Newsletter title

September 2011

In This Edition

Early Fall Roadside Cleanup

—Dennis Bires

Tallgrass Docents who felt cooped up indoors by this summer’s weather can stretch their legs on Saturday, September 24, and beautify the Preserve at the same time. Help us clear roadside litter, so autumn visitors can focus on natural phenomena.

We will meet at the Visitor’s Center at 10:00 a.m. for equipment and directions. Bring a lunch for the noon break on the bunkhouse porch. Work will wrap up around 3:00 p.m.

Oklahoma Chapter, 25th Anniversary

—Anita Springer

The Oklahoma Chapter of the Nature Conservancy is celebrating 25 years in Oklahoma this year. A festival is planned for Sunday, September 18, 2011 from 2-5 p.m., that will be held at the 5 Oaks Lodge in Jenks, Oklahoma. Anyone who can assist with greeting visitors, handing out information, guiding visitors to the exhibits or in any other way, please call the festival chairwoman, Teresa Mandevill, either on her mobile phone 214-914-5893 or on her home number 918-266-1480; you can also call Nancy Hatfield at The Nature Conservancy office, 918-585-1117.

Docent Recognition Luncheon

—Anita Springer

The date for the Docent Recognition Luncheon has been set for 12:00 p.m. on October 15th at the Research Station on the Preserve. It is time again to recognize all those who have passed a milestone this year as well as those who are consistently there month after month, year after year. Hope everyone is ready for another home cooked meal. Please feel free to bring a guest (hopefully a future docent). This is one of the few times that we gather as a group and I always enjoy visiting with everyone.

So that we will know how much food to prepare, it is imperative that you RSVP by letting us know that you will be attending. There will be no exceptions to this rule.

Bison Roundup

—Anita Springer

I know roundup seems awfully far off, but I wanted to give you a heads-up on the date. Docent Day at Roundup this year is scheduled for November 5th. We will meet at the Visitor’s Center at 1:00 p.m. and go to the corrals as a group. Please feel free to invite a guest (again, hopefully a future docent). If you have never been to the bison working, I encourage you to come. It is the only chance we get to be that close and personal with these big guys/gals. Currently, the schedule is as follows:

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

—Nicholas Del Grosso

The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is the migrant dearest to the hearts of all Oklahomans. To the irritation of all true Sooners this bird is sometimes called the Texas-Bird-of-Paradise by those south of the Red River.

Follow this link to hear the call of Tyrannus forficatus.

This neotropical is a bird of the open prairies. It breeds from eastern Colorado and Nebraska south to Texas and Louisiana. Oklahoma is the dead center of its breeding range. As you drive up to the Tallgrass Prairie during the summer months you will often see the Scissor-tails perched on telephone lines, flagpoles, fences and trees all along the way. In the cities and towns their fondness for high perches makes them an intersection hazard. They tend to perch at intersections on traffic lights and nearby poles waiting for the occasional insect. I have often seen three or four Scissor-tails stop traffic as they swooped about the intersection in pursuit of a moth or other flying insects. Who hasn’t been amused and frustrated as traffic came to a halt to watch the aerial antics of these birds?

First Day Cover

Oklahoma has claimed this bird as its state bird, but this title was not always a sure thing for the Scissor-tail. It had competition from the Bobwhite Quail. In the year 1932, the Oklahoma Federation of Women’s Clubs sponsored a contest to see which bird the people would pick to be the state bird. The winner of that contest was the Bobwhite. The Bobwhite was a popular game bird and Oklahoma was touted as the national capital of the Bobwhite hunting world. To gain the honor of being our state bird the Scissor-tail had to beat out the competition. With the endorsement of Oklahoma’s Audubon Society, garden clubs across the state, and eventually Lou Allard, Chairman of the House Committee on Game and Fish, the Scissor-tail KO’d the competition. Three important factors swayed the vote: (1) The flycatcher’s diet of grasshoppers, crickets, spiders and other insects made it economically important to farmers; (2) The nesting range included all of Oklahoma except for Texas County; (3) Finally, no other state had claimed the bird as its own. House Joint Resolution No.21 was approved on May 26, 1951 and the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher became our state bird. In 1982 the Scissor-tail even appeared on a United States postage stamp series which featured state birds and flowers, as seen above.

Perched Scissor-tail

The mature Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is a beautiful bird; it has both color and style. Its long forked tail, pearl gray body with dark wings and tail and salmon pink flanks definitely make it a traffic stopper when seen up close. An adult Flycatcher can be up to 14½ inches long; the male’s tail is longer than the females. Young immature birds are duller in color, tending to be light and dark gray with short tails and a yellow or pink wash on their under parts.

The Scissor-tail spends its winters in Mexico and Central America. Like all good Oklahomans some of these birds even winter in south Texas, the southern half of Florida and the Florida Keys. They usually arrive on the Oklahoma breeding grounds in late March and typically stay through the end of October. Shortly after the Scissor-tails arrive the male performs a sky dance. The male will climb to about 100 feet into the air and then make a progression of V-shaped flights. He then dives down in an erratic series of zigzags and reverse somersaults. This aerial display is used to cement the pair bond. The Scissor-tail is monogamous and will stay together for the season. They are solitary nesters. They will usually find a bush, shrub, thicket or solitary tree to build their nest. It can be located from 7 to 30 feet off the ground. It prefers open prairies or fields with scattered trees and shrubs. You will also find its nest along woodland edges and hedgerows. It is not uncommon to find it nesting in residential areas.

Immature Scissor-tail

The nest is built by the female. She forms a loose cup from thin twigs, rootlets, wood stems, husks, plant down and even an assortment of man-made debris (i.e. twine, paper and rags). The nest is usually lined with rootlets, hair (bison wool where available) and cotton. One study in an urban area in Texas found that artificial materials accounted for 30-percent of the weight of the nests.

The female will lay four to five eggs. Only one egg is laid each day until the clutch is complete. The eggs can be white, creamy-white, or slightly pinkish. They are blotched and spotted with brown, dark red or purple marks. The female will incubate the eggs for 14 to 17 days. Both parents will feed the young after they hatch. The chicks will fledge in about 14 days. After the first group fledges the female will sometimes build a second nest and start the process all over again. During the second nesting the male will tend the fledglings from the first nest. I saw an example of this on the bison loop by Blackland this past July. I watched as a male Scissor-tail cared for four fledglings in a bush by the road. They must have just left the nest because they did not fly very well and the male stayed in the vicinity.

Scissor-tail Feeding

This is a very young immature bird, above right; it is a Scissor-tail without the tail. As you can see the young Scissor-tails’ tail feathers are not much longer than other flycatchers and they resemble a Western Kingbird.

Like other Kingbirds, the Scissor-tail is very aggressive in defending its nest. However, there is no defense against bad weather. This can be an important factor in causing nest failure. It has been estimated that high winds and thunderstorms are the cause of nearly half the nest failures in some years.

I had the opportunity to observe some young birds feeding near the eastern entrance to the Tallgrass Prairie. There were several young Scissor-tails in some trees and on the barbed-wire fence hawking insects. You can tell an immature Scissor-tail by its short V shaped notched tail. I was fortunate to catch a young bird hawk an insect in the air and take it back to its perch to consume.

Winter Whitetails

—Josie of the Prairie

My picture of whitetail deer appeared in the Outdoor Oklahoma magazine. It was taken in February 2008, right outside my yard fence. This buck was beautiful and very photogenic. We usually feed the deer from late October to mid-March…. I think the corn we put out helps them get through the hard winter months. It’s amazing to look out our window and see 30- or 40-head of deer. They seem to love this creek bottom near our house, I guess it’s because they have plenty of water, natural forage and cover for bedding areas.

Winter Whitetails

Visitor Count

—Iris McPherson

There were 587people from 41states (575) and 7 countries (12) who signed in during June. There were 318 from Oklahoma, and the next 3 highest states were California (47), Texas (25), and Kansas (22).

In July there were 634 people from 38 states (598) and 13 countries (36) who signed in. There were 357 from Oklahoma, and the next 4 highest states were Texas (25) with California, Missouri and Kansas tied with 18 each. Two new countries were added in July, Cyprus and Qatar.

The history of visitor counts for June and July are shown below:

Keep up the good work getting people to sign the visitor’s registry.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

We did it again with 100-percent coverage of the Visitor’s Center. Although the August calendar shows the shop closed on Friday, August 19th, Ila McKee did work that day; she had a problem logging into the docent calendar.

As of this writing, we have three days in September that need coverage: 25, 26, & 27. Please consider signing on for one or more of these days.

Docent Coverage of Season Days

 

Other Places to Visit

Here we provide some links to other places worth visiting.

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Visitor’s Center Latitude & Longitude

Here is the latitude and longitude of the Visitor’s Center that you can give to visitors for entry into their GPS navigation device.

Kiosk Maintenance

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.

Back Issues

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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Newsletter Publication

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.