Newsletter title

January 2014

In This Edition

Where did it go?

—Anita Springer

Where did it go? Seems like December 15 was just last week. It’s time to think about opening the Visitor’s Center for 2014. Reorientation sessions are scheduled for February 22 and March 8. As in the past, we will serve refreshments beginning at 9:30 am with the session beginning at 10:00 am. Bob Hamilton will be our guest on February 22 and Harvey Payne will be with us on March 8.

Rough-legged Hawk, (Buteos lagopus)

—Nicholas DelGrosso

The Rough-legged Hawk breeds on the Arctic and Subarctic tundra and taiga regions of North America and Eurasia, but as the seasons transition from summer to fall it moves south, like an Arctic cold front, to southern Canada and the central United States. Rough-legged Hawks are complete migrants, the entire population moves to more southerly climes. In their travels they look for habitat that resembles their Arctic home. They prefer to winter in marshes, prairies and agricultural regions with an abundance of small mammals and birds. In their Arctic home Rough-legged Hawks often hover in stationary flight while searching the treeless tundra for Lemmings and Voles.

Rough-legged Hawk by Nicholas DelGrosso

Rough-legged Hawks usually migrate alone but when weather conditions are favorable they are sometimes seen in small groups. The largest flights are usually seen after the passage of a cold front. In Osage County you can start looking for this raptor in November and it will be here through March. This past week the Christmas Bird Count turned up 25 Rough-legged Hawks wintering at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

There are at least three recognized subspecies of Buteo lagopus:

  1. B.l. lagopus breeds in northern Europe and Asia and has relatively dark plumage. The dorsal feathers are evenly brown, and contrast against the paler head.
  2. B.l. kamtchatkensis breeds from Siberia to Pacific North America. It has paler feathers and is by far the largest of the three subspecies.
  3. B.l. santijohannis breeds exclusively in North America and will be the bird we are most likely to see in Oklahoma, It has pale, speckled dorsal plumage and is slightly smaller than the other two subspecies.

The name Rough-legged Hawk is a reference to its feathered legs. This is an adaptation which helps them conserve heat. This hawk along with the Ferruginous Hawk and the Golden Eagle are the only American hawks to have legs feathered all the way to the toes. The Rough-legged Hawk’s legs are completely covered with feathers down to their orange-yellow toes.

Their beaks and feet are small compared to similar-sized buteos. The Rough-legged Hawk is a medium to large bird of prey. It has a wing span of 4 to 4.8 feet and can weigh between 1.4 to 3 lbs. In flight the most obvious field marks are: (a) the square black carpal patches on each underwing; (b) lack of a dark belly band across the lower abdomen which differentiates adult males from females; (c) the subterminal tail band, sometimes you can have a faint second tail band above the distinct subterminal band.

Rough-legged Hawk by Nicholas DelGrosso

Always remember that females tend to be larger than males and the carpal patches are more distinct on light-morph individuals and more difficult to discern on the dark-morphs.

When scoping a perched hawk two distinguishing features are the feathered legs and the wingtips extend somewhat past the tail tip.

Plumage is variable in this species and is not a good field mark. Both light- and dark-morph Rough-legged Hawks occur in North America but dark-morphs are found nowhere else in the world. In the west dark-morphs make up only 10-percent of the population, however in the east they comprise 25- to 40-percent of the total. In Osage county the Rough-legged Hawk you’re looking at is most likely a light-morph. There are at least six color variations found in males, females and juveniles in this species You can have the following variations in this population:

Rough-legged Hawk by Nicholas DelGrosso
  1. Light-morph adult male.
  2. Light-morph adult female.
  3. Black dark-morph adult.
  4. Dark brown dark-morph adult.
  5. Light-morph juvenile.
  6. Dark-morph juvenile.

Explaining these variations is beyond the scope of this article but Peterson’s field guide Hawks of North America gives a good description of each category.

The Rough-legged Hawk has a slow active flight. It soars with its wings in a medium-V position. It hovers and kites often; sometimes with deep wing beats and sometimes with wings fluttering and legs dangling. In its winter habitat it often perches on the top of telephone poles, trees and fence posts. It can hunt on the wing and hovering or from a perch. I have sat on the front porch at the gift shop watching a Rough-legged Hawk work the field, when it spots its prey it will hover and then dive into the tall grass to dispatch some unsuspecting rodent. When not hunting in the air they will perch on posts, fences and trees and glide to the ground after prey species and then carry the prey animal back to its perch to be eaten.

Rough-legged Hawks are opportunistic feeders and not above taking prey from Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks, American Kestrels and Common Ravens. They will feed on carrion and road kill during the winter when small animals are not available due to snow cover.

During the winter the Rough-legged Hawk is the second most common Hawk at the Preserve so get out and add this bird to your count before it goes north in March. If you take the time to watch it you will not be disappointed.

Prairie Watching: Historical Perspective from Art

—Dwight Thomas, Ph.D.

Whenever I visit the prairie, I often wonder how the prairie we know today differs from what existed before there was major human disturbance. I can see some obvious features that our ancestors did not see: power lines, pipelines, oil well pumps, graded roads, buildings, and fences for example. As a small child, I remember my Great Grandfather telling stories of coming to Oklahoma; stories of riding through grasses so tall that fellow horsemen could not be seen and so thick that the horses struggled to get through it. Well, it seems to me that if he had been riding through the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve last fall, he would have experienced similar tall thick grasses. Of course, he set about to create a farm, plowing up those grasses to plant cotton, corn, and a variety of other crops. That farm is still productive today, producing tons of peanuts every year and farmed by a member of the fifth Oklahoma generation of the family. But I sure would have liked to have seen it in native tall grass. Anyway, it appears that stories, writings, and art of earlier inhabitants and explorers of Oklahoma describe a prairie that is much as it is today on the Preserve where life is slowly returning to what it used to be.

Since I can’t go back in time to experience the prairie in the past, I have turned to paintings from earlier periods to help me see it. One of the wonderful aspects of art is that it is a representation of the artist’s mental image as well as what the artists sees at the moment. It may also include events and sights that occurred at other times and places. In photography, one can only capture what is there at that second. I find that my photographs are often disappointing in not capturing the whole scene. For example, I have tried many times to get a photograph of a thunderstorm that shows the land, the clouds, the wind and the lightning altogether. I haven’t succeeded yet. But if you look at Frederick Remington’s painting The Stampede, you will see that he has captured the entire fury of a thunderstorm on the prairie. That painting is at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa and linked below.

The Stampede by Frederick Remington

Native Americans and early explorers painted and drew scenes that we can use today to learn what the prairie was like and what the artists knew about the prairie. Many of the early exploration groups had collectors, writers, and artists in their parties to document what they encountered during their explorations. The result is that we have extensive visual documentation of what the prairie was like before major human changes occurred.

Let’s look at some of the artwork from the prairie’s past and compare it with today’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. First, I searched the internet and my personal library for Prairie Artwork. Then, I went to Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa to look at its collection of Native American and Western Art. I found a number of prairie paintings that provided interesting depictions of what the artists saw and knew. I would like to show those paintings to you here, but I am concerned that Internet images and photographs of artwork may not be entirely legal. So let me describe some paintings and provide you with a location where you can see them. I will also provide a photograph that shows the prairie as it is at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve currently. You can use your imagination to add in the details and compare the past with the present.

Cavalry and Indians, 1899. Artist Unknown.

Calvary & Indians by Artist Unknown

This painting shows a prairie scene in 1899 probably in late summer with thick grasses covering the flat ground. The grass stands up a few feet high but is drooping. The grasses are somewhat yellow. The sky is cloudy or smoky; tan to light green color which makes me think late summer hazy sky. The action is men on horses racing across the prairie. This painting is linked at right.

Look at this prairie photograph taken on a summer day at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and imagine the riders.

Prairie Light and Shade by Dwight Thomas

Acee Blue Eagle (1907-1959), Creek Chiefs.

Creek Chiefs by Acee Blue Eagle via Flickr

Blue Eagle was Creek/Pawnee who grew up in Oklahoma and portrayed many Oklahoma scenes in his artwork. Since he was a 20th Century artist, I suspect that some of what he painted came from the stories that he was told as child and what he knew from a lifetime of experience rather than from an actual scene. One of his most famous works is titled, Creek Chiefs. The painting shows two Creek Chiefs wearing ceremonial dress standing in a field surrounded by grasses and wildflowers. This painting is at Gilcrease Museum and linked at right via Flickr.

Look below at the wildflower scene from last summer at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and imagine the Creek Chiefs standing among them.

Prairie Wildflowers by Dwight Thomas

Arthur Tait, 1819-1905, The Buffalo Hunt, 1862.

This painting from 1862 shows the prairie covered with luxuriant grass, bright green and waving in the wind. The landscape is flat with a partly cloudy sky. The action is a Bison being chased by two horseman with rifles. There are more horsemen and Bison in the background. The painting can be seen at Gilcrease Museum and below via Wikipedia Commons.

The Buffalo Hunt by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait via Wikipedia Commons

Look at this photograph of Bison at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and compare the prairie today with that depicted by A. F. Tait.

Bison by Dwight Thomas

George Catlin (1796-1872), Prairie Meadow Burning, 1832.

This painting shows a prairie covered with golden grass and a fire in the background billowing smoke high into the air. There are horsemen riding away from the fire. This painting is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and is reproduced below via www.geospectra.net.

Prairie Meadow Burning by George Caitlin via geospectra.net

Look at this scene with a meadow at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve burning last April and imagine the inhabitants fleeing the fire.

Prairie Meadow Burning by Dwight Thomas

William Hayes, 1830-1875, The Gathering of the Buffalo Herds, 1866.

This painting is in a private collection. It shows a herd of Bison numbering in the thousands spread from the foreground over a rolling prairie in what looks like a river of Bison. The prairie is covered with golden grass. The foreground Bison are realistic; there is even a Bison skull in the grass. The sky is partly cloudy with streaks of stratus clouds. The grass color and the sky indicate to me that this is an Autumn scene; it is reproduced here via www.the-athenaeum.org.

The Gathering of the Buffalo Herd by William Hayes via the-athenaeum.org

Here is a photograph of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Bison herd in fall. Look at it and imagine the herd as it might have been.

The Gathering of the Buffalo Herd by Dwight Thomas

When we look at paintings of the prairie in the past, we can catch of glimpse of what once was here and how beautiful it was. I encourage you to take a day and visit Gilcrease Museum to see some of these paintings and many more to enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the prairie. Let me end here with the thought that the prairie is being well preserved by The Nature Conservancy.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

Docent Coverage of Season Days Docent Coverage of Season Days Summary

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.

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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2011—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2011
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2007—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2007
2006—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2006
2005—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2005
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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  December—2002
2001—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2001
2000—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2000
1999—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—1999
1998—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—1998
1997—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—1997
1996—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—1996
1995—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—1995

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.