Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee At Steve’s Country #26. Black-capped Chickadee.
Good morning everyone! Come in out of the cold, grab some nice hot coffee, or tea, and relax with Muffin and I for a few minutes. Well, they said it was going to be colder last night, but they were wrong, the temp is the same. Which means it’s cold, very cold, with a temp of -29C (-22F) and with the wind factored in the temp is actually -36C (-32F). That part is a slight improvement over yesterday, though when temps get that cold, 4 or 5 degrees is just not noticeable. Our high temp for the day yesterday was -21C (-6F).
I know many of you are unfamiliar with such temps, and believe me, you don’t want to feel them either. It is just unbelievably cold. It’s amazing my little bird friends can survive such temps, like my favorite, the black-capped chickadee. They are small, only 5 to 6 inches (12-15cm) from bill to tip of their tail and 2 to 2 and a half inches (5 to 5.5cm) is the tail. In this cold their hide their legs and feet under their feathers as often as possible, actually all birds up here in the north will do that.
These birds don’t build up fat like many other bird species, to help them through the winter, so they need to eat constantly all day long. But our nights are much longer than the day so how do they survive? During the day they will build up a bit of fat from their food to help them, but at night they drop their body temp from 108F during the day to only 86F at night. That lowers their rate of metabolism by 25%, which helps them survive the long, cold nights.
In winter they form loose flocks and travel together looking for food. At night they roost in dense evergreen groves, like spruce and balsam. They are the most common bird in Canada and are found from coast to coast within the tree line. They are also found through much of the northern half of the US. They number in the millions and are one of the most important pest exterminators in the forest. During the summer, 80-90% of their diet is insects, mostly harmful types, and about 50% in the winter. They find frozen insects that have hidden behind bark of trees for the winter. Plus they eat seeds in winter. They are also one of the most common birds at feeders in winter. They sing their name in such a way that it that it cheers the cold winter landscape. There is so much more I could say about these favorite little birds of mine, but I’ll stop there. I hope you like the chickadee pics as well. Have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. The Missing Cat. Chapter 12.
It actually didn’t seem to take very long and we were getting close to the border. We stopped in Belfort and found a nice hotel, so we checked in and got settled in our room. Then I went down to the lobby to use one of the public phones. I called Sabine and she answered amazingly quick, which surprised me. “Well, Steve,” she said, “I see you like to change plans.” “It makes things easier if I know what’s going on,” I answered, “now about the rest of this little bit of fun you organized. I would like to get rid of this thing.” “That’s good,” she said, “and I see you picked a very nice hotel to stay at, but I’m afraid you need to leave right away. I want you in Zurich as soon as possible.” “And that will be tomorrow,” I replied, “we need to have a good rest and get cleaned up before continuing our trip.”
Now she sounded a bit annoyed. “I want you in Zurich tonight Steve,” she said more forcefully this time, “I will have some of my associates there to pick up the Cat.” “No,” I said, “I will only deliver this Cat to you and Gaston, no one else,” I said in return, “If anyone else shows up they won’t return to you, with or without the Cat, and that’s a promise.” There was silence for a bit. “Fine,” she said sternly, “you will check in at this particular hotel as Glen and Susan Claymore. You are tourists from Canada. Everything you need, including your new ID and passports, rental info for your car, and some cash for you to use is all waiting for you at the front desk of your hotel, but it’s addressed to you under your present name. Follow orders this time Steve, I’m losing patience.” “I lost patience a long time back,” I told her, “I will do what you say except I will stay in a different hotel and I will let you know which one when I get there.”
Silence again. “Fine,” she said and hung up. This is going to be fun, in a not so fun way. I pick up a large envelope at the front desk and went back to our room. I told them all what we were doing. Then I got cleaned up, Lena was already finished so she went down and picked up some food for us. Back in the car, but before leaving I told Lena she could stay behind and I would pick her up tomorrow. But she said no way is she staying behind by herself. I guess she has a point, Sabine knows we are here, therefore some of her gang are here watching things. I get the cats to watch out the back window to see if we are being followed. Sure enough there is a car following us so I pull off to the side and so did they.
I went back to them, “Are you trying to follow us?”, I asked them. “Sabine wants to make sure you follow orders this time,” said the driver. “Thwock!”, and the passenger was out. The driver turned to look and then turned back to me with gun in hand. But my gun was already staring at him so he dropped his gun. I told him to get out. “Thwock!”, and he fell to the ground. The cats just knocked them out this time. Then I shot all four tires so they wouldn’t be following us again anytime soon. Back on the road we got near the border. It was obvious they were stopping and checking cars, looking for that Jade Cat no doubt. They stopped us too and I showed our passports and they let us go right away. How odd, they were checking every vehicle, except ours. Another member of Sabine’s gang perhaps?
“This is going to get dangerous once we get to our hotel,” I said to Lena. “I’m ready,” she said rather calmly, “I wonder who Sabine really is, or is she even hiding another identity?” “She is hiding,” I said, “her name is Amelie Allard and she is actually Captain Allard, an undercover police officer from Paris. Originally though she is from Switzerland, Zurich to be exact.” Lena just looked at me. “I am getting kind of confused,” she said. “That is why the police were always so close to us, she was tipping them off, pretending to work with them, while in reality stealing the Jade Cat right in front of them. That’s how she has been so successful in all their jewel thefts,” I explained. “But how did you find out?”, asked Lena. “I recognized their voices from that one contact with the police before stealing the Cat, when we picked up Bernard to help us,” I said, “the police were thinking along this line before, but had no proof against anyone.”
To Be Continued.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 