I wanted to let you know that one of our chapter’s long term staff members has decided to retire after almost two decades with the Conservancy. This September would mark 19 years with The Nature Conservancy for our very own Ann Whitehorn. Ann and her family have a long history with the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve that started before The Nature Conservancy bought the Barnard Ranch in the early 1990s. It was this history that translated to her love of the preserve and her many years of dedication toward making it a wonderful destination for staff, donors, and visitors from around the world. She did this most recently through her work managing the gift shop and serving as the liaison with our many docents. Her last day will be on June 20th.
Please join me in wishing Ann all the best in her retirement. Her hard work and dedication will be missed.
Harvey Payne and I invite each of you to join us in establishing a Docent Council with the first meeting to be at 10 a.m. on June 28, 2104, in the classroom at the Research Station on the Preserve. Coffee and muffins will be served beginning at 9:30 a.m. Bob Hamilton has agreed to dig deep into his pockets and have lunch catered. So, no need to bring your lunch. We would ask that you RSVP for lunch so that we can order enough food.
The council is being established so that each docent can bring to the table ideas that would enhance the experience that we, as docents, bring to our visitors and how we can improved the docent program. Currently, the plan is to schedule meetings on a quarterly basis. That in no way means that you cannot bring your ideas to either Harvey or me at times other than a scheduled meeting.
An agenda will be developed with minutes taken and distributed to ensure that each of us has a clear understanding of the issues being brought to the table and the discussion regarding each. Those attending the meeting will then be asked for additions or corrections. As each issue is clarified, it will be presented to the appropriate Nature Conservancy Staff member for discussion and the decisions made will be disseminated to all active docents. If further clarification is needed, the appropriated person will be contacted.
The following are some issues that have been previously discussed that could be discussed at our first meeting:
On May 16, 2014, I was driving on the road leading to the Visitor’s Center, when, just before I crossed the bridge over Sand Creek, I heard a thud and saw out of the corner of my eye the face of a Deer looking in my window from close range. This Doe had bounded out of the woody area onto the road so quickly that I had not seen her before she ran into the side of my vehicle. This was in the middle of a bright sunny day. I stopped, and she ran on in front of me across the road with no evidence of any injury. My vehicle was not injured either, but I had been really surprised at this event.
This started me thinking about the frequency of encountering Deer at the
Preserve in recent times. I can’t remember a trip to the Preserve in
last couple of years in which I haven’t seen at least one Deer, and
many times I’ve seen a larger number. Just back in April as I was
watching a small herd of Bison on a hillside that had been burned in March
and had recovered into a beautiful green hillside, three Deer came running
along the same hillside, stopping to browse and then running on. I almost
had to break out singing Home on the Range, where the buffalo roam, and
the deer and the antelope play.
No antelope, but plenty of Bison and
Deer. It was a great scene.
Then back in March, just after the meadow in front of the Visitor’s Center had been burned, there was a herd of about a dozen Deer nibbling over the fresh vegetation. And I could relate similar sightings on and on. I even saw a Deer carcass near Dry Creek. I don’t remember seeing so many Deer just a few years ago. I wondered if seeing Deer so frequently is just a coincidence or if the population is increasing.
Taking stock of my personal experiences with Deer, I remembered a recent
visit to my family’s peanut farm in Western Oklahoma where I saw Deer
everywhere. They were especially numerous at the ends of the peanut rows
nearest the river at dusk. When I was growing up on that farm in the
1950s, there were no Deer at all. Or at least, we never saw any. And from
what I have read and heard, my experience was not that uncommon. But that
was a time of fairly severe drought and a time when predators were
abundant (I have written previously in the Docent Newsletter, March 2013,
about the Wolf Hunt
that was held annually in Greer County).
I began looking for Deer information in relationship to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. I didn’t find anything written specifically about the Deer in the Preserve, but I found several articles and papers about Deer populations in Oklahoma that were relevant.
In Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service
Bulletin, NREM-9009, Ecology and Management of Deer in
Oklahoma,
Ronald E. Masters, Terrence G. Bidwell, and Dwayne R.
Elmore, we find a comprehensive study on Deer in Oklahoma. Their study
indicates that populations in Oklahoma have increased dramatically over
that last 50 years. They also said that the absence of predators such as
Gray Wolves and Mountain Lions and the limits on hunting were the factors
that allowed the population to increase. Another interesting statement in
that article was that whether Deer were overpopulating could be determined
by looking at what the Deer were eating: If high quality food is being
browsed only lightly, then the population is well within the carrying
capacity, but if low quality food is being browsed heavily, then the
population is approaching a limit of what can be carried.
In Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service
Bulletin, No. 1 White-tail Deer
, Ron E. Masters and Monte
Stewart, we can learn more about Deer in Oklahoma. This paper includes a
list of food plants that Deer use, and describes habitat requirements of
Deer. From this paper, I would conclude that the Preserve is prime habitat
for Deer both in having appropriate plant foods and having appropriate
dispersion of habitats.
Several sources quoted the Oklahoma Wildlife Department of Conservation’s estimate of the Oklahoma Deer population of about 500,000. This population is distributed State-wide, but several counties, including Osage County are among the counties with a high population. OWDC also lists Deer harvest numbers with about 100,000 Deer being harvested each year (in recent years) State-wide by hunting. Of that 100,000, OWDC states that Osage County harvest was about 4,000, the highest county harvest number.
Well, it looks like the Deer population has increased in Oklahoma, but is being kept somewhat in check by hunting. I started this rambling discussion with wondering whether my increased sightings of Deer indicated that the population of Deer is increasing on the Preserve. After looking at a number of Deer studies, I would have to conclude that it is very likely that the Deer population is increasing, but no one has done the studies that would prove it. If you know of studies on Deer at the Preserve, please join in this discussion. In the meantime, we can enjoy watching them.
The Red-shouldered Hawk is truly a hawk for all seasons. Here in Oklahoma you will find this hawk to be fairly common in bottomland woods in eastern and central Oklahoma, however it is a very infrequent visitor to the western part of the state. The Red-shouldered Hawk is not migratory in Oklahoma. You are as likely to see this buteo on a cold winter’s day as on a hot summer afternoon. I have often seen this hawk flying through the thick trees of its riparian home or perched on a high branch at the edge of the woods. This medium sized buteo breeds throughout eastern North America from southern Canada through Florida and as far west as the riparian woodlands of the Eastern Great Plains. In fact the North American Breeding Bird Survey estimates 97-percent of the Red-shouldered Hawks spend some part of their time in the United States. 17-percent of this population winters in Mexico. Only the northern populations are migratory, but these northern travelers only migrate as far as food resources and the cold winter weather pushes them. You can call them short-to-moderate migrants, with most individuals traveling distances between 300km to 1500km each way. Some of these northern birds may migrate to the southern edges of their breeding range or into central Mexico for the winter. In all probability these northern travelers are unable to find uninhabited southern territory to spend the winter because these southern climes are inhabited by resident birds that aggressively defend their territories forcing some hawks to migrate to the edges of their breeding range and beyond.
The Red-shouldered Hawk is an elegant medium sized buteo. It has a slender frame, about 15 to 19 inches long with a wingspan of 37 to 42 inches. It tips the scale between 1.1 and 1.9 pounds. Females tend to be a bit larger but both sexes are colored the same. The Latin name Buteo lineatus is descriptive meaning striped buzzard! The Red-shouldered Hawk is crow sized; some field marks to look for in assisting your identification are its relatively long wings with rufous shoulder patches. Their heads and backs are brownish and the breast is a lined cinnamon color. They have unfeathered yellow legs and a sharp black beak. In flight the underside of the wing panels has a rufous coloration at the underneath leading edge changing to a translucent coloration at the bottom rear of the wing. When soaring the tail is spread exposing the three to four light and dark bands.
The Red-shouldered Hawk can be confused with the Northern Harrier which is roughly the same size, but unlike the Harrier it soars and circles with wings and tail spread out. It is poetry in motion to see this Hawk flap its wings quickly and then glide through the forest underneath the canopy. I have often seen the Red-shouldered Hawks perched mid-level in a tree below the canopy near wooded water watching for prey. In fact hunting from a perch is the Red-shouldered Hawk’s preferred method. When the prey is spotted the hawk will suddenly lift up from the perch and getting speed up with several quick wing beats glide to an adjoining tree to grasp a squirrel in its talons. I have also seen them land in the tall grass, strike at the ground with its sharp beak and lift off with a large snake held in its talons. Red-shouldered Hawks are dietary generalists eating mostly small mammals, lizards, snakes and amphibians. Only occasionally will they eat birds, recorded avian prey includes sparrows, starlings and doves. The Red-shouldered Hawk is fairly vocal especially during the breeding season. Its typical call is a loud Kee-aah scream, but once you hear these calls make sure you spot the hawk because Blue Jays often mimic this call. I have been fooled many times by Blue Jays and they seem to get an inordinate amount of pleasure mimicking the call.
Red-shouldered Hawks are monogamous. They will start to breed at the age
of two and it has been documented to live at least 22 years. A hawk banded
in Florida in 1989 was found dead in Florida in 2009, the victim of an
attack by another raptor. Pairs will remain in the same territory and
reuse the same nest site for years. Courtship lasts for about 18 days,
Most of the courtship takes place in the air with circling flight
and sky dancing
. The circling flight is like a choreographed dance.
The pair soars together with their wings spread and tails fanned. Back and
forth they soar coming close together and than moving apart. One member of
the pair sometimes soars higher and then dives on the other. Males sky
dance
by repeatedly making a steep dive and then soaring upwards in a
spiral. During these courtship displays the pair is very vocal, calling to
each other during the display. Once the pair has been established both the
male and female will build the nest typically at a crook of the main trunk
halfway up a deciduous tree but within the canopy.
Nesting season usually runs from April through July. They single brood but will replace lost clutches. Usually a clutch is made up of three or four eggs, which are not laid at the same time so the eggs do not hatch at the same time. The female usually incubates the eggs for about five weeks. After hatching the female will continuously brood the hatchlings for about a week. After that time she increasingly spends less time brooding. During the incubation and brooding periods the male is responsible for providing food. He will bring the food to a spot near the nest and call for the female who retrieves the prey and brings it to the young. The female will dismember the prey during the first two weeks after hatching but by about day 18 the nestlings are able to tear apart their own food. The young will fledge between 35 to 45 days after hatching and are capable of catching their own food by the seventh or eighth week. They start off catching mostly insects but after several weeks’ practice they graduate to vertebrates.
Red-shouldered Hawks nest in moist, mature woodlands, flooded deciduous swamps, wooded riparian areas and even suburban areas with creeks and ponds. I have had a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks nesting in a wooded creek bottom across the street from my property and the male will occasionally perch on my upstairs deck while looking for squirrels in my pecan trees. On the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve I have seen Red-shouldered Hawks along Hog and Sand Creeks. Because the Red-shouldered Hawk is a forest bird the easiest time to spot it is during the winter or early spring when the leaves are absent from the trees. It tends not to sit on power or telephone lines in open areas, so numbers are low during the Tallgrass Prairie Christmas Bird Count averaging only one a year for the past 15 years. To see this hawk you must walk riparian habitats.
Great Horned Owls and raccoons are the chief predators of Red-shouldered
Hawk’s eggs and young. Red-tailed Hawks and Peregrine Falcons also take a
toll. However this medium sized hawk is not defenseless; its aggressive
nature helps it defend its territory. Sometimes you can see it locking
talons with other intruding hawks and chasing and attacking crows, Great
Horned Owls and even people. There have even been documented instances
where a Red-shouldered Hawk was seen chasing a Great Horned Owl, while its
mate took a young owlet out of its nest and ate it. In a strange turn of
circumstance the American Crow will sometimes join forces with the
Red-shouldered Hawk to chase the owl out of the Hawks territory. To
paraphrase a familiar saying the enemy of my enemy is my enemy
. In
everyday life the American Crow will often mob the Red-shouldered Hawk.
They may chase each other and try to steal food from each other but when
the occasion arises they will join forces to fight a Great Horned Owl, a
common enemy.
Not all owls elicit this aggressive response from this buteo, The Barred Owl is the nocturnal counterpart to the Red-shouldered Hawk. Both birds occupy the same range in the eastern United States, they live in the same moist woodland habitats, and they eat similar animals. However, since the hawk is active during the daytime and the Barred Owl is active at night there is little contact between them so there is little conflict.
The Red-shouldered Hawk populations have suffered a decline because of deforestation and in the 60s and 70s DDt caused problems with thin egg shells but the population has rebounded from these setbacks and is listed as a species of least concern.
Editor’s note: There was a disconnect in our communications. Iris thought she had sent me her article and I thought she was going to send it. Consequently, nothing happened and its appearance was delayed further.
I’ve really gotten behind with the visitor count, and I apologize for that. Hopefully I will do better this year. October was a very good month with 612 visitors. The number was helped a great deal by one special day when 68 Fulbright Scholars representing 41 countries came to visit. We had a total of 44 countries represented during the month. The total number of visitors from foreign countries for the month was 103. There were 509 visitors from 34 states with 333 from Oklahoma. The three states with the largest representation after Oklahoma were California (18), Texas (15) and Tennessee (12).
The month of November had 391 visitors with 382 from 23 states. Oklahoma was represented by 267 visitors followed by Texas (14), Florida (13) and California (10). There were nine visitors from six foreign countries.
December is never a good month, because we are closed the latter part of the month, so most people who come don’t sign the book. Of the visitors who signed the book there were 103 from the United States and one visitor from a foreign country.
Our total for the year definitely picked up compared to the previous two years when there was a drought and a super-hot weather. We had at least one visitor from each of the 50 states. There was one person from each of the following states: South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. North Dakota and Rhode Island only had two visitors each representing them. Our most highly represented states after Oklahoma (3468) were Texas (194), California (174) and Kansas (167). Of the 360 representatives of 61 foreign countries, the highest numbers were Germany (53), Canada (28) and India (27).
The table will show you how 2013 compared with the previous years. The data were missing for five months in 2006, so that total doesn’t really represent a complete year.
Keep up the good work of getting as many visitors as possible to sign the guest registry. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us this summer.
We began our tour at 10:00 a.m. at the Preserve Visitor’s Center Front Porch. The day was partly cloudy and cool (57°F) with a light wind from the Northeast. From the Visitor’s Center, we walked to the trailhead, looking at the meadow in front of the Visitor’s Center, Sand Creek, and the woods around Sand Creek. On the way, we stopped to look at one of the most common plants blooming at this time, the Green Milkweed, (Aeclepias viridis Walt.). It was growing and blooming in profusion in the meadow, which had been burned earlier in the Spring. The flowers were clustered in a globose head that had an overall green-yellow appearance. We saw that the petals and sepals were both green, but the stamens were enclosed within five purple structures that radiated from the center of the flower where the pistil is positioned. We discussed that these flowers are pollinated by a number of insects, but that the pollinators must be able to dig into the stamen structures to get at the nectar and pollen. While we were at the meadow, we discussed the importance of burning the prairie to maintain it as a prairie — to eliminate woody species that might invade the open space and shade out the grasses and also return nutrients to the soil. We also discussed the Nature Conservancy’s plan of patch burning where only designated patches are burned in any one year with the idea that the entire Preserve would be burned in a three-year period.
After the walk to the trailhead, we proceeded up the trail to the left of the Gazebo. Here we immediately encountered a Dewberry plant (Rubus flagellaris Willd.) with many blooms fully open. There were also a small mott of Winged Sumac (Rhus copallinum L. ), and Coralberry (Symphoricarpus orbiculatus Moench.) growing nearby. These were not flowering, but we discussed that we will see vibrant color from each of these in the Fall: red leaves on the Sumac and deep red/purple berries on the Coralberry. Coralberry is one of the very important food sources for wildlife. We discussed the fact that the Prairie is a very diverse ecosystem. It is dominated by grasses, but also includes many forbs and woody species in its flora. As we walked along the trail, we realized quickly that we were not going to find as many Spring-flowering plants blooming as we would have liked, probably because of the preceeding cold, dry Winter and Spring seasons. We identified some plants in vegetative state such as the Purple Milkweed (Aesclepias syriaca L.) and Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum L.) and smelled a few crushed leaves of Western Sage (Artemisia ludoviciana Nutt.).
As we followed the trail into the woods along Sand Creek and its tributary, we pointed out that woods were dominated by several species of oaks (Quercus spp.) and hickories (Carya spp.) with a number of species of undergrowth trees such as Redbud (Cercis canadensis L.). The ground in the woods was thickly covered with vegetation much of which was Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia (L) Planch.). We saw a few Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arasaema triphyllum (L.) Schott) plants in a vegetative state. They showed no evidence of flowers as they should have at this time of the year. We discussed at this point that the Preserve is located where the Crosstimbers and the Prairie meet. This results in a special mix of vegetation including eastern species and western species that might not be found growing near each other in many other places. For example, the Preserve is about as far West as you can find Jack-in-the-Pulpits growing. We did find one flower of the Prairie Petunia (Ruellia humilis Nutt.) blooming along the trail in the woods. It also grows out in the open Prairie but was not found there on this day. It blooms from Spring through the Summer.
Next, the trail led us up the hill out of the stream bottom onto the open
Prairie. Here we encountered Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron
strigosus Muhl ex. Willd.), Purple Wood Sorrell (Oxalis violacea L.), Verbena (Verbena stricta Vent.), and Prairie Parsnips (Polytaenia nutallii DC) all in bloom, but not in the
profusion that I expected. Again, I had to play what will be
in
pointing out a spot just South of the trail where we can expect to find a
profusion of early Summer wildflowers such as Penstemon (Penstemon spp.) and Purple Cone Flowers (Echinacea pallida (Nutt.) Nutt.). There was another
shrub, the Rough-leaf-Dogwood (Cornus drummundii
C.A. Mey.), growing in a bunch alongside the trail. We also saw motts of
Sand Plums (Prunus angustifolia Marsh.).
Following the trail through the open Prairie, we saw a few Spring Beauties
(Claytonia virginica L. ), which had been
blooming in profusion earlier when I had walked the trail, but had passed
their peak flowering time. We saw a number of Poppy Mallows (Callirhoe involucrata (Torr. and Gray) Gray), but
their flowers were much smaller than usual. And we encountered a few
plants of Prairie Larkspur (Delphinium
carolinianum Walt.), but these were short and had only a few flowers
on each spike.
We didn’t see much flowering as the trail moved farther up the hill.
But near the top of the hill, we found a spot where the Death Camus (Zygodenus nuttallii (Gray) S. Wats.) was in bloom
— lots of them. They were not as tall as in some years, but the
spikes were covered with the small flowers. There were also a few plants
of Wild Alfalfa (Psoralidium tenuiflorum (Pursh)
Rydb.) blooming. We identifed Dotted Blazing Star (Liatris punctata Hook.)and Rough Blazing Star (Liatris aspera Michx.) in their vegetative state,
pointing out that Dotted Blazing Star is a Western species and Rough
Blazing Star is an Eastern species, and these aren’t often found
growing side-by-side. These will provide a showy purple bloom in about
September. We also noticed several Buffalo Wallows
that were easily
identified by a set of species different from the area surrounding the
wallow. Along this part of the trail, there should have been large numbers
of Prairie Iris (Nemastylis geminiflora Nutt.),
but these had either passed their peak blooming season or were not yet
blooming (I had seen one flower in my walk on the trail the week before).
There were a good many Spiderworts (Tradescantia
ohioensis Raf.) blooming, but these were only scattered and had very
small flowers, not abundant and large as in previous years. We also saw a
fair amount of Sericea Lespedeza (Lespedeza
cuneata (Dum. Cours.) G. Don) alongside the trail and discussed that
it is an invader species that tends to increase quickly and that a great
amount of time and money were being used to reduce its presence.
We descended back into the stream bottom woodland at the North end of the trail, but we didn’t find anything flowering. We did see where some animal had been digging in the trail. We supposed that this damage had been caused by Wild Hogs. We also saw a Deer running through the woods.
Throughout the walk, we saw only one Coreopsis (Coreopsis grandiflora Hogg ex. Sweet), one Cream Wild Indigo (Baptisia bracteata Muhl. ex Ell.), one Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis (L.) R. Br. ex Ait.), one Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa Nutt.), one Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis L.) and one False Dandelion (Pyrropappus grandiflorus (Nutt.) Nutt.) blooming. I expected many more of each of these. So it was a disappointing walk with respect to the lack of wildflowers in bloom, but it was a beautiful day for a walk, and we certainly experienced the expansiveness of the prairie and the ever-present Dicksissel songs. The group seemed to enjoy it even though the wildflowers were sparse and small; only the Death Camus and Green Milkweed came close to expectations. The group did get to hear stories about what grows at various spots and when we should be able to see these plants in bloom. We needed lots of imagination. I kept wishing that we had done the walk at the South end of the Preserve, where many more wildflowers were blooming.
Early May this year, my colleague Dan Sossamon happened to have a camera at hand while he was driving down Texas Hwy. 377 and got these images of Turkey Vultures feeding on a deer carcass beside the road, through his windshield about an hour northeast of Del Rio.
One bird circling to land catches sight under its wing of Dan bearing down at the helm of his car, aborts his landing in favor of a go-around, applies power, and struggles to gain a safe altitude to allow Dan to pass by below. At sea, steam is supposed to give way to sail but when in a pinch you don’t stand on ceremony and instead do what works. Notice that the Turkey Vulture has Dan in sight at all times.
Picture it: Your 7-lb. Pomeranian is strutting along at the limit of his 16-ft. FlexiLead, as you stroll behind him down a lovely urban trail in May. You round a bend and out steps a coyote from the bushes along the side of the path. The coyote is not looking at you — his appraising stare is reserved for your little, tiny, fluffy dog. What’s the first thing you should do? Chalk it up to your imagination, because coyotes don’t come into urban areas? Wrong; they most certainly do. There’s even a small population living in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park now. Should you panic, turn and run while hauling your dog behind you as you sprint for safety? Definitely not; that would be like dragging a catnip mouse in front of your cat. How about this: Stand facing the coyote, talking loudly in your best alpha voice while reeling in your dog? Bingo. Coyotes are intelligent, social, beautiful creatures; they are good parents to their young, and they make — to some ears — beautiful music with their strange, unearthly howls. But they are predators, and they will take your pets if you make it easy for them. They are not evil, demonic, crazed, bloodthirsty maniacs, out to cause you and your most beloved companions pain and misery. They are hungry, and they want to eat. It’s nothing personal.
Encounters between coyotes and cats are almost certain to turn out badly for the cats. I don’t care how big, strong, tough or smart your cat is, or how long its claws — if a coyote wants your cat for dinner and contact is made, you can bet that the coyote will prevail. And the coyote will come right into your yard to snatch Mr. Muffins. But remember that the predatory coyote is also accurately deemed an opportunistic omnivore. If Mr. Muffins makes it in the cat door, and there is some birdseed on the ground in your yard, the coyote might munch a few mouthfuls of millet and move on. But if you value the lives of your pets, you will not let them wander outdoors alone if coyotes are in the area — especially around dawn, dusk, and at night.
A Chicago suburb at sunrise: a man getting into his car to go to work sees a coyote trotting between two houses with an eight-week-old German Shepherd puppy in its mouth, dead. Ouch! This kind of thing can make deranged killers out of normal people. And don’t think that because you have large dogs, they are necessarily safe. I have watched with my own eyes three coyotes working together to bamboozle and trap a certain dog I knew. I was able to interfere with the help of my horse, and it wasn’t the first time.
When I was a tour guide at Wolf Haven International in Washington, I heard
quite a few stories from my guests about their dogs playing
with
coyotes. I warned them that although the dog thinks of it as an exciting
game, it’s more than that for the coyote, who will always be alert
for the main chance. At any point, things can turn nasty for the dog.
Being big, bold, fast and strong are good, but these will still not
guarantee the dog’s safety.
Which brings me to my dog Tedward, who indeed possessed all of those qualities, but still almost got in hot water twice. He did manage to develop an unusual relationship with the coyotes at Grouse Creek, near Vail, Colorado, in the summer of 1978. I was guiding horseback trail rides on Forest Service land, and Tedward was allowed to accompany us. My riders were always interested and excited to see this adventurous and fun-loving dog interacting with the coyotes, but I always made sure to tell them why it was at least semi-safe for him to do so: it was because these particular coyotes had found out that this particular dog had a guardian, a protector — a reason that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn’t kill him, for fear of incurring the wrath of this dangerous being. Here’s how it happened….
One fine spring morning I was on my horse Joe, guiding two ladies from
Denver up a beautiful trail of aspens, on our way to the chuckwagon site
for a cowboy breakfast.
The sun was shining and all was peaceful
and lovely — until there came a god-awful roaring, snarling and
thrashing sound, down the slope from us. The ladies, alarmed, asked what
it was, and I told them I wasn’t sure, but it may have something to
do with my dog Tedward. The noise subsided and we continued on, but both
humans and horses were on the alert for more strange sounds. We
didn’t have long to wait; the second Joe stepped foot in a small
clearing, the outrageous din was right ahead of us. Out of a thick stand
of lodgepole pines burst Tedward, running for all he was worth —
with two coyotes right on his tail. There was instant and total bedlam as
I spurred Joe and galloped toward them, shouting. In a heartbeat it was
over, Tedward standing almost under Joe’s belly, panting heavily,
the ladies with their eyes wide and mouths open, but still in the saddle,
and the coyotes nowhere in sight. I caught Tedward’s grateful glance
and said, Thanks for not bringing back a bear.
So the upshot was, these coyotes apparently thought that maybe it would
behoove them to offer this dog a certain measure of respect, and maybe
even an honorary place in their pack, rather than kill him, thereby
avoiding the risk of getting run over by a large white horse with a
screeching human on top. But they may have made one last try: a few days
after this incident, alone coyote appeared on this hillside above the
saddling barn, sat on his haunches facing us and broke into song. He kept
it up for a good ten minutes, while the other Wranglers and I marveled at
it. I was pretty sure this coyote was calling
Tedward to come out
and play — but His Highness (or His Heinous, as my boss called him)
was nowhere to be seen. I finally found him, skulking around the tackroom
with a hunted look on his face. He would not come out of there. The coyote
finally gave up and melted back into the trees. A short time later, one of
our wranglers, Jeff, tapped me on the shoulder and said, Check that
out
, while pointing south; and there were two coyotes, making their
way up the slope. My guess is, Tedward had a feeling the songster’s
partner was around, and that they were probably the same two dog-chasing
varmints he’d encountered before.
A few days after that, on a sunny, breezy afternoon, I had ten riders
behind me and we were traversing a grassy hill when somebody in the back
yelled, Look at that!
We all swiveled our heads and caught sight of
Tedward, loping along a track parallel to ours, with a single coyote
chasing him. Their tongues were lolling, and there was a certain
Rocking-horse look to their gait, which led me to believe it wasn’t
a life-or-death sort of chase. It seemed all my riders started talking at
once, and the horses were pricking their ears and turning their heads at
this rarely seen spectacle of a wild dog and a domestic dog cavorting. One
after the other Tedward and the coyote ran into a group of trees, and were
hidden from our view. The tension was palpable as we held our course,
waiting — and suddenly the coyote loped out of the shadows, running
back the way they’d come — with Tedward after him. This totally
delighted my guests, many of whom were surprised that there was no
animosity being displayed, and that Tedward had not only emerged
unscathed, but had turned the tables on the wily coyote
, as one man
put it. Another gentleman closer to the front loudly proclaimed, Wow,
that ol’ hound dog of yours must have some mighty big cojones.
I
didn’t have the heart to tell him that they’d been removed,
quite some time ago.
The other most notable series of interactions between Tedward and the Grouse Creek pack came about because one of our lead horses, Molly, had a heart attack and died almost right on the trail. Fortunately this happened out of sight of the guests on that ride, and also it was a good thing our Kansas cowboy, Mike, was riding her. She took off running straight downhill and even he, with all his rodeo skills, couldn’t stop her — and he had to bail off at high speed and roll, as she crashed to the ground. He rushed back up to her and loosened the cinch and tore off her bridle as she trembled and stared, frothing at the mouth. She died within a minute. Later that day, my boss hired a guy with a tractor to bury her, but it was so steep and rocky there that it was difficult to cover her all the way. Right around dusk, we knew the coyotes had discovered this mother lode, as the yipping and yodeling started pouring forth from the direction Molly’s body lay. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Tedward in awhile, and suspicion blossomed in my mind: would he be up there with the coyotes, preparing to partake of the massive feast?
After dinner in the bunkhouse, with all doors and windows open to the
balmy July evening, four of us including our boss Dave sat down to play
cards. Off and on through the next half hour, we would hear the eerie
songs of the coyotes. Then a grisly sight appeared in the doorway:
Tedward, wearing an ecstatic grin — totally covered with flesh and
blood. Gobbets of flesh hung off him, swinging with his every move. We
stared in disbelief, and then the smell hit us. My boss was the first to
leap from his chair and as he lumbered down the hallway he shouted,
Give the damn dog a bath!
This little tableau played out almost the exact same way for the next
seven nights, as Tedward became extremely adept at psychically knowing
when I was going to look for him to tie him up. The question uppermost in
my mind, as I doused him with soapy water and watched him puking up
obscene amounts of meat, was this: was he hanging back like an Omega,
waiting his turn to eat and then roll in the carcass? Or did his honorary
status allow him to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the higher-ranking
coyotes as they ate? Judging by the vomiting, he was getting more than his
stomach could handle on each of these nights. I think if Tedward could sum
up that week in one phrase, it would be, Best Party Ever.
My
biggest regret was that we didn’t have a TedwardCam.
One of my friends asked, after hearing about Tedward’s exploits with the
Grouse Creek coyotes, So these coyotes were tame?
No; they were
habituated, which means they had adapted themselves to some degree to
having horses and humans and this one particular dog in their environs.
For an example of a tame coyote, check out Shreve Stockton’s book about
Charlie, a coyote she raised from a pup in Wyoming. Another unique
situation, which falls under the category called, Don’t Try This At
Home.
As is the case with many tamed wild animals, the relationship
between this human and coyote was not all smooth sailing. When the
animal’s adult personality and independence start to manifest themselves,
often coinciding with sexual maturity, difficulties can arise. But Shreve
and Charlie worked things out, and their pack
includes her dog and even
her cat. Check out Charlie’s midsection — he’s probably the fattest
coyote you’ll ever see.
Some people equate taming with domestication — but they are not the
same thing. Domestication takes many generations. There are some
interesting articles about the domestication of foxes on fur farms. After
a number of generations, certain new
physical characteristics start
showing up — like piebald coat patterns — which seem to be
associated with behavioral changes. To my knowledge, there are no
domesticated coyotes, although judging by the number of wolf crosses for
sale — look online and you’ll be amazed — there are
probably some fools out there trying to breed and sell coyote crosses.
Take my advice, don’t be tempted to acquire one of these animals,
beautiful though some of them may be. You can never be sure whether the
qualities of the domestic dog or the wild dog will predominate in any
given situation. Please, give up the insane idea of communing with the
wild
in this way. If you want to experience the essence and magic of
these fascinating animals, treat yourself to a trip to Yellowstone, where
you can see and hear both wolves and coyotes. Get yourself a Siberian
Husky, or any husky cross, if you like that look. I was owned by one years
ago, and believe me, she was wild enough. Her penchant for chasing and
killing small animals was disturbing, to say the least, and her frequent
walkabouts
drove me to vow I would never again have a northern
breed. People used to actually mistake her for a coyote, because of her
small stature and grey-and-white coat. You’d think the blue eyes
would have been a hint though.
So my final word on the subject of coyotes and pets would be: keep plenty
of distance between them. And if you’re walking down the trail with
your dog off-leash, and the coyotes start to sing, and your dog wants to
dash off and join them, fix him with a commanding stare and say,
Don’t!
And feel free to add what I say to my dogs now: Who
do you think you are — Tedward?
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.
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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February
March
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July
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2000—January
February
March
April
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June
July
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September
October
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1999—January
February
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April
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June
July
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1998—January
February
March
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July
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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.
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.