Wingspan

If you spend your life working for a living like the resident wild turkeys do - sometimes you have to take a break and stretch.

All four feet of the big, ole wingspan.....

 

Wildflower Walk

Meet - Penstemon digitalis - commonly known as Smooth Penstemon. 

 

 

A member of the snapdragon family this showy native to the prairie is also called foxglove or beardtongue.  Native Americans and folk-healers have made use of this plant for medicinal purposes for both people and animals.   

 

On our pollinator habitat this is the first species to materialize in large quantities.  And there is an abundance of this blooming beauty. Acres upon acres of the stuff.  This flower appears during late spring or early summer for about a month and then it’s gone.  

 

Long-tongued bees, including honeybees, bumblebees, miner bees, butterflies, Sphinx moths, and hummingbirds favor this plant.  The name Beardtongue is a consequence of the hairy reproductive parts found within the flower.

 

Ode To The Radish Sandwich

There is nothing more elegant in its simplicity than the radish sandwich.  Harkening back to my childhood this was a favorite of my father and remains a summertime indulgence of mine.  It is sublime.   

Ingredients:   

Garden radishes – sliced thin  

Two slices of bread - Homemade sourdough in this case

Unsalted sweet cream butter – room temperature  

Sea salt  

Instructions:  

Slather each slice of bread generously with butter.   

Top with radish slices.  

Cracked sea salt over all to taste.  

Yields one sandwich.

 

Learn more about radishes here.

Death to the Invader

Last Friday brought another bad day for phragmites, reed canary grass and woody invasives out back in the prairie planting.    

Following our controlled burn in early May of 2020 we invited a field team from Robert E. Lee and Associates to return in late summer last year to perform follow-up chemical treatment.

We've done this before and now we're on a twice a year cycle - spring and fall.  This is their first visit of 2022.  

If you're wondering why I don't just do this myself the short answer is that I probably could - but I'd be breaking the law.  Because the work is performed in a delineated wetland habitat only licensed applicators can pull a permit from Wisconsin DNR and perform the work.  You know me - I'm all about doing things on the up and up. Pulling, cutting and treating other invasives located in less sensitive locations remain my responsibility.

Death to the invader! 

You can learn more about NES Ecological Services here

 

The Science Experiment

Once the plague of Covid descended-upon the land and I was spending less time traveling and more time indoors at home I decided to turn my hand at bread-making.

One thing led to another and before too long the 2021 international travel budget was repurposed as an outdoor brick oven, pizza-making was introduced to the line-up, outdoor grilling over a wood fire was promoted and naturally dough-making for indoor use and outdoor applications was practiced, practiced-again and continues to be experimented-with.

Over the weekend I baked a sourdough loaf indoors.

It started with the fermentation of a sourdough culture a couple of weeks ago.  I had to feed it every day, discard waste product and repeat.  With the passage of time it became a living organism.  It was reminiscent of feeding and changing an infant.  Although I didn't have to read it a bedtime story and tuck it in at night.

A 24-hour room-temperature proof of my basic French boule recipe followed.  The only change was the substitution of the sourdough culture for instant dry yeast as the leavening agent.  Here is the bubbling blob of future bread goodness.

It was a success.  And practice should improve future results and variations on the theme.  Think: sourdough pancakes, rye bread, pizza dough, pretzels, etc.

Yeast-based breads, at least in our culture, are consumed in greater quantity than bread-stuffs leavened with a fermented culture.  It is thought that it was the Egyptian pharaohs first used lactic acid-based bacteria cultures in bread leavening.  This practice spread throughout the world and eventually landed here.

In American popular culture (pun intended) it is believed that sourdough came to San Fransisco via Europe as a consequence of the California gold rush.  Subsequent gold discoveries in the Klondike introduced sourdough to western Canada and Alaska.  

The culture that I grew is a San Fransisco strain acquired from Cultures For Health.  They've got all sorts of resources for a foodie to experiment with Lactobacillus fermentation.

I am told that by means of carefully feeding, growing and nurturing my sourdough culture (it is a living thing after all) that as the bacteria evolve over multiple successive generations its quality and consistency will improve over time.  It sounds like the art and science of raising a child to be a productive citizen.

That sounds like an artisanal challenge for a bread-making hobbyist.

So, stay-tuned.  This could be fun adventure and a delicious science experiment.....

Making Hay

There is an old saying about making hay while the sun shines - recognition that farm chores last as long as there is daylight.

We know that the summer solstice marks the longest day of the year yet the latest sunset of 2022 occurs today.

The solstice marks the farthest point of advance in the sun's relentless march to the north. A week ago , June 21, the advance ceased.  The word solstice literally translates to: sun standing still.  Following this event the sun begins to march in the opposite direction and heads south with our daylight hours getting shorter.  Daylight will continue to dwindle until December 21 - The dark days of the winter solstice - and the first astronomical day of winter after which the process reverses and repeats itself.    

All of this aside, there is a curious paradox in play as a few evenings immediately following the solstice seemingly and inexplicably get brighter.  

What gives?

Here in the northern hemisphere, where you live halfway between the equator and the north pole, on the 26th, 27th and 28th of June the sun will set just a few seconds later.  While this would seem to defy both logic and the science about days getting shorter; as a consequence of our elliptical orbit around the sun and the phenomenon astronomers call analemma the earth is several million miles farther from the sun and moving at the slowest speed around it.

Most of you may not be making hay today; nevertheless, enjoy a couple of extra seconds of sunlight as you take-in another sunset.

Cheers!

Sunset

 The solstice has passed and the sun has reversed course to begin its slow march to the south.

Shot a compass bearing on this evening's impressive sunset..

What's-Up With The Price At The Pump?

Greetings!

I bring you glad tidings of supply-demand economics and an admonition to steer clear of magical, wishful thinking and disinformation found in the Face Book cesspool of lazy economic thought.  

Consider the cost of a gallon of petrol nowadays – $4.64 at the Shell station in Sturgeon Bay yesterday.  That's come down a bit lately, yet remains almost a couple of bucks higher than what it was a year ago.  Filling your tank is even costlier in some parts of the country (be grateful you do not live in LA County).  

On Face Book it is frequently implied that our presidents establish the price of gasoline. I wonder - is there a big switch in the White House basement bunker that POTUS flips to peg the price at the pump?  We all know that isn't true.  Here at least.  

It was true in a place we call Venezuela.  This country happens to be a major oil-producing nation and the government subsidized the price of gasoline (and a lot of other things) to curry favor with the populace.  But I think we all know how that socialist worker paradise turned-out.  Sadly, a nation awash in oil and the entire shebang collapsed.  The lesson is to be careful what you ask for.  But I digress.

I understand that economics is sometimes hard to wrap your mind-around.  Back when I had a day job as a wealth manager and trusted financial advisor I made a very good living making complicated economic and financial subject matter understandable for the average person.  Here’s a simple explanation to keep the facts straight.  

There are only a handful of contributors to the price of a gallon of gasoline – with the largest contributor being crude-oil prices. Presently at 60% - the largest driver of the cost of a gallon of gasoline is the price of crude oil.  This is compared to 25% in April of 2020.  My recollection is that this was when the pandemic crushed the cost of crude as demand fell along with that of other goods and commodities.   

 

Other contributors to the cost of a gallon of gasoline include (in this order) refining, state and federal taxes and distribution and marketing. 

Crude oil is a dollar-denominated commodity that trades on the global market.  The price of crude is considerably higher today than a year ago and higher still than two years ago. So, if you’re pining for the days of yore when gas was really cheap you need to consider your willingness to revisit a period of Covid restrictions, lock downs, a global collapse of travel, tens of millions of unemployed and a tanking economy that contributed to the collapse of crude oil prices. My recollection of that hot mess is still quite fresh and I want nothing to do with it.

 

Complicating matters is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  On their own, wars generally rattle commodity markets.  As a major oil producer the economic sanctions placed on Russia have further sent more than a few shock waves thru the energy markets.

 

Finally, the OPEC+ nations have deliberately kept their production levels at, or close to, the levels negotiated by the Trump Administration  a couple of years ago.  This was done to rescue our own domestic oil producers staggered by the drop in oil prices.  If OPEC increased production (supply) prices would likely drop.  The Biden Administration is going to pay a call on the Saudis to see if hearts and minds might change on the matter of increased production.  Good luck with that.  If I was a member of an exceedingly profitable cartel I'd be disinclined.  Time will tell.

 

Enough said about the cost of crude.      

 

The second contributor to the recent rise in gasoline prices is growing demand as workers have returned to the office, resumed daily commutes and a weary population embraces a post-Covid world and is traveling.  We embarked-upon a marathon road trip in April and while I didn't particularly care for the high price of gasoline the Missus and I really didn't give a rat's ass.  We had places to go and people to see.  We also caught Covid - but I digress, again.

 

Just this past Friday I had to go to town to run an errand and I was witness to an extended wait to cross the four lane highway.  The northbound traffic was a solid and seemingly endless parade of campers, trailers, boats, kayaks, car-top carriers, bike racks and travelers sporting out-of-town vehicle tags. While some of you readers may have grumbled over the wait; I saw room taxes, vacation spending, restaurant meals and winery visits.  All of it principally fueled by an increased demand for gasoline.  Don't take my word for it though tourism trade on the peninsula continues to set new records for visitor taxes.

 

If you were to talk to the people over at AAA they would tell you that the post-Covid pent-up demand of American motorists continues to set record highs.  And with no slack in fuel consumption (get ready for this) demand is going to keep gasoline prices elevated.  

 

The question of the day is this: Have you curtailed your vehicular use as a consequence of the price at the pump?  I haven't.  And most of my contemporaries haven't either.  Welcome to the demand side of the economic equation.

 

The third (and smallest) contributor to rising prices is another of those nagging supply-chain issues.  Gasoline inventories are ample at the present moment - although refinery capacity struggles from time-to-time.  

 

Addressing one last bit of FB chicanery is that the price at the pump has nothing to do with canceling the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline.  The second Keystone pipeline. That project was conceived by a Canadian company to move low-grade tar sand crude to the gulf coast for export overseas.  And after more than a decade of controversy wasn't even slated for completion until sometime late in 2023.  As a general rule gasoline is not refined from tar sands due to the extraordinary costs.  Besides, the first Keystone pipeline has delivered over 3.3 billion barrels of crude oil since 2010.  It was never shut-down and continues to meet domestic and global energy needs.  To be clear, Biden energy policy might have a long term impact on energy prices.  Presidents can, and do, impact energy costs over the long term by means of policy.  Biden hasn't done much of anything anyway and when the GOP regains control of congress he's stuck.  For the present, current pricing is impacted principally by the global market price of crude and strong consumer demand. 

One final thought. There is a silver lining here if you look for it. Plenty of our countrymen work in the oil patch. A couple of years ago petroleum engineers and refinery workers were being furloughed in record numbers. Today domestic producers have recovered and are humming-along trying to keep-up with demand. That’s a good thing and a contributor to a healthy economy.  And for us retirees who belong to the investor class - energy and related shares are rocking the nest egg.

I don't want to minimize the reality that energy executives are loath to increase production (supply) while they are reaping record profits.  Their duty is to shareholders and employees first.  Markets drive pricing.  That's how business works in a capitalist economy. 

Raising a toast to the 2022 road trip wherever it may take you.

 

Bonus:

 

The Ukraine War, a New Flashpoint and the End of Europe's Energy Innocence

 

Putin Is A Dick

Anybody who knows me would know that 95% of my T-shirt inventory is comprised of bike ride shirts. 

Not this. 

I wasn’t particularly thinking about it when we stopped at the Sturgeon Bay Farmers Market this morning when all of a sudden total strangers all over came up to me to compliment and share their approval.  Same for folks at the grocery store. 

There are plenty of descriptors for Old Vlad that are inappropriate around children and social media. Nevertheless, there seems to be near universal agreement that Putin Is A Dick.

 

Available from Lakefront Brewery

 

Little Ones

The little ones have revealed themselves in the past several weeks with the resident lady whitetails dropping their fawns.

I haven't observed any of them up-close and personal.

But the trail cameras are chock-full of photos and video - resplendent in their spotted camouflage....

If you look closely the deer entering from stage left is a velvet buck

Sunset

 

Post-solstice Old Sol is beginning its relentless march south.

Nice sunset.

Sucks that the days begin to grow shorter....

Friday Music

Watching the Mark Twain Award show Tuesday evening this song was featured.

Included on Bruce Springsteen's third album released in 1975 the single charted in the number three position on the Billboard 200.

Here's an older and most excellent acoustic version of Born to Run...

Cooking With Fire

With the arrival of spring the wood-fired brick oven has been put to use.

The Forno has been accessorized with a cast iron Tuscan Grill thereby casting its net beyond mere pizza, calzones, bread baking and cast iron pan roasting.

 

We had some neighbors over for drinks and dinner recently and experimented with Vietnamese sticky chicken.

 

 

The grill is a terrific expansion of the repertoire.

 

Because everyone knows the universal truth:

 

Real men cook with fire…..

Ingenius

It is said from time-to-time that American ingenuity is a bottomless pit of possibilities.

Lacking a deck this is pure genius......

Shave and a Haircut

An old cowboy walks into a barbershop for a shave and a haircut.

He tells the barber he cannot get all of the whiskers off because his cheeks are wrinkled with age.

The barber takes a little wooden ball from a cup on the shelf and tells the old cowboy to put it inside his cheek to spread out the skin.

When he's finished the old cowboy tells the barber that was the cleanest shave he's had in years.  But he wanted to know what would have happened if he had accidentally swallowed the little ball.

The barber replies, Just bring it back in a couple of days like everyone else does.

Summer Solstice

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice here in the northern hemisphere which means that on Tuesday we receive more sunlight than any other day of the year.  Naturally, you would conclude that this date would have the earliest sunrise and latest sunset, no?  

Don't jump to conclusions.  Even though the solstice has the greatest amount of daylight - the earliest sunrise occurs before the solstice and the latest sunset falls afterward.  The occurrence of those events is dependent upon how far you are from the equator – a function of the tilt of the Earth on its axis.  

Here is an interesting factoid – I went to the US Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department and looked-up the Sunrise and Sunset times for The Platz before, during and after the solstice.

June 17 Sunrise 5:03 Am Sunset 8:38 PM

June 18 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:38 PM

June 19 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 20 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 21 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 22 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 23 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

June 24 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

June 25 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

 

 

Notice that the three dates preceding the solstice have almost the same amount of daylight.  The implication is that the solstice lasts more than half a week. 

 

What's the explanation?  Does it have something to do with our location being almost equidistant from the North Pole and Equator?  Or is it a consequence of rounding the precise times?  I think it is the latter rather than the former.

 

Nonetheless, any difference is the amount of daylight will not be discernible to this old guy’s eyes.

Happy Dads Day

Decent sunset this evening. 

All the particulate matter in the atmosphere is the cause of this deep, hazy, orange cast to the sky. 

Perfectly predictable occurrence on Fathers Day. 

This is a consequence of an uptick in millions upon millions of dads grilling, BBQing and smoking deliciousness in the northern hemisphere. 

Cheers Guys…..

Idol Worship

I recall a time when people were getting a chuckle over people who considered Barack Obama their Messiah.  

And then there was four years when people got a good belly laugh over large numbers of people who consider Donald Trump their Messiah.

Joe Biden is the POTUS and he's a practicing Roman Catholic.  If you've ever been in a Catholic church you will note they have statues of saints, Mary, Joseph, Jesus and more all over the place.  Some call that idolatry.  So I suppose he has his own flock of messianic followers.

I have no recollection of this Messiah phenomenon occurring with Presidents Bush (both of them) or Clinton. Moreover, once you have left the White House it seems any false prophet Messiah worship stops.  The Ju-Ju dissipated after vacating the White House.

The exception to this is the persistent Messianic following the former guy seems to have garnered that is manifested on Face Book.  I have friends that post stuff like this:

Donald Trump never struck me as a particularly devout individual or even seriously religious.  Several years ago an evangelical minister explained this phenomena to me and I wish I had written it down.  

What I recall from his rather clinical explanation and understanding of it was that it had much to do with a belief among evangelical Christians about their place in American culture being threatened or replaced (displaced).  Combine that with generalized resentment and grievance over Washington's history of turning a deaf ear to cultural differences.  Trump's nationalism, and positions on immigration, on torture, on gun control, on Black Lives Matter and police brutality — they all line up pretty closely with their own.  These are their values, and Trump represents them.  With a bit of badass masculinity for good measure. Trump's disregard for most of the Commandments on a daily basis doesn't count for much.  I still struggle to understand that dynamic.  But I digress.

I puzzle over the people who sure seem to be easily influenced by these Messiahs that walk among us.  Not a single one of them can cure lepers, raise the dead, turn water into wine or walk on water.  Bereft of WWJD it's largely showmanship and fakery.  Slim pickings they are for the second-coming. 

My conclusion is that a significant number of my countrymen - from the left and right fringes - are just garden-variety idolaters.

PT Barnum had a saying for this..... 

 

Messenger of the Gods

 

Iris was the name of the Greek goddess of the rainbow – who also happened to be the messenger of the gods. This name can also be given in reference to the word (which derives from the same Greek/modern Latin source) for the iris flower or the colored part of the eye.

The wild-growing iris - like the one above found on the banks of Silver Creek - should begin their seasonal blooms later this month and into the next.  More on that to follow.

For now there are Jill's domestic iris cultivars that are adding some spectacular color around the house and serving the pollinators. 

 

 

Jill's father raised iris and at least one of these goes back many, many years to one of his.

Others are from friends.

These iris thrive here at a latitude half-way between the equator and the north pole.

Tough plant the iris is.....

Friday Music

From Savannah, Georgia, Billy Currington came on to the country music scene with his first album release in 2003.  A single from that album, Walk a Little Straighter went to number eight that year on the Hot Country Songs chart.  And the rest is history. 

Six albums have resulted in eighteen singles that charted in the US including eleven number one hits.

In 2017 he set a new record with another number one single, Do I Make You Wanna, becoming the only country artist to have a song in number one position gain an audience of nearly 9,500,000 over another country artist's song in the number two position.

This is one of my favorites from his collection.  Easy on the ears and carries a positive and affirming message...

Update From the Oriole Ranch

With the arrival of the orioles on May 10th activity on the feeders was land office brisk.  The hungry migrators were gorging on high energy fruit and grape jelly. 

 

Business recently has been quiet.  The orioles haven’t entirely disappeared - but their feeding habits have switched.  As they rear their young high in the tree canopy they're now dining on the abundant high protein insects and insect larvae.  

True to form, in July the adults will return with their fledglings to introduce them to the decadence of grape jelly and oranges. 

That return is always a hoot because those fledglings will find a perch and beg mom or dad to feed them. By the time they’ve figured out how to feed themselves the orioles beat it out of Dodge and depart for their wintering grounds.

Last to arrive and first to depart. 

In the interim, the red-bellied woodpeckers continue to come around on a daily basis to indulge their sweet tooth. 

 

With all the dead and dying ash on the landscape the resident woodpecker population has soared to record numbers.

 

Canis Latrans

Last week we completed the circuit of the trail camera trap line while on our walk.  We had to wag a cordless weed whacker along to clear the field of view for each of the cameras.  In the process I managed to drop an SD card somewhere along the way thereby losing the contents of a couple of weeks vigilance.

Nevertheless, despite the tall grass and weeds we managed a handful of decent pics.

Coyotes were cheap..... 

Noteable Quoteable

I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible — there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

- Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Early Bird Gets The Worm

If you open your copy of the 2022 Farmer's Almanac to page 144 you will note that in the Northern Hemisphere the earliest sunrise for this year is tomorrow - June 14.

You're probably thinking:  Shouldn't this coincide with the summer solstice next week?  Nope, the dates for the earliest sunrise (June 14) and the latest sunset (June 27) do not coincide with the Solstice (June 21).     

The principle cause of this is the slightly elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun and the tilt of the earth's axis.  The earth moves a bit faster in its orbit during the month of January when we're closest to the sun.  In July we are further from the sun and moving a bit slower.  If you chart the path of the sun across the sky on a daily basis it will appear to travel in a figure-eight pattern that astronomers call an analemma.  This is the Word of the Day.

    

Because of this, the notion that when the sun is directly overhead at noon, thereby slitting the day into to precisely equal parts, is not true.

The midday sun comes later by the clock on the day of the solstice than it does a week earlier.  As a consequence of this the sunrise and sunset times differ on a clock.  It is the sun's looping path that explains this difference.

I'm sure by now your head hurts a bit by this explanation so don't sweat the details.  Take my word for it. 

When you get-up tomorrow morning grab a big cuppa joe and watch the early sunrise.  And be sure to hang your flag out too.  It's Flag Day.  

Viewing the June Night Sky

Beginning tonight and tomorrow the June moon will appear full.  

 

The June moon - typically the last full moon of spring or the first of summer - is traditionally called the Strawberry Moon.  With origins traced to the Algonquin people this was a sign to commence gathering wild strawberries. 

 

The photo on the left was taken June of 2020 with the moon-rise over the ancient pump house.

Following European settlement alternate names included the Meade moon and the Honey moon were introduced.  

Because the Roman goddess of marriage is Juno – namesake of this frequent month of marriages - we have the honeymoon.

When the moon rises Monday evening it will appear larger and brighter than normal.  This is a consequence of the June full moon being the second supermoon of 2022.  When the moon is both full and at it's closest orbital point in relation to Earth the appearance is larger.

 

Pizza Margherita

A gloomy, on-again, off-again, rain means brick oven cooking. 

Pizza Margherita - the simplest Neapolitan pizza. 

 

The Italian city of Naples is generally-accepted as the home to the creation story of pizza.  Founded in the 16th century the urban peasants of Naples were quite impoverished and thus it was that pizza - a flatbread with toppings - easy to make and could be eaten for any meal that affordably fed the working class of Naples.   

The popular interpretation of the origin of this particular pie is an account from 1889 and a visit by King Umberto I and Queen Margherita to Naples. The Queen summoned the famed pizza-maker Raffaele Esposito to bake three pizzas for her. The first two - an anchovy followed by a marinara were uninspiring to the Queen.  The third - featuring the green, white and red colors of the Italian flag - met with the Queen's approval.  Esposito named his pie for Queen Margherita and requested of her a Royal Seal.  But I digress - I watch to many Stanley Tucci Italian cooking shows on streaming television.

This pie features a long cold fermentation dough, sauce, whole milk mozz, fresh garden basil, salt, and a drizzle of EVO. 

Also broke-in a new professional peel for ease of oven entry and egress….

Snaky Panky

Allow me to introduce you to Elaphe vulpina – the Western fox snake.  This is a valuable animal to have around your yard as they dine principally upon rodents.  If you are a gardener they are your ally.  Belonging to the family of snakes that are constrictors - upon seizing their prey they coil around it to suffocate the animal.  After which they swallow it whole.  Their lower jaw is unhinged allowing this critter to swallow a rodent or bird five times the diameter of their head. Yum!

These are nonvenomous snakes and generally avoid people.  If handled they will frequently express a skunky, foxlike scent from a musk gland near their tail.  Hence the name fox snake.  If you pick one up use both hands as constrictors can be quite strong.  Wear gloves in case you get a dose of that musky discharge.  As a general rule they won’t bite.  Remember - they’re not poisonous - just in case a feisty one gives you a nip.

 

Last Tuesday there was this...

 

 

Eastern fox snakes mate in April or May, while western fox snakes mate from April to July.  Males wrestle one another to compete for females. 

In June, July, or August, the female lays between 6 and 29 leathery eggs. The eggs measure between 1.5 and 2.0 inches long and are deposited in forest debris or beneath stumps. After about 60 days, the eggs hatch. The young are independent at birth. The lifespan of wild fox snakes is unknown, but they live 17 years in captivity.

It's not often you witness snaky panky.....

 

Friday Music

So many people from my generation hold so many memories of this song for so many different reasons.  

One folk legend paying a wonderful tribute to another great legend of folk music.  Alison Krauss is so low key and understated and her awesome singing and playing seem effortless. She's amazing.

The Boxer was originally recorded in 1970 by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel for their album Bridge Over Troubled Waters.   

This is a beautiful version of one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs.  James Taylor and Alison Krauss pay tribute to Paul Simon at the 2002 Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Paul Simon......

Tiny Vocalist

Meet Troglodytes aedon - the house wren.  The Latin name derives from: “hole dweller.” 

They're insect-eaters and as a consequence will not visit your seed feeders.  However, if you want to attract these enthusiastic songsters put a nest box or two in your yard. 

These tiny birds are quite vocal and are called house wrens as they are comfortable nesting in close proximity adjacent to our houses. 

They are a wonderful addition to the outdoor sound experience and during mating season will fill your yard with music for weeks at a time.