Newsletter title

September 2012

In This Edition

Fall Work Days at the Preserve: September 22 & October 13

—Dennis Bires

What better way is there to enjoy comfortable fall weather than to venture out on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve for one of our fall work days? These are always good times, and the satisfaction from a job well done is icing on the cake.

On Saturday, September 22, meet at the Tallgrass Preserve Visitor’s Center at 10:00 a.m. for equipment and assignments on the Prairie Road Crew. Volunteers will beautify the county roads for the busy fall visitor traffic. Bring along a lunch for the noon break, and we will wrap up at 3:00 p.m. Pleasant weather guaranteed.

Then on Saturday, October 13, gather again at the Visitor’s Center at 10:00 a.m. to caravan to the Bison Corrals for some major painting. We have a discerning bison herd that prefers a neat-looking and well-preserved facility for its November Round-Up. As a side benefit of our work, the corrals will look great for the special visitors and media representatives who will be invited to Round-Up this year. There are few sights as satisfying as a freshly completed paint job on a sunny autumn day. Remember to bring lunch, and wear clothes that won’t suffer from a few dark red smudges. All equipment will be provided. We will finish around 3:00 p.m.

Docent Recognition Luncheon: October 20

—Anita Springer

Our annual Docent Recognition Luncheon will be held on Saturday, October 20, 2012. This is our annual feed at 11:30 a.m. Along with the great food, we will also be recognizing your dedication to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. I’m sure that we all have stories to share from our time at the Visitor’s Center this year. I look forward to seeing everyone. Please RSVP by October 6, so we will know how much food to prepare (I think Peach Cobbler is on the menu). Bob Hamilton and Harvey Payne have graciously accepted our invitation.

Bison Roundup Docent Day: November 3

—Anita Springer

Docent Day at Roundup this year is scheduled for Saturday, November 3. We will gather at the Visitor’s Center at 1 p.m. and caravan to the working pens from there. Don’t forget to bring a jacket as it can be cool at that time of year.

Just a reminder: Roundup is by invitation only and closed to the public.

Deer-Hiding Moon

—John Joseph Mathews

The does and fawns fed as usual on the sides of the blackjack ridges in the early mornings and in the later afternoons, and they lay in the sun among the running oaks during the day on the south sides of the hills so that the sun would hit them on chilly autumnal days. Their habits changed little, but the bucks seemed to disappear at this time of the year. They stayed in the very thick timber, and one could find saplings where they had rubbed their itching antlers in their urge to scrape the mosslike covering off their new adornment. Little strips of this covering could be found hanging to the saplings and the bushes, where a restive buck had scraped and thrashed. This velvet, as the hunter calls it, has the appearance of gray fungus-like mold on bread or cheese, and it peels after the antlers have hardened; then the bucks scrape it off. It was difficult for an Osage hunter to find them at this time….

[Excerpt from Chapter IX of Mathews’ book Talking To The Moon, available at the Visitor’s Center of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.]

Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica)

—Nicholas Del Grosso

The saying goes …that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I think beauty is in the form and functionality of the object. The Chimney Swift is not a physically attractive bird. It is mid-sized, about 4.7 to 5.9 inches in length, with a sooty grey brown plumage. It has strong claws and stiff tail bristles which aid them in clinging to rough vertical surfaces.

Chimney Swift

But what it lacks in looks it makes up in function. I am fascinated by the Swift’s ability in flight and its lifestyle. They fly in great loops, holding their wings motionless fully extended from their body. They spend most of the day in the air, alternating between fast wing beats and sailing flight. They make quick sharp turns while hawking insects in flight. In fact Chimney Swifts pretty much do everything on the wing from feeding on flying insects, to drinking, bathing, mating and gathering nest materials. Watching them gather nest materials is interesting. They spot the small twig, make a dive to the object, extend their feet, grasp the object and break it off the branch. They bring the twig back to the nest site and add it to the nest material. Bathing and drinking has one degree of difference, when bathing they skim the water with their chest while drinking just requires them to skim the water with their beak.

Unlike swallows, I have never seen a Chimney Swift perched on a branch or wire. Chimney Swifts do not sit on perches like most song birds; their anatomy is better suited to clinging. When they are not in the air they can be found grasping the interior of chimneys, cave walls or inside hollow trees.

I have spent many evenings sitting out on my deck watching the Swifts circling high above the yard feeding on an assortment of flying insects. A single Chimney Swift will eat more than 1000 mosquito-sized insects each day. On the Chimney Swifts menu are a number of agricultural pests which make this bird very beneficial to farmers.

Chimney Swifts in Flight

The Chimney Swift is another one of our long distance migrants. They spend their winters in northwestern South America, including Peru, Venezuela and the Amazon basin in western Brazil. As late as 1931 it was still uncertain in ornithological circles where Chimney Swifts wintered; they knew that they migrated south, but were unsure as to the final destination. In August Chimney Swifts will start to gather in large roosts in preparation for migration. In fact, Audubon documents a large roost he discovered near Louisville, Kentucky in 1840. The roost was in a large sycamore tree 60 or 70 feet high and 8 feet in diameter. The Swifts were roosting in the hollow tree and he estimated that 9000 birds were present. As soon as that first major cold front blows through in the fall they are heading south, in fact they are all gone by early November. They will spend about five months on their wintering grounds and will be back in the United States and Canada by late March. They will arrive in large flocks and usually stay together until pair bonds are established. Chimney Swifts breed in May. After the aerial courtship and mating occur, the mated pairs will find a suitable nest site. Before the settlement of North America by Europeans Swifts, Chimney Swifts would have favored hollow trees and caves. They were a bird of forested areas. Initially they were called American Swifts, but as settlement occurred the habitat changed. The great temperate forests disappeared and became fragmented. As the landscape changed in the late 1800s the Swifts adapted to the change by taking advantage of the now abundant number of chimney’s dotting the changed landscape. As settlement moved west onto the treeless prairie the swifts moved with it establishing populations on the Great Plains. In Oklahoma the Chimney Swift was documented as a summer resident as far west as Oklahoma and Cleveland Counties in 1931. As residential structures moved west in Oklahoma the Swift expanded across the state, becoming common as far west as the Panhandle by the 1960s. It is kind of like the old adage if you build it, they will come. As more and more chimneys were built, Swifts took advantage of the potential nest sites and expanded their range. As long as a site has bugs and chimneys eventually it will have Chimney Swifts. There is not a large population of Chimney Swifts at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, but if you look closely in the early mornings and evenings those are Swifts not bats flitting in long circles hawking insects.

Chimney Swift nest construction

Once mating occurs and a nest site is selected, nest construction begins. The nest is attached to the vertical masonry wall of the chimney and is made of twigs glued together with saliva.

It is rare to find more than one nest per chimney. The adult pair will defend the nest site from intruders by audibly snapping their wings together over their backs while jumping horizontally from the wall. Second year birds will commonly assist a nesting pair. These helpers assist in feeding and caring for the nestlings. Because of these helpers it is possible that the death of one of the parents after hatching will not doom the brood.

Chimney Swift Tower

The female has one brood a year and will lay four to five eggs. They hatch after 21 days. While one parent broods the young the other will forage for food. They exchange places as they return. At 28 to 30 days old the young Swifts will leave the chimney for their first flight. Prior to this they leave the nest and exercise their wings by grasping the masonry wall and beating their wings. At this stage they are very noisy as I can attest. There were Swifts at this stage of development in my chimney when I first moved into my home. Their nightly singing alerted me to the problem. One morning I opened the flue to investigate and seven Swifts flew into my house. It took several hours to catch and release the errant birds outside. My solution to the squatters was to hire a chimney sweeper to clean the chimney after the fall migration and cap the chimney. In retrospect I am sorry that I did this because as others in my neighborhood capped their chimneys I eventually lost the pleasure of watching these birds hawk for insects on warm summer evenings. In fact over the last 30 years Swift populations have declined because of this practice. The use of metal chimney inserts and narrow flues have also decreased the available nest sites and are also a factor in declining Swift populations. One solution to this problem is the construction of wooden Chimney Swift towers. There is one at the Rogers State College Nature Walk in Claremore.

With the cutting of ancient forests Swifts rely on manmade structures to insure their nesting success. Because of advances in construction technology this small neo-tropical migrant is in danger of disappearing. It was man’s structures that caused the expansion of the Chimney Swift’s range and ironically it will be man’s structures that will have adverse effect on current populations. I have personally witnessed a decline in the Swift populations over the past twenty-five years. Man changes the environment for good or bad and those species that can adapt survive. Like watching a beautiful sunset it would be ashamed to miss the aerial antics of the Chimney Swift on a warm summer evening.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

Docent Coverage of Season Days

Visitor Counts

—Iris McPherson

In July we had a total of 446 visitors. Of that number there were 415 visitors representing 28 states and 31 international visitors representing 9 countries. Following Oklahoma (251) in number of visitors were the top 3 states of California (24), Tennessee (17) and Missouri (15).

The following table displays the total counts for July, 2012, with that month in previous years.

I think the heat has been the main cause for the drop of number of visitors for 2012. I would encourage each of you to make sure to ask all of our visitors to sign the guest book.

I think you’ve been doing a good job. Just keep it up. Here’s to a high visitor count in 2012 and a great year for the prairie!

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.

2012January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2012
2011January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2011
2010January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2010
2009January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2009
2008January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2008
2007January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2007
2006—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2006
2005January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2005
2004—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2004
2003—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2003
2002—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2002
2001January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2001
2000January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2000
1999January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1999
1998January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1998
1997January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1997
1996—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1996
1995—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1995

Selected Topics Index

This persistent index of selected topics should make finding articles of interest easier. The list will grow as I move further into the past and it will grow as I add interesting topics from each new newsletter. Iris McPherson lent me the paper copies of the newsletter from the very early years of the docent program; I ran them through a scanner equipped with a document feeder, saving them as PDF files, then added them to Back Issues section above. Let me know of any dead links that you discover. Also, please lend me any paper copies of the newsletter that are missing so that I can scan and add them to the list of back issues.

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.