.
Q: Are you paid to do this, or are you a volunteer?
A: I'm not paid for this.
Q: What interests you specifically in hummingbirds?
A: It's not at all because they're little and cute. I'm joking.
Q: What's the best hummingbird feeder formula?
A: Four parts water to one part cane sugar. They'll take beet sugar but prefer cane.
Q: Why are hummingbirds attracted to the color red?
A: They're attracted to any bright color, because those are the colors of flowers, and flowers are food.
Q: Why are hummingbirds so combative with each other?
A: They're defending their food supply.
Q: It's the same birds every year at my feeder?
A: They always come back to where they were born. They remember every single feeder in their territory and on their migration paths, just as you remember the whereabouts of every grocery store around you.
Q: Where do they winter?
A: In Central America.
Q: What do they do there all winter?
A: Exactly what they do here.
Q: Do they fly or travel in packs or families?
A: No, they're loners. They fly across the Gulf of Mexico alone. They can fly for up to 25 hours straight.
Q: How old is the oldest hummingbird in your banding program?
A: It survived for 10 years. Three or four years is the average lifespan.
Q: Do hummingbirds sleep?
A: Yes. They perch on a branch and sleep. They can't do anything in the dark.
Q: I heard that the female hummingbirds do all the parenting.
A: All hummingbird mothers are single mothers. Juveniles of both genders look like females. The female builds the nest with spider webbing and other expandable materials so the nest will expand as the babies grow. Hummingbirds will pick and eat from a spider web all the insects caught in the web, then eat the spider too, then take the webbing for nest building.
Q: What does the mother feed the babies before they can fly?
A: She regurgitates a slurry of insects and nectar. She feeds them insects for protein.
Q: Why is the male's throat red?
A: The feathers there are black except for a micro-coating that makes them look red or orange from certain angles. The male flashes his red when he wants to look threatening.
Q: What is a hummingbird doing when it points its beak straight up in the air and holds it there?
A: It's napping. Some nap that way and some don't. Every bird is different.
Q: Why do they pee so much? They peed on the hand of everybody who held one.
A: Because they ingest so much nectar. Their body burns the calories and they eject the excess water before they take flight. Just getting rid of water weight. Here's some hand sanitizer.

Do you want to experience a hummingbird banding? Here is a link. Lanny and Linda have been doing this work for years at various state parks. I had fun, and yes, I got to hold a hummingbird in my palm, throbbing like a little engine, for a few seconds before it up and flew.

Yes, Yes, Yes!

Which day of the year tops them all? On March 21, spring equinox: Joy! April 24 the hummingbirds return, on the dot, and I run around screaming 'cuz I just won the lottery of life? All of June, the most beautiful month? July 4, when we create loud stars in the sky like we are God? July 25, the ripest day with the richest night sky? Thanksgiving Thursday, everybody's holiday? On December 21, winter solstice -- and the days begin lengthening, oh thank you, God! There's the day the spring peepers awake and sing (depends on precipitation, and they began on February 16). Or -- the first crocuses. They aren't wild; they were planted. By us, maybe 15 years ago. Earliest recorded appearance: Feb. 6. This year: Feb. 25.

Rain ended, yesterday I trekked over the property to watch brimming waterfalls, see ferns unfolding, look at buds on trees, step ankle-deep in mud, breathe in the most delicious, cleanest, laundered spring air and whitest sunlight, cleaned up trash by the creek, checked the cabin roof bashed (whomp! whomp!!) by thick oak branches broken off by Saturday night's windstorm -- the roof is okay -- and then bent to clean storm debris from the lane and around the cabin. That done, I was about to photograph the wonders of some velvety little buds when I looked down and saw in the sunny sweet spot at the house's southwest corner, these!

They never fail! If I were a flower, I would be a crocus (from the Latin word crocatus, meaning "saffron yellow"). Crocuses are not just the promise of spring. They are the signature on the contract!

Don't Look at These Dead Snakes

The fireplace's grille has been taped shut since 2013 because snakes were being born in the hearth, harmless blacksnakes and Prairie Ringneck Snakes, but every April into August, the (non-working) fireplace was more and more like a nightclub with snakes coming and going, and finally the situation breached my tolerance level. Averse to the "duct-tape" look, I taped aluminum foil onto the grille trying to discourage further breeding in the fireplace, and added more layers of clear tape as it came unstuck.

This week I peeled away all the tape because it looked ugly and my Easter guests would spend lots of time in the living room. I think six snakes are visible in the photo; there were a number of smaller ones, maybe 12 in all.

Tape isn't an ideal solution. The snakes die of dehydration. In July 2014 I found a live snake stuck to a loose strand of tape, clearly suffering, and videotaped its rescue in a post. In fact this blog has several snake appreciation posts. I like snakes, but they really do better outdoors, and some of my  guests who if they saw live snakes sidewinding through the house would never be my friend again.

Sleeping with Nature

I spent last night in the tent, because I can, and the weather's been gorgeous and clear, stars are vivid, and this meadow is my own yard--I'll always remember nights in the tent. Set it up while the sun set and loaded it with sleeping pad, sleeping bag, extra blanket, and pillow, all ready to crawl into about 10 p.m. The tent's roof looks invisible but is transparent so all night the bowl of heaven and the almost-full moon shine down on me. I woke once and saw Orion rising in the east. In another hour I saw Venus, the morning star. The coming  lunar eclipse is Sunday, at maximum at 9:47 p.m., Midwestern time, in the sign of Aries: the Harvest Moon. An auspicious time to sleep as close as possible to it all.

Remind me these are dewy nights so I'll hook the rain fly on my tent and won't have condensation dripping on and -- surprise -- soaking my pillow before I even get in there, and waking me in the morning when the tent is in fact brightened by sunlight more so than anything around it.

The Mysterious Number Twelve

I'd like to roll on the floor ecstatic every time I receive from Terri's son Patrick a dozen fresh eggs, pastel-pated and stamped with their dates--these from early December--and part of the thrill is the fact of the dozen. In a base-10 culture like ours, why do eggs come in dozens? Why are there 12 hours on the clock? Remember learning to tell time, how intricate it was? Why 12 months in a year? 12 Apostles? 12 inches in a foot?

It turns out 12 is a special number, long ago agreed to be more versatile than 10. Ten can be neatly divided only by five or two; 12 can be divided by six, three, two, three, or four, for maximum possibilities when packaging, shipping, and retailing, and seating friends at table. The concept of "a dozen" (the word is from Old French dozain, from the Latin duodecim "twelve" from duo, "two" plus decem, "ten") is thus far older than its name, which appears in French around 1300. A dozen is brilliant for eggs. Ten wouldn't seem like enough, and 14 would be too many.

What, am I hard up for thrills this winter that a dozen eggs will thrill me? No! Nothing is prettier than a fresh egg except 12 fresh eggs, beautifully and naturally tinted and cradled like gems. Happy Eastern Orthodox Christmas today. I was raised Eastern Orthodox. The calendar we use diverges from the standard Gregorian calendar by 13 days. Thirteen is another whole story.

Making a Mushroom Kit

Growing gourmet oyster mushrooms is easy: Get a plastic bag, the kind from the produce section of the supermarket. Place at least one pound of damp straw in this bag. This is ordinary straw shredded into 2-inch segments and flattened to expose the pith, and specially soaked in alkalinized water. This straw is the mushroom-growing medium. Then:

Brace Smith

"Seed" your straw with a handful of oyster-mushroom mycelium, which is nothing more than white fuzzy fungus deliberately grown in a bag of grain. This fuzz was first cultivated in petri dishes and test tubes from a single spore of a fine mushroom. Add a handful of gypsum to the plastic bag.

Twist the bag shut. What you have now is a kind of terrarium. The mushrooms-to-be, however, need to breathe, so over the twist goes a small collar cut from a tube of PVC [pictured], and it is rubber-banded there. Then fluff open the "collar" of the bag. Now the bag can breathe through the PVC tube. But to keep other spores and things out while mushrooms are developing, stuff the PVC tube with a thumb's length of that synthetic fill that goes into pillows. Now the bag can breathe but nothing can get in.

Mycelium

Place bag in the dark for I don't know how long, because I just made my first mushroom terrarium this morning, wondering: Will this really work? Mushroom production scientist and lecturer Brace Smith said that when the straw in the bag appears covered with white stuff, move the bag to a place getting mild sunlight. Soon proto-mushrooms or "pins" will appear. Slit the bag there, making room for the mushrooms to grow outside of the bag, and in three days, harvest and eat. Smith said to expect two or three crops, or about one pound, of oyster mushrooms.

If you are able to get mycelium (by mail order; it takes a scientist like Smith to grow it correctly), all the rest is very low-tech.

I will keep you posted as to what's happening with my mushroom kit. Nothing is more exciting than something growing.

Mating Season Mystery

It was a red fox's tail. Just the tail. In the road.

I know December is fox mating season, so its attacker might have been another fox. They defend their territories, but aren't known to kill or maim each other. Chasing the intruder from the territory is enough.

Foxes have few wild predators: bobcats, bears, golden eagles. Foxes can outrun dogs, as every British hunting party knows. People do say bobcats live here, but I haven't seen proof. Human fox killers, who don't eat them, always want the tail as a trophy. They wouldn't remove it and leave it. Looked around for traces of a car killing. None. So it's a tail without a story.

The dime in the photo lets you see its length -- about 11 inches. That's short for a fox tail so it might have been a young one that got into trouble because it didn't know better. Maybe it sacrificed its tail.

A fox uses its tail for warmth (curling it around and burying its nose in it to sleep) and for balance and to communicate (the way a dog's tail does). Somewhere a red fox around here is minus its tail. It must hurt a lot.

Growing in a Micro-Climate

Missouri's in the temperate zone, but in some dry rocky south-facing sandstone glades that get a lot of sun, cheerful in the huge long drought grow cacti like these prickly pears (opuntia humifusa). I haven't seen any other type of cactus in this area. What's a "glade," you ask? A rocky outcropping amidst woods or grassland. Our glades here are sandstone. The cacti grow in just-right areas only a few feet square called "micro-climates." This one's on the sunny side of the road. The opposite side, chilly and shadowy, is an entirely different ecosystem, supporting temperate plants and creatures and moss and no cacti.

I find cacti on the edges of woods here, at the base of dry south-facing sandstone formations, and on the edge of my south-sloping gravel driveway, where prickly pear plants like shoe soles have persisted for years despite being snowed on, frozen (they turn purple), stepped on, bruised, and run over by cars. If not, they produce frilly yellow blossoms and plum-like fruits. Always get a pleasant sense of wonder when seeing  these wise and witty-looking desert entities way up in the Ozark foothills.

Water from the Sky

The storm introduced itself with a gust of wind of the kind that snaps trees and sends logs flying through the air. Earth-quaking thunder passed over. The electrical power shorted out at 11 p.m. Soon the violent part of the storm was over. My device's battery ran down and, with nothing else to do in the pitch darkness, I went to to bed wondering what I'd see outside in the morning.

The pump is electric, so the only water was in the pipes and there wasn't much. I had filled pans with water as the storm approached, and had also put in a few gallons' supply, but these bottles past their expiration date tasted chemical, so I used it only for washing. Made a cup of tea. All things, including my life, felt like luxuries. Going outside I saw downed branches but nothing serious; my fragile tomato plants were undamaged. In fact all plants sang with happiness because they'd been rained on. With great curiosity I approached the rain gauge and was amazed and grateful to see a full two and a half inches. So ended the hottest and most dreadful stretch of drought here since the Dust Bowl days.

For a while I tried recharging my device through my car battery to check the electric company's outage map, but soon ran low on gasoline. I couldn't work on the computer so I took a walk and saw a swollen, muddy LaBarque where there had been only a thin nagging trickle. I then swept leaves from my porch, broke down boxes for recycling in the garage, and had my first full day outdoors for many weeks; the storm cooled the air from the 100s to the 90s. As it got too warm I went into town to an air-conditioned hair salon to get a haircut I'd been putting off.

Just as the day was beginning to be not so wonderful, when after 16 hours without electricity I started to think about the spoiling food and useless toilet, the electric power resumed and everything indoors sang too.

Drama on the Dining-Room Floor

(Not retouched. The flash was 5 inches from the floor.)

Opened the door to the laundry room and saw coiled there a three-inch baby blacksnake. It startled, crawled down a step and snaked away along the dusty dining-room baseboard, where he got caught by the tail in a spider's web and struggled to move forward. Couldn't. The more he thrashed the more he was caught. The spider, who'd been waiting, descended, about to make a meal.

I felt sorry for the snake and snapped the web around it to set him free. Sticky webbing and dust balls were still tangled around his tail, though, hobbling him as he tried to escape. He did all he could to free himself. Here's the 7-second video:

I terrified him trying to remove the dustballs and sticky webbing, but succeeded, and then he curled up for a moment to rest in a safe little pile. By then I had set the camera to "flash" and,as in the photo at the top, saw the reason that the small blacksnakes I meet with in sunlight often look bright silver, not black: reflectivity. Which probably protects them in some way.

Talking reassuringly, I manuevered the snakelet into a container and freed him outside where there was cover so he wouldn't become anybody else's dinner.

LaBarque Creek News: Public Greenspace Forever!

Great news that can't wait: LaBarque Creek, the most pristine stream nearest to St. Louis, is now a greenway, its two anchor conservation properties -- the Hilda Young Conservation Area and the new Don Robinson State Park property (not yet open for visits) -- linked by a new corridor of creekside land. You must enlarge this map (click on it, once) to see how exciting this is!! Many Missourians, both officials and private citizens, worked hard and long and gave money and land to protect the enchanting LaBarque and its watershed.

"Will You Please Help Me?"

"If it's smart enough to find its way in, it's smart enough to find its way out," Demetrius used to yawn, whenever skinks, lizards, snakes and whatnot got into the house. But maybe not. The Broad-Headed Skink that crawled from beneath the dishwasher last month (see April 18th) lived here about 10 days. One afternoon I came home after a day out, and it was in the middle of the kitchen floor clearly waiting for me, and it looked up into my face with an expression that quite plainly said, "I want out. Will you please help me?"

"I will help you," I replied, and opened the porch door and tried luring it out there, but it would not go. (Yes indeed, this skink is missing part of its tail; it was that way when we met. Maybe that's why it was skittish.) Then taking the broom I very gently swept it, an inch at a time, over the threshhold and out onto the porch, and then out the screen door onto the concrete stoop, where for a moment it regarded the wide world it was about to rejoin. This let me take the photo. When the camera got too close, the skink ran away through the grass, to some secret lair where I hope it's much happier. Probably it now makes the rounds on skink talk shows, describing its ordeal among the aliens, and how it survived because God had a special purpose for its life, and so on.

Iced Waterfall

Temps are below freezing for really the first time during this snowless winter, so we are having a January Freeze instead of a January Thaw. The cliffs and waterfalls and creek on the property have started prettily freezing. This is half of the double waterfall situated about 50 yards up from LaBarque Creek. This plunge over the mossy rock and fallen trees is about eight feet top to bottom and those are some big icicles. This waterfall and several others here are much easier to see in winter when the foliage is down. I like to think that I have seen it when it will never be exactly this same way again. In fact that is the way I should look at everything. The mosses are always leafy and green no matter what the weather.

They Say These Things Smell....

I met a muskrat today in a swimmin'-hole type area in LaBarque Creek that is otherwise mostly dry--the drought continues--and was surprised because I'd never seen a muskrat in the creek before, common as they are in Missouri. Beavers, yes; snapper turtles, yes; water snakes yes; egrets and herons, yes; muskrats, no. Maybe about eight inches long not counting a long black tail. Nibbling on leaves attached to some vines, he or she ignored me until I switched the camera to video, making a "bing" noise, and splash, off swam my photographic prey, paddling a bit (pictured), then as I cried, "Hey, wait!" it dove and fled like a torpedo. Walked about a quarter mile farther up the road and turned back, and found him/her again, nibbling on leaves. I fussed with the camera, got 13 seconds of video, just so you could see it really swims and it's real, and then moved to get closer and maybe sniff that famous musk--and splash, it swam under water someplace inaccessible. Camera shy. Next time I will look for its lodge and will commandingly say to it, "Take me to your leader." They say the trappers liked its fur and the peak time to trap and collect them is in December, doubtless right after the office party.

Daily Delights and Ecstasies

Started this blog in June 2007 because my housemate moved to the city in '06, and what I missed most, and still miss, was someone to call to, or to grab, and say, "Look! Isn't it amazing!" "Listen, a whippoorwill!" "OMG, the first hummer of the year!" "The blacksnake!" "'Jack Frost' was here!" "Oh, come see this!" "Stop the car; I want a picture!" "Let's look this up!" "Oh no, I think they ran over it!"

As a city dweller I feared the night, rode bad public transportation, and if I saw a bird it was because it hadn't been suffocated by fumes from the coal-fired power plant, and if I saw a live fish it was in a tank in a therapist's office. Kept my eyes mostly on the sidewalk because some folks got mighty riled if you looked at 'em. Life here, although harder, colder, buggier, lots of work, and sometimes isolated, is better. Daily something delightful appears or happens. It is said that a friend doubles every joy and halves every sorrow. You are my doubler and my halver.

End of the Cicadas

Dying by the dozens already, they banzai and smear windshields, or lie on my doorstep writhing like gangster James Cagney on the church steps in The Roaring Twenties (1939). Or the cicadas simply lie in the road and expire. Last night at the community center I heard that somebody's dog eats them. (Eeeww!) And in my own lane this morning this Three-Toed Box Turtle (Terrapine carolina triunguis) sat on the asphalt munching away, the crisp cicada wings saved for last.

The turtle is likely a male, judging by the red eyes. Generally, females box turtles have yellow eyes. Surprised to see it has a pink soft fleshy mouth like the rest of us. I hope the cicada was a memorable meal because won't taste it again for 13 years. How'd I get this photo? Bend way over; place camera, set for macro, on the asphalt upside-down except for a finger on the shutter, as close as possible. (Macro can focus at 1.8 inches.) Risk annoying the subject while he munches. Keep snapping blindly and hope to catch an image like this.

Wildflower Week, May 8

Too early for roses? Not in rural Missouri. For a Sunday in May, the beautiful little Dwarf Wild Rose, Rosa multiflora.

Stilled Life

Warm, cloudy day. Down by LaBarque Creek admiring the wonderfully clear water I saw something large and feathered on the creek bank, and was very much taken aback to find a Great Egret, dead just as you see it. Looks as if it was ambushed. It was in a tight spot, and an egret, with its five-foot wingspan, needs room and time to lift off and get away. So its life ended here.

This egret (Casmerodius albus, identified by its black legs and huge black feet) might also have been a migrant. This first waterbird casualty I have seen on this property is very sad. But if I reported and showed you only beautiful and cheerful things about rugged rural Missouri I would be dishonest. Of course we are all on the side of life, but now and then I get a reminder that Nature is not a "she" or a "mother" but a force, completely impersonal, overwhelming us with all we can stand of both beauties and horrors.

Nature Wants You to Have the Best

Had a housecat that always claimed and slept on the best chair cushion, and in winter she'd curl up wherever a sunbeam entered the window, and as the sunbeam moved, she'd inch over to stay in it, her black fur getting wonderfully warm. She wanted her favorite salmon for all meals, but she got it only on Sundays, and was persistently vocal about how unhappy she was with dry food. This cat sat on my newspaper while I was trying to read it. I shooed it off. It came back. It was communicating, "What's so interesting there that it absorbs your attention? Pay attention to me."

Cardinals stop coming to my feeder when they've plucked it clean of sunflower seeds. They'll pick them out of the assortment of millet, corn, finch seed, and other grains in normal wild-bird feed, just like they know those seeds are the most expensive in the mix.

Bunnies go right for the tenderest and tastiest things in the garden. The box turtle, like us, waited for the exact day when the cantaloupe was perfectly ripe, and the morning we ran to the garden to seize it we saw the turtle with its head stuck through the hole it'd chewed in the melon's side (even though we had the melons tied up in nylon stockings) shamelessly enjoying the sweet juicy flesh.

Young cedar trees competing with young oaks for good growing spots root themselves just inches in front of the oak, trying to get all the sun and nutrients for themselves.

Everything naturally wants the best for itself -- except human beings. I was raised to settle for what's shabby, secondhand, stale, underpaid, accepting what's below par and be glad I have it at all (called "being grateful"); let others grab the good stuff and take the leftovers ("being noble"); let people exploit and abuse me or mine without objecting (called "being polite"); sacrifice small pleasures like buying a $5 bunch of flowers because I wasn't worth it or every penny must be hoarded out of fear of the future, or to pay bills ("being frugal"). Made for a dull and bitter life. I am learning from nature that what I lived for so long wasn't life at all.

Monkey Face

If a professor sat me down to look at this picture and tell him what it is, I'd say, It's a monkey face, like those faces on sock monkeys, you know; but it's really fungi. Can't identify it precisely but suspect it's a Golden Jelly Cone just a bit dried out, or maybe it's the fungus called Orange Peel. There are, however, no names or quantities in Nature.