State Parks

I was wondering why Evers wanted to close the state parks. Apparently, with other venues closed, the parks had such a huge surge in use that they couldn't keep them clean. Plus there is the "social distancing" when passing on sometimes-narrow trails, although I think that's probably overblown in the breezy outdoors.

The photo below is from a "back door" entrance to Gov. Dodge park, and it has at least 3 times as many cars parked there as I've ever seen before.

Mosquitoes

We had a family rule: "Bugs in the house get stomped; bugs outside you leave alone." We had clear exceptions: fireflies and ladybugs got escorted outside, and mosquitoes were fair game anywhere.

"God in His wisdom made the fly, and then forgot to tell us why." I gather He wanted us to figure it out for ourselves.

JSTOR reports that mosquitoes may actually be good for something. Two things.

MacDonald cites a study that found that mosquito larvae were part of the ecological balance in stagnant water: without them protists multiplied like mad and some bacteria which the protists ate dropped in numbers. They're not sure yet what the consequences of that could be.

And apparently they are sometimes pollinators too.

Only female mosquitoes suck blood and that phase only lasts while they are breeding. Most of the time, mosquitoes of both sexes eat plant nectar, making them important pollinators as they move from plant to plant. Some orchids, for example, rely heavily on mosquitoes, and these rare plants would be at risk without their buzzing partners.

I'm still going to swat them. I've had malaria already, thank you, and I don't want West Nile. Or even a tiny welt.

Eagle Days

We picked up three Chinese students and the six of us went to Sauk Prairie, where we arrived too late for the first bus tour--and too late to sign up for the second one too.

I brought 3 binoculars (should have taken care to clean the eyepieces of one), and we tried to see the eagles along the river, but so many other people had shown up by 10 that the eagles were staying safely far on the other side of the river. Even the gulls weren't all that close.

But back at the high school (the center of activities) Eldest Son and I took in a talk on "Digiscope photography" (get the best scope you can and even a point-and-shoot can work well), and a lively raptor show by a fellow from the University of Minnesota . When the eagle started flapping the tarp protecting the stage floor started to fly away.

But the highlight was the eagle release at the beach by the VFW. Some birds were injured by attacking cars which challenged their right to road kill, others got lead poisoning (extra-strong stomach acids plus low body weight mean tiny bullet fragments turn toxic), another got tangled in a rabbit snare and nearly starved. About half survive and are released.

The eagles were carried (without raptor gauntlets!) one by one to a viewing stand by the shore. The lady carried each like a baby, on its back with the talons held at the "wrist", and they seemed remarkably docile faced with such a huge crowd of potential predators.

An Indian with an eagle wing fan delivered a blessing for each eagle. Perhaps next year they can rope in a Franciscan for the job.

After show and Q&A around the crowd, "He sees the water and wants to be there!" and as the bird opened his wings a bit he was given a little toss, and then he really unfurled--an amazing amount of wing for a 10-pound package. The first eagle perched on the other side of the river and watched us for about 15 minutes, and then flew down into the river for his first bath in over a year.

The last bird was a little dubious about heading back into the wild again (he'd been found by an airport; possibly looking for a little assistance?), but after about 5 minutes decided to lift up his head and stare out over the river. He was the only one to fly back to our shore, and circle overhead for a while--maybe he likes people?

We were standing near the van that brought the eagles, so we got to see them up close (but no touching).

Gorgeous birds, wonderful flying--and talons of steel and beaks to rip with. I think about Isaiah 65:25 sometimes. Fill the earth and subdue it; take a wild and dangerous world and tame it. Let wolves become dogs which are wolves and more than wolves. Was 65:25 supposed to have been our job?

Other little tidbits: to treat lead poisoning cost \$2K for the meds along (not including rehab). The little tracking transmitters cost \$5K (we got a little squib about the effects of lowering taxes at that point) so they don't typically equip birds with them--which is perhaps just as well, given the results of the penguin study! They've a male eagle which has helped care for over 32 young rescue eagles. Eagles at the wintering site aren't territorial--at the nesting sites they are.

I wonder if we've studied falcon form and feather structure when they stoop, since I suspect they'd be pretty optimized for minimal air resistance.

Bat diet preference?

Bats eat mosquitoes, I'm told, though plainly not nearly enough.

When the smoke alarm started beeping at 4 in the morning (even the stepladder wouldn't have been enough for me to reach the cabin ceiling), we embraced necessity and got up. Outside Mercury and Venus were rising above the hill and dawn was threatening, so we sat and watched while a small squadron of bats flashed back and forth around us. My better half was glad to see them, saying that they'd eat the mosquitoes.

Since the mosquitoes were eating me instead, I wondered what the bats were up to--clearly not deterrence. And they didn't fly all that close to us, where you'd think there'd be great pickings.

Light dawned. On me, anyway. Full mosquitoes are slower fliers, and are simultaneously easier targets and flavored with a little something extra. Perhaps the bats were waiting to get the full ones leaving us instead of interdicting the hungry ones headed our way.

How would you test this? Release known numbers of empty and full mosquitoes into a bat pen, and count the number that escape? Sounds kind of tedious, but it might be inexpensively do-able, with a large room, a pen, and big fans forcing the insects into a small screened room where you BlackFlag the beasts and count the corpses. You might even be able to get some preliminary separation between full and empty by shaking the tray of dead mosquitoes. You'd need lots of repetitions to get good statistics, since it would be easy to make counting errors, and sometimes the input group would be all empties and sometimes all fulls to let you try to measure the counting biases.

Now where does one find volunteers for the feeding chamber?