Redpoll sightings

I have a clipping about redpolls sent by our son, Tom, who recently saw a flock of 50 of these birds flying over the field below his Hiram home. How I wish I had been there! The picture of this small bird in our copy of the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds is choice.

The newspaper article Tom sent me is the Dec. 3 edition of the Mountain Ear. The article is written by David Eastman.

He describes the redpoll as a tiny bird, with a red cap on his forehead, a black chin underneath the pointed finch’s bill.

On the Internet they are usually shown from the Scandinavian countries or the northern parts of the British Isles or Europe. Lack of food in their latitudes brings these finches down to our regions. They often frequent our bird feeders.

Eastman wrote, “A common redpoll is a pale, streaky finch with the red forehead and crown, whereas the lores (spaces between the bird’s eye and bill) are black. The flight and tail feathers are gray, with buff-colored edges. The rump is pale and streaked with gray. The breast, flank, and belly are whitish, and streaked. Males have an amount of rose across the upper breast that is not apparent in females.”

Redpolls tend to be active earlier in the morning and later in the twilight to lengthen the time spent feeding. Their food choices help survival. Common redpolls’ preference for birch seed is because that is one of the highest calorie-rich seeds available on the winter landscape. As much as 80 percent of a redpoll’s diet may be the birches’ seeds.

If I visit our Hiram property next year in early December, I might be lucky to see my first redpoll (with Tom’s help). There are many birch trees (and their seeds) there.

Rarified accomplishment

We’ve read many accounts recently about Sir Edmund Hillary, who died Jan. 10 at the age of 88. He and Tensing Norgay, a mountain guide from Nepal, were the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, in their 1953 climb.

Hillary was born in Auckland, New Zealand. In 1951 he joined a New Zealand party on a route up the southern flank of Everest. He was recruited to the 1953 British expedition and he and Norgay were the second team to attempt the summit, not the first.

The New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said that Hillary, a humble man about his choice achievement, was the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived.

The news reached Britain on her coronation day and Queen Elizabeth II knighted Sir Edmund as one of her first acts.

The Jan. 11 Boston Herald reported that he devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called simply “Ed,” and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

He was proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Norgay.

In 1988 he told a group of schoolchildren that one didn’t have to be a genius to do well in life. “If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.” He was at the school to plant some endangered Himalayan oaks in the school grounds. The planting was part of his program to reforest upland areas of Nepal.

In the Jan. 16 Boston Globe we read of a new honor that has been given to the climbing team. Nepal plans to name the only airport in the Mount Everest region after the first two men to reach the world’s highest peak, 29,035 feet, more than five decades ago.

The airport at Lukia will be named the Tenzing-Hillary airport. Lukia airport, situated at 9,100 feet, serves as the gateway for thousands of trekkers and mountaineers going to the Everest region.

A top 10

Today’s recipe is from “Country Flavor Cookbook,” 1956, by Haydn S. Pearson. My cousin, Ruth Hutchinson, whom we enjoyed visiting years ago at her Concord, N.H., home, gave me this book, which I enjoy.

HAYDN’S FAVORITE INDIAN PUDDING

Pearson wrote, “Indian Pudding, hot, tangy and fragrant, is one of the world’s top ten puddings on my score board. I like it just as well when it is warmed up the next day,”

6 tablespoons yellow corn meal

1/2 cup molasses

3-1/2 cups hot milk

1/4 cup cold milk

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

Mix the corn meal and molasses. Add hot milk. Cook this over medium heat until the consistency of light gruel, stirring all the time.

Add everything but the cold milk and mix well. Pour mixture into a greased baking dish. Bake at 300 for 45 minutes, but be sure to stir mixture well at the 20-minute mark. After 45 minutes from the beginning baking time, stir in the cold milk. Mix well.

Bake at 300 for about 2 hours more. Watch carefully the last few minutes. An over-baked Indian pudding is an egregious disappointment.

Ramblings