Discovering the world around me.
When I was a kid, we had a big lilac bush in the corner of the yard. You could crawl into that bush and hide. You could be just about guaranteed to get ticks in your hair if you did, though. Every spring around Mother’s Day, that bush would burst into purple booms that smelled […]
Continue reading The fragrance of Mother’s Day: Lilacs
We were out in the yard, inspecting the blossoms on the apple and cherry trees, when sprays of little lavender flowers caught our attention. A patch of Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum) was growing next to the shop. The plants were about a foot tall with long, deeply lobed leaves. Clusters of flowers hung at the […]
Continue reading Virginia Waterleaf
Most every morning now that it’s spring, I’ve been taking my Merlin ID app out to a couple places around the yard to see who’s out there. Migration has begun for some birds, and Merlin, created by Cornell Labs, is good at capturing and identifying their songs. One recent new arrival is the song sparrow […]
Continue reading Lessons Learned: Song Sparrow
I like my coffee immediately upon consciousness in the morning. That requires a fast coffee maker, which we have. It maintains a reservoir of hot water at all times and is ready with no notice to produce coffee. Recently, after eleven years of exemplary service, that coffee maker sprung a leak. Water began to pool […]
Continue reading Questionable Identity: Thief or Pharoah Ants
Clancy, our golden retriever, loves to retrieve. He also loves to chew on beef bones. The other day he carried one of his bones with him when he went on a walk. Somewhere along the walk something else–probably a squirrel–grabbed his attention, and he dropped his bone. A few days later on the same walking […]
Continue reading Woodchuck, Whistle Pig, Ground Hog
There’s a place in southwest Iowa where a most unusual display occurs each year between March and May. It’s the mating dance of the greater prairie chicken (AKA pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus cupido). Rather than pair-bonding like many birds do, prairie chickens have a lek form of mating. The females choose who to breed with, and […]
Continue reading Lek Dancers: Prairie Chickens
Spring is here. Along with the winter-hardy cardinals, finches, house sparrows, downy woodpeckers and blue jays, new voices are joining the dawn chorus. We hear red-wing blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, and northern flickers. The juncos haven’t left yet but will soon. Robins have arrived, but they’re being quiet. The life on Owl Acres is waking up. […]
Continue reading Spring Is Here
When I think of gulls, I think of standing on the beach in North Carolina tossing bread to the seagulls and watching them compete for it. I don’t think of gulls on Owl Acres. In fact, there are 17 species of gulls that visit Iowa, the most common being the ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis). They […]
Continue reading Population Explosion: Ring-Billed Gulls
About a week ago, the wind was howling at up to 60 miles an hour, blowing snow and causing hundreds of car accidents. The juncos who usually hold forth under the bird feeder scurried to the porch where they sheltered out of the wind. An opossum found a protected corner of the porch and curled […]
Continue reading Migration
Back in grade school, I learned that the native Americans took pity on the starving colonists and taught them how to plant and harvest corn. The instructions included making little hills of dirt with a digging stick, placing four kernels of corn in the hill so they were not touching, adding a fish for fertilizer […]
Continue reading More Innovation on the Prairie: Corn Planters