Science Saturday: Cattails, Mouring Doves and Cardinals!

(Last week's Science Saturday)

My fun story about cattails:

I had a cattail head once, and I got the brilliant idea to open it up in the house! Sigh....that resulted in a rush outside as the fuzz was trying to float around the house....never did that again! ;~) I did get everything out of the house, but the yard had a lot of cattail fuzz for a while! ;~D

A few fun facts:

• Cattails are perennials! They live for several years, and may appear to be dead, but are actually in a dormancy over winter.
• Cattails are edible throughout every season of their life. In the spring you can eat the shoots like celery, and in the late summer before the heads open to release the fluff, you can boil them and eat them like corn. (We tried this, but I think they were getting too old, so they didn't taste the best).
• Even the roots are useful! You can use them for soups or dry them to ground into flour!
• Mourning Doves are named after their mournful "song" they sing.
• Once a Mourning Dove has found it's mate, they are mates for life. In the north they have 2 broods over the course of a summer. In the south they may have up to 5 broods!
• Mourning Doves eat what ever seeds they can find, and in the fall they enjoy the grain and corn kernels left in the fields.
• Cardinals are originally from the south. Slowly around the turn of the 20th century, they've drifted north. At the time, they were certain that the snow and harsh cold climate in the winter would stop them, but as you can see they haven't!
•  Cardinals don't migrate, which is why we can see them all year round. A bright red cardinal on a winter day is such a cheery sight!
• Cardinals weren't the only ones to slowly "drift" north. The Tufted Titmouse, the Mockingbird, and the Carolina Wren have also joined the Cardinals.