The Oklahoma Chapter of The Nature Conservancy is celebrating its 25th anniversary with an open house on Sunday, September 18, 2011, from 2-4pm. It will be held in Jenks, OK, at The Lodge at Five Oaks, 528 E. 121st St. The Tulsa office is asking for volunteer help from the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Docents to assist with logistics.
If you can fit this into your schedule, please contact Teresa Mandevill, Chairwoman, at 918-266-1480 or Nancy Hatfield, The Nature Conservancy Tulsa office, at 918-585-1117 X12.
Just a couple of reminders regarding happenings at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Preserve:
Please advise all visitors of the above.
I worked at the preserve on May 17, 2011, and as I was leaving I spotted a small hawk hovering over the prairie just west of the cattle guard going in to the bison area, so I wasn’t very far from the Visitor’s Center. It was higher than the Northern harriers usually are, and I think they should have been gone by then. I was all set to decide whether it was a Kestrel, Merlin or Prairie falcon, but it certainly wasn’t any of those. It was light underneath with no streaking. It had dark under-wings from the tip almost to the “elbow”. Above on the upper-wings it had dark shoulder patches. There were no marks on its face, so that eliminated my early potential IDs. About that time it flew out of my range before I got a good look at the shape of its face. It was light colored above and below except for the dark areas I mentioned. The sun was shining through its tail, so it was hard for me to determine anything much except that it was very light. I didn’t get a chance to get my book out and look for it until the bird was gone. The picture of the kite hovering in the National Geographic book looks just like what I saw. As it came down to make a kill, it essentially held the hovering pose until it hit the ground. It looked like a helicopter coming straight down, rather than in a dive that I would have expected it to use. It missed the prey, but went back up to hover a little while longer before it left. Looking at the range map it’s somewhat out of its range, but the light coloring and dark wing and shoulder pattern, plus the light-colored tail eliminate a Mississippi kite. It was previously known as the Black-shouldered kite.
When I got home I emailed this description of the bird and its behavior to Dr. Tim O’Connell, an ornithologist on the faculty of OSU. He said that the kites were beginning to show up well out of their normal range now. Two of them where spotted on the Sooner Lake Christmas Bird Count near Ponca City. He felt that my identification was probably correct based on the description I had sent to him. This was a life bird for me, so I was very pleased. I don’t get many life birds in the states anymore, so that made this one even better.
For those readers unfamiliar with the birding term, “Life bird” refers to the first time you see a species. A lot of birders keep what is called a “life list”, which is a list of the birds they have seen during their life. You add a bird to that list when you see it for the first time. Usually the date, location and any other information that is pertinent to the sighting. I have no idea how many birds I would have on my life list, since I’ve never kept a formal list. I do, however, note the first time I see a species, with date and location. I have them jotted down in numerous bird books, trip bird lists, etc. One of my projects of the future is to compile a permanent life list from my assorted notes. There are even several software products for doing this. I’ve had the privilege of going on birding trips with several people who have over 5000 species on their life lists and one couple who each had over 7200 species. The wife in that couple has the second highest count for a female birder. She is over 1000 birds behind Phoebe Snetsinger who topped the list with over 8000 species. Some people really get wrapped up in the counting part. I guess that’s why I’ve never formalized my list. I just enjoy going and seeing new birds. I’ll bet this is more than you wanted to know. [Not being an avid birder, I asked the question for those readers like me. Editor.]
Everyone has heard of the swallows of San Juan Capistrano. These famous swallows return every spring to this California Mission to breed. That same species of swallow also makes its appearance every spring on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Our Cliff Swallows return to breed under the bridge spanning the creek south of the preserve headquarters road. The wide open space around the bridge and convenient access to water, mud and flying insects attract these aerial insectivores year after year. While the name and setting is not as romantic as the Cliff Swallows at the California Mission, the birds are the same species. They show up every April and build their mud nests under this unimposing bridge. When you’re driving to the preserve headquarters in the morning you often see 100 plus Cliff Swallows flying in circles foraging for insects over the creek and surrounding prairie. They are also out in large numbers during the evening hours. During the heat of the day they are under the bridge taking advantage of the coolness provided by their mud nests and the water evaporation from the creek. I’m sure that the large number of flying termites, flying ants and aquatic insect hatches are a reliable and abundant food source for this small colony and insure its yearly reappearance.
The Cliff Swallow is that rare bird which has benefited from artificial structures, like bridges and culverts, built by man. Before civilization tamed the continent these birds could only be found in the western mountains nesting under horizontal rock ledges on the sides of steep canyons in the foothills and lower elevations of the Sierra Nevada, Rocky and Cascade Mountains. Today this bird has expanded its range across the central plains and into the northeast. The Cliff Swallow is an opportunist who gets along well in environments altered by man. This swallow is a Neotropical migrant. It travels from its wintering grounds in western South America from Venezuela southwards to northeast Argentina. During its spring migration it spreads across the northern part of the continent from southern Alaska to the Canadian Maritime Provinces throughout the continental United States, except in the southeast and gulf states, and south into Mexico. In Oklahoma the Cliff Swallow is more common in the western part of the state west of Interstate 35. However as we all know when you’re dealing with birds you are dealing with exceptions and we have our own exception under the bridge on the Tallgrass Prairie.
The Cliff Swallow is a small five inch bird with a tiny bill. The mature Cliff Swallow has an iridescent blue back and crown and brown wings and tail with a buff rump on the upper lower part of its back above the tail. The under parts are white except for the reddish face. The tail is square ended. Young birds are brown above and white below, lacking the iridescent blue and buff tail patch of the mature birds.
The Cliff Swallow usually nests in colonies. The literature has documented colonies of up to 3700 nests. This would put the colony at 7400 adult birds and between 11,000 to 16,000 plus chicks. That is quite a Malthusian population explosion. A census of nests under our bridge seems to support a figure of 40 to 50 breeding pairs. This census was conducted in October long after the birds had traveled south. Breeding in colonies does have its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side there are more eyes to watch for predators. If a Cliff Swallow has a hard time finding food all it has to do is watch and follow a more successful swallow to a food source. Sometimes a swallow who has found food will give a specific alert call which puts other swallows on notice of the new food source. Unlike honey bees this does not appear to be for the benefit of the colony but the behavior seems to benefit the individual swallow. By alerting other swallows of a large food source an individual can ensure that the insect swarm is more effectively tracked by the larger number of foraging swallows. On the negative side the highly colonial life style of the Cliff Swallow has given rise to an unusual type of intra species brood-parasitism. Cliff Swallows brood-parasitize neighboring Cliff Swallow nests. They will lay eggs in other swallows nests and move eggs from their own nest into others. Charles R. Brown, a biology professor from the University of Tulsa, has studied this bird for 30 years. His observations of the social behavior of the Cliff Swallows during the breeding season have expanded our understanding of the evolution of coloniality in birds.
The Cliff Swallow is a colonial nester. It builds a gourd shaped mud nest with a necked entrance. The nest is constructed from pellets of mud and clay. The typical nest will contain between 900-1200 mud pellets. Both sexes will assist in building the nest. They will carry the pellet in their mouths and cement the pellets into place at the nest site. The nest chamber is lined with grasses, hair and feathers. It will eventually contain between 3-6 eggs which are white in color and spotted and dotted with shades of brown. Both sexes will incubate the eggs which will take about 15 days to hatch. The young will fledge between 23-26 days. Typically only one brood is raised rarely two. This limited brood activity may explain the brood parasitism. This type of activity increases the chance of the parasitizing swallow to increase its gene pool by having other swallows care for its young.
Occasionally you will see Cliff Swallows around the gift shop. They will be perched on the barbed wire fence, telephone lines or flying across the parking lot foraging for insects. There are also a number of Barn Swallows in this area, to distinguish the Cliff from the Barn Swallow look for the square tail and white chest. The Barn Swallows will have buff under parts and a forked tail.
Abraham Lincoln once said Doubtless the Lord must love the Cliff
Swallows, else he would not have made so many of them.
As the quote
suggests Cornell lists the conservation status of this bird as one of
least concern. Look for these speedy insectivores around the bridge and
headquarters building and your efforts will be rewarded by their aerial
displays. Watching them is addictive and when they have gone back to
their southern homes sometime in late July or early August you will long
for their reappearance next year.
First, my apologies for not getting this information into the newsletter sooner. I think I am back in the routine of getting the information and summarizing it. Since I was several months behind, I felt it was better to use this summary format, rather than listing the states represented by the most visitors for the month. We did add two more countries when we had visitors from Belarus and Tajikistan.
I encourage you to continue to remind the visitors to please sign the guest register. I sometimes check the register after people leave, and if they have not signed, and I know what state they were from and the number in the group, I will note that on the register. You might try doing that, and we will get a more accurate count. There will be times when you don’t know the needed information or you may be too busy to do it. It’s a suggestion, not a requirement.
Open every day in June! Well done! We look set for being open all of July.
Here we provide some links to other places worth visiting.
Here is the latitude and longitude of the Visitor’s Center that you can give to visitors for entry into their GPS navigation device.
The manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning the touch-screen recommend use of a soft dry cloth only. This proved inadequate for smeared fingerprints. Soft-paper kitchen towels work well, slightly damp with a small drop of soft handsoap. Application of a dry kichen towel removes any residual moisture.
Over time, a matter of several weeks continuous operation, I have noticed that calibration of the touch-screen drifts away from the initial set-point. If you notice that the cursor isn’t under your finger when you touch the screen then restart the kiosk by unplugging it from the wall, waiting a few moments and then re-inserting the power plug. It will restart and recalibrate.
This link points to the complete Kiosk Maintenance Manual.
Some printed back issues of the Docent Newsletter, to February 2009, can be found in the two green and one blue-black zip-binders, stored in the Perspex rack by the file cabinet in the office of the Visitor’s Center.
All back issues are available electronically via the links shown below. All newsletters prior to December 2007 are available in Portable Document Format (PDF), which means that you will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read these files. All newsletters from December 2007 onwards are in HTML format that is easily read using your web-browser.
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Deadline for submission of articles for inclusion in the newsletter is the 10th of each month. Publication date is on the 15th. All docents, Nature Conservancy staff, university scientists, philosophers, and historians are welcome to submit articles and pictures about the various preserves in Oklahoma, but of course the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in particular.