Birds bring beauty and superstitions into our lives

Birds bring beauty and superstitions into our lives

By: Judi Stuart

Port Discover: Visitor Services Manager

 

One of the delights of retirement is that you have time to notice things in nature that escaped you when you were working.

We’ve been feeding two goose families that regularly visit our backyard and have made themselves quite at home. After their dinner, they just sit down in the grass, and the babies snuggle up under the mother’s wing for a rest.

Being a witness to nature is addictive, and it makes you think and then draw conclusions about what you observe. Sometimes, those conclusions can be more superstition than fact.

People have often viewed birds as messengers with news about future events, and they have tied their appearance to spiritual things. If a death occurred after seeing an owl during the daytime, people wondered. If it happened again, it became a superstition. No doubt you have heard several myths about birds that you might have repeated.

Author Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in 1797. In the narrative poem, a haunted seafarer tells the tale of his horrifying experience on a doomed ship. It involves an albatross that is killed, thus bringing bad luck to the vessel and its crew.

Some people believe that albatrosses contain the souls of sailors and bring bad weather and high winds.

Legend tells of robins trying to remove the thorns from Christ’s crown at his crucifixion, and the result was that blood stained their breast red.

If you make a wish when you see the first robin in spring, you will have good luck. Something of yours will be broken, if you break a robin’s egg. You will marry a sailor if the first bird you see on Valentine’s Day is a robin.

Peacocks, though beautiful, are considered by some to bring bad luck because of the evil eye at tip of their feathers. In the theater world, costumes adorned with peacock feathers or set decoration including them are believed to bring bad luck to the production, so they are avoided.

Owls are well-known for their symbolism. Mythology claims that the hoot of an owl occurred before the deaths of Agrippa, Julius Caesar, and Augustus Caesar.

Screech owls supposedly bring bad news. An owl skin nailed to a barn wards off bad luck. Eating owl broth will help with whooping cough, and eating their eggs improves vision, epileptic seizures, and drunkenness.

Doves are viewed as spiritual in nature. Because they mate for life and carry the spirits of lovers, they are often released at weddings to ensure a long and faithful marriages. Old timers believe that the dove is the one bird that the devil cannot change into, and miners worry if they see doves at the opening of a mineshaft.

Chickens have many beliefs attached to them. Bringing eggs into the house after sunset causes bad luck, while a chicken entering a house means a visitor is coming.

All of these beliefs bring new meaning to the practice of bird watching.

Source: “Eerie Bird Superstitions,” by Emma Springfield, Nature Center Magazine. www.superstitionsof.com

 

New taste treat for all

Insects are a culinary delicacy around the world, but will we bite?

By: Judi Stuart

Port Discover: Visitor Services Manager

 

You will not believe this; I didn’t.  On Amazon, you can find new mealtime delights like Fluker’s Gourmet Canned Crickets, Ultimate Insect and Bug Candy, Larvets (BBQ), Edible Pupae, and Crickettes in sour cream and onion and bacon and cheese flavors.  They can be delivered right to your doorstep for your pleasure.

            Often, when I am enjoying a dinner of shrimp which is one of my favorite foods, Hubby says, “You know that you’re eating bugs.” Of course, he’s kidding, and he knows better, but they do resemble bugs so I always wonder a little.  Some people even refer to them as the “cockroaches of the sea.”

            People of western European decent who now inhabit places all over the earth are generally not too keen on eating bugs.  In Asia, China, Africa, South America, and many other areas, insects are a daily part of the diet and are often considered a delicacy.  Two billion people consume insects as part of their diets.

            Early Europeans were farmers who quickly recognized that insects were fierce enemies of the crops they tried to raise.  Killing the creatures was their goal, not eating them.  Our innate belief is that we should not eat anything that our mothers did not feed us.  To go against that belief is a giant leap for most people.

            Entomophagy is the practice of eating bugs for their nutritional value.  Insects are a readily available, natural source of carbohydrates, protein, fats, minerals, omega-3s, and vitamins.  As the world population approaches eight billion people, scientists say that there will be little choice but to use insects to stop starvation.

           The United Nations is promoting a campaign to make this cultural shift happen. The International Society of Sports Nutrition is enthusiastic about the use of insect protein products to enrich the food of athletes.  Bodybuilders are often on the leading edge of progressive nutritional trends, and if people see them consuming insect protein supplements, the tide might turn.

One way to assist people in rising above the disgust factor is to make them believe that the food has a high status by labeling it a delicacy and charging more for it.  Lobster was once plentiful along the eastern coast of the U.S. and Canada, but it was considered a poor man’s food.  Today lobsters are the most expensive item on the menu.

Pound for pound insects have a greater concentration of life sustaining protein and other nutrients than chicken, pork, or beef.  Insects also contain less saturated fat and their production is more environmentally friendly than other meats.

           What if you are stuck on an island and the only food includes bugs?  Which ones would you choose?  It is best to avoid the brightly colored ones, but there will be plenty to select from since there are fifteen orders of edible insects.  They include lice, grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, bees, ants, flies, mosquitoes, dragonflies, and termites.

Get your frying pan out and give them a try!

(Source: www.theblaze.com)

Over the Rainbow

The path of a tornado is one scary place to be

By: Judi Stuart

Port Discover: Visitor Services Manager

 

Dorothy was determined to get home after being displaced by a tornado, but there is nothing fictitious about the recent storms that have ravaged our area. The terror is very real, and unfortunately, it continues.

Psychologists say that humans are most frightened when they are not able to control their surroundings.

Tornadoes are events that strike at the heart of that fear. If we become victims, we must pick-up the pieces and carry on with a lot of help from our friends, family, and community.

We are fortunate that, comparatively speaking, the Albemarle has a low risk of seeing the most powerful storms. The United States has approximately 1,000 tornadoes touch down every year which is more than any other country. Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Nebraska are known as tornado alley because of the regularity of the storms which strike them each spring.

In 1992, Elizabeth City was struck by an F-3 storm which devastated the Edgewood area. The twister then picked up a school bus and threw it 75 yards into a field on Halstead Boulevard.

There were 44 injuries, but no deaths, in the surrounding area from that storm. As we always say, it could have been much worse. Elizabeth City has had three F-3 tornadoes in recorded history and many rated F-1 and F-2 storms.

It may seem that we are seeing more storms, and some people wonder if it is caused by global warming, climate change, or increasingly unstable atmospheric conditions. Heat and pressure drive our weather patterns, and we know that tornadoes come from thunderstorms in a wind shear environment.

These types of conditions occur east of the Rocky Mountains more than anywhere else in the world.

Storms are born when warm moist air at low levels meets with drier air aloft causing extreme instability in the atmosphere. A tornado is a rapidly spinning tube of air that goes from the ground to the cloud above it. As it moves, it picks up dirt and debris. Most tornadoes produce winds that are less than 100 miles per hour, but some can attain wind speeds of over 300 miles per hour.

The country of Bangladesh experienced the deadliest tornado ever recorded in 1989 when 1300 people died. In 1925, the Tri-State Tornado which traveled through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana left destruction across 219 miles and killed 695 people and became the deadliest U.S. storm.

Scientists are studying the patterns of low temperatures like we saw last winter and their interaction with higher temperatures possibly caused by increased greenhouse gases. Any improvement in the ability to predict storms will result in better preparation and less loss of life and property.

Your best defense is to stay alert, have a personal plan of action, and become educated about how to protect yourself. For example, wearing some sort of helmet when you take cover is now recommended. Unlike Dorothy, we must deal with our reality without magic.

 

(Source: www.tcdailyplanet.net)