Day 26: messy messy messy

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OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT!

Here we are. Day twenty-six of the quarantine. You have stayed at home, been socially isolated, you feel rotten. Fatigued.

You are coughing, sneezing, congested, headachy. And you are thinking, how did I get that awful Covid-19?

Well there is always a chance, so monitor your condition. But since the Tennessee Valley is the pollen capital of the known universe including Tralfamadore—you have to be a Vonnegut fan to catch that one—perhaps you are suffering from seasonally allergies. And as my doctor told me a long time ago, the number one symptom of an allergy issue is lethargy. 

Nature tends to prefer order and logical processes. But when it comes to some trees the male flowers are rather sloppy, spreading their gametes like a ticker tape parade. Messy. Messy. Messy.

Here's the biology. "Pollen is a fine powdery substance, typically yellow, consisting of microscopic grains discharged from the male part of a flower or from a male cone. Each grain contains a male gamete that can fertilize the female ovule."

If the plant is designed for insects to spread the male seed, no big deal. But in the case of some trees like oaks and pines, then the wind does the spreading, a rather sloppy, untidy process because the male flowers have to produce oceans of pollen to make up for the inefficiency. The spiky little grains end up everywhere like the top photo sent to our news-desk by Rachael Eliot a.k.a. Starbuck from her wooded neighborhood. And we breath in those powdery particles and our bodies can go into red alert.  

WikiMedia. Photo by Dan Pancamo.

The good news. Advanced birder Rachael with the ears-of-a-virtuoso, also heard the zippy voice of a male black-throated green warbler (Setophaga virens), a sign that the spring migration is beginning. 

So we will end our report with that happy note.

Ob-la-de, ob-la-da. 

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