neighdoctor

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By Jordan Lake Natural Temperature Gauge

Here is a prime example of my father‘s favorite kind of temperature gauge. I photographed this red shouldered hawk yesterday morning when the wind chill factor was 35°F. Even if I had been sitting in my warm truck, I could have glanced over at this hawk and known that because he is almost as big around as he is tall … the air is cold. He has all of his feathers fluffed up as a nice warm blanket. Also note that he’s got his body lowered so that his feather blanket is mostly covering his feet … just like our warm winter slippers would do.

By Pied-billed Grebe Toes

Jordan Lake: Pied-billed grebes are a winter visitor here. They come down and spend the colder months with us. What I find really neat about the pied-billed grebe is, that like all grebes, it has feet where each toe has a lobe surrounding it. These lobes make the foot look like a tree leaf as you can see here in this photo. This makes the little grebe a very fast underwater swimmer as it dashes about catching fish and crustaceans for its food. I always smile when I see these grebes because they sure look like they are shyly smiling at the world.