Newsletter title

August 2014

In This Edition

Docent Council Meeting

—Kay Krebbs

The Docent Council meeting was held Saturday, June 28, 2014, at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Research Station. Those in attendance included: Anita Springer, Harvey Payne, Jenk Jones, Bill Alexander, Kathy Alexander, Kay Krebbs, Jerry Hofmeister, Ila McKee, Barbara Bates, Jim Holland, Karen Cruce, Kip Cowan, Nancy Irby, and Ron Eggleston.

Anita Springer, Docent Coordinator, opened the meeting. She thanked Bob Hamilton for providing lunch and Tawnda Hopper for her assistance with the meeting. Harvey addressed the group and thanked them for their continued support and hard work. Harvey also advised the group that Kay Krebbs has been asked to join him in helping to coordinate and support the docent program, as well as the gift shop.

The Agenda was given to each person in attendance. Many of the items covered during this meeting became the basis for forming committees. Following is a list of committees which were established to look into these suggestions more fully. The chairperson for each committee is noted with his or her email address. If you would be interested in participating on one of these committees, please contact the chairperson.

Calendar Scheduling

George Pierson (George.pierson@gmail.com) — Chair. This committee will search for a new online calendar to replace the current calendar used to schedule shifts at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. The docents who attended this meeting were asked to help with an assessment of possible sites. We reviewed Wiggio, but it has already been scratched. George has put many hours into researching calendar options. He just recently set up a calendar using TeamUp for review by these docents. At the next Docent Council meeting, he will demonstrate the TeamUp calendar and the group will be able to discuss the pros and cons. However, we will continue to look at various calendar options through the winter months hoping to find one that might better fit our needs. With any luck, we will be able to demonstrate the chosen calendar at the winter (December or January) docent council meeting; and then we will add the calendar to the training sessions for 2015. Stay tuned….

Calendar for resale containing photos by Docents

Jerry Hofmeister (meisterlaw@aol.com) — Chair. This committee will look at the possibility of creating a calendar to sell in the Visitor’s Center, using pictures submitted by docents for each month.

Large Screen Monitor or Television

Bill Alexander (balex9999@aol.com) — Chair. This committee will investigate what could be provided in the Visitor’s Center in a large-screen format for use by docents to interpret the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to visitors.

QR Codes

David Turner (drenrut@cableone.net) — Chair. This committee will investigate the use of QR codes at Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to provide information for visitors at various locations. Mention was made of the possibility that QR codes could be provided in areas where no docent is present such as trails, turnouts, and the headquarters area when a docent is not available.

Other Discussion Topics

Some of the other suggestions discussed during this meeting include:
  1. Opening more of the bunkhouse to visitors:
    • After discussion, it was decided that the access to the dining room, kitchen, and foyer is sufficient. Visitors can see into the living room-office and into the cook’s quarters. People can also look into the windows of the bedrooms.
  2. Delay opening day to mid-March
    • A suggestion to delay the opening date of the Visitor’ Center to mid-March was discussed. After discussion it was decided to leave the schedule as it currently stands — March 1st through Dec 15th.
  3. Bug Spray
    • A suggestion was to have bug spray available for visitor’s use. This was done and is available in the Visitor’s Center for docents to provide for visitors use when needed.
  4. Bunkhouse Tour sign
    • A suggestion was to have a sign for posting on the Visitor’s Center door when the docent is giving a tour in the bunkhouse and has locked up the Visitor’s Center. This sign is now available at the desk in the visitor center; there is a clip on the inside of the Visitor’s Center door on which to hang the sign. An Open/Closed sign is also now available for the Visitor’s Center.
  5. National Park Passport Stamp
      A suggestion was discussed about having a stamp to use for Visitor’s park passports to show they visited the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. It was mentioned that we already have the bison stamp that is used on the brown paper sacks currently used in the Gift Shop. This stamp and pad is now located on the check-out desk.
  6. Docent Council Meetings
    • Discussion was held regarding holding the quarterly meetings of the Docent Council at various times (lunch/afternoon/evening) and at various locations (City of Pawhuska, Bartlesville, Tulsa) in an attempt to make it easier for more docents to be involved.

Next Docent Council Meeting

The next meeting of the Docent Council will be held September 12, 2014, at the Owasso Community Center from 1 until 4 p.m. Address of the community center is: 301 S. Cedar St., Owasso, OK, 74055. Their telephone number is: 918-272-3901.

If you have suggestions for the Docent Program that you would like us to consider as an Agenda item for the next Docent Council meeting, please contact any or all of the following individuals by September 1:

Fall Work Days

—Dennis Bires

Prairie Watching: Learning Art and Science from the Prairie

—Dwight Thomas, Ph.D.

My education trained me to be a scientist. My working career was based in the sciences. I usually think in scientific terms and models. I am always especially interested in environmental relationships among species living in a particular area. But the prairie is not just science, it is a beautiful and grand landscape as well.

Having lived much of my life where wide-open spaces prevail, I am mystified by people who pass on through the prairie making comments that there is nothing to see. My response to them is that recognizing and appreciating the beauty of the prairie requires more than just passing through. You have to really look and even study the prairie to see and appreciate it. Many beautiful places almost hit you over the head with their spectacle (The Grand Canyon is a good example; it demands your attention), while the prairie beauty creeps into your being (if you let it), soothing, comforting, exciting, and making you want to linger awhile.

I love photographing landscapes and plants, but in trying to make my photographs better, I find I need to get beyond the scientific thinking and cross over into another part of my brain to get some artistic influence. I began expressing this realization in my article of January 2014, Historical Perspective from Art, Tallgrass Prairie Docent Newsletter, where I discussed what we could learn by looking at historical artistic renditions of the prairie.

Let me illustrate what I am saying with a photograph taken in late-summer at the southwest end of the Preserve. It is not a beautiful photo, but it is scientifically interesting. In this photograph, there are several plant species growing alongside each other. From the scientific point of view, I see Rough Blazing Star (Liatris aspera L.), purple in the foreground; Eryngio (Eryngium leavenworthii T.&G.), purple with pineapple-shaped heads; Blue Sage (Salvia azurea Michx), blue, left center; Goldenrod (Solidago gigantea Ait.), yellow; Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), tall grass stalks with turkey-foot heads; Silver Beardgrass (Bothriochloa laguroides (DC) Herter) among several other species. I also see that this is not an area that has lush grass growth as much of the prairie does. It appears to be a disturbed area that is dry and rocky. I was only thinking scientifically when I snapped the photo, but I wonder what might have resulted if I had taken the time and used my right brain for a few seconds. From an artistic point of view, there are several colors, textures, patterns, and shapes illustrated here. Just think what an impressionist painter could do with this scene. Just for fun, I used the Artistic Effects—Brush Strokes model of my Photo software to see how it might look as a painting.

Wildflowers in September by Dwight Thomas

Hmm! I think it lost its scientific value, but I may have to concede that it would look better than the original photo hanging on a wall. I’m sure a painter could have done better than my computer in creating a work of art. The painter likely would have looked at the scene at different times of the day and with different sky cover to get a perspective on what would look best. The painter would also have looked at all of the possible backgrounds to use what best accents the foreground. A photographer can do that also, but a photographer cannot blend what is seen at different times and directions into one photo as a painter can. However, you never can trust a digital photo.

When I looked at the results of applying the Brush Strokes model to the photo, I immediately thought of Claude Monet, the French painter who is credited with originating the Impressionistic Style. Now this altered photo is not likely to be mistaken for a Monet painting, but it does provide a similar effect on me as a viewer. I am drawn to the pattern of the colors and shapes and not concerned about just what species are depicted. Monet was a master of using light variations to create the mood and send his message. He was known to paint the same scene over and over again at different times of the day, different seasons, and different weather conditions to capture the effect of different lighting on the subject. I have been following his lead by taking photographs at specific places of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve every time I visit to capture a scene in its many variations. In January 2013, I wrote about changing seasons at the Preserve and provided a series of photos at one spot along the hiking trail. Prairie Watching: Seasons, Tallgrass Prairie Docent Newsletter, January 2013.

Poppies by Claude Monet

Here is one of Monet’s landscape paintings, Poppy Fields Near Argenteuil. This painting is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In it you can see his interest in lighting and color, but I could never have identified the Poppies from the painting. I have visited some areas where Monet painted and have seen some poppy fields in that part of France. Monet created beautiful, paintings that evoke feelings, but we will just have to take his word for it that the flowers are Poppies. By-the-way, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa has a special exhibit of Monet paintings running until September 21, 2014. The exhibit is titled: Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River.

I am fascinated with the idea as to how Monet or other renowned artists would paint the prairie. Let’s look at some more prairie photographs and then look at them with the Artistic Effect—Brush Strokes applied to see how the computer would create an Impressionistic painting. Again, the computer doesn’t do justice to the art, but it is fun to use the computer to help us imagine what a real artist could do with the prairie.

Indigo Camus by Dwight Thomas

In the meantime, we have the real thing to look at and appreciate as both art and science.

Passenger Pigeon, (Ectopistes migratorius)

—Nicholas DelGrosso

The extinction of any species is a tragic event, but remembering that event impresses upon us the fact that the time to save an endangered species is before it becomes extinct. The extinction of the Passenger Pigeon helped foster a new age of environmentalism with the creation of wilderness preserves, the elimination of market hunting, limits on hunting harvests and the establishment of hunting seasons. But some species are not helped by these changes; some species require a large landscape to act upon. The Passenger Pigeon was a natural environmental phenomenon. Wherever it went it altered the landscape for years to come and as a result it required half a continent to live out its life history. September 1, 2014 will mark the 100th anniversary of the death in the Cincinnati Zoo of Martha, a 29 year old female and the last Passenger Pigeon.

Billing-n-Cooing via Wikimedia Commons

Roughly 380 years had passed since early European explorers had marveled at the numbers of this bird. Estimates of their population ran from 3 to 5 billion Passenger Pigeons. Some high end estimates say continent wide there could have been upward of 10 billion Passenger Pigeons flying across North American skies. To go from these numbers to just one requires an explanation. How did the Passenger Pigeon come to represent 25- to 40-percent of all avian life in North America? How did this bird exploit its environment? And finally why did it become extinct?

With such a large biological footprint what does the archaeological record say about the Passenger Pigeon? Let’s explore how pre-European America looked. East of the Mississippi River was mostly a continuous forest from north to south and from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast. Charles Mann’s book 1491 hypothesizes that the environment encountered by early European explorers was a construct of Native Americans shaped by changes made to sustain large Native American populations. One would think with the large numbers of Passenger Pigeons described by the early explorers there would be an archaeological presence in earlier centuries documenting this feathered tempest. Dr. Ed Jackson of the University of Southern Mississippi has made a study of bird remains at prehistoric archeological sites in the eastern United States. His conclusion was that there were actually few such remains. He feels that this is not a matter of preservation, since there were plenty of other bird bones. Based upon these observations both Mann and Jackson felt that the Passenger Pigeon populations in pre-historic America were much smaller than the ones documented in colonial times. European diseases were introduced into North America through chance contacts between Natives and Europeans prior to colonization, mostly through Europeans fishing the Newfoundland Banks for Cod prior to the age of discovery. Native Americans had no immunity to these European diseases and they heavily impacted native populations in the northeast. Mann sets out the premise that humans, deer, Passenger Pigeons and other animals were all mast (acorns and nuts) consumers. When native populations fell the environment changed and more mast was available and pigeon populations boomed.

The collapse of the Mississippi Culture (Mound Builders) may have also been beneficial to the Passenger Pigeon population boom. This happened at least 400 years prior to European contact. The Mississippian people depended upon a rich mast harvest in conjunction with their production of maize and beans, so their civilization required intensive agriculture to sustain their population. Many of these population centers in the midwest and south were in decline when Europeans first came in contact with this culture. With declining populations more land and mast became available as previously farmed land returned to its woodland state. The Passenger Pigeon was there to reap the benefits of this decline in native populations. The boom was a natural response to an opening in an ecological niche and the Passenger Pigeon was posed to take advantage of this opportunity. DNA analysis seems to confirm this scenario. With advances in DNA technology we are able to extract population estimates based upon the examination of DNA from Passenger Pigeon specimens in museums. To determine past population sizes Shou-Hsien Li of National Taiwan Normal University and his colleagues mapped the Passenger Pigeon genome. Their analysis found that the Passenger Pigeons effective population size, the number of individuals needed to produce the amount of genetic variation found in the species was about 330,000. The researchers reconstructed the birds’ genetic history and discovered that population changes correlated with the earth’s climate history. We see this correlation even today in other species as global temperatures rise by 2 or 3 degrees birds shift their territories north or to higher elevations in an attempt to stay in a zone that mimics their ideal habitat. Passenger Pigeons responded in similar fashion, in times of glaciations populations were low, during warm periods populations increased. The team also mapped the availability of acorns by studying the fossil pollen records. They found that over the past 9,000 years oak cover had been declining. Li’s team felt that initially European colonization and planting of agricultural crops along with declining native populations could have temporarily reversed the downward population trend. However, as European populations increased and more and more land was cleared the Passenger Pigeons own numbers were working against it. Its own nesting strategy became a recruitment problem as human predation increased. Nesting in large communal groups made them vulnerable to organized human exploitation. A similar situation in modern times shows the hazard of communal habitation. Dickcissells in the 1970’s were dispersed across their United States breeding grounds during the breeding season, but during migration and upon arriving back in the Llanos they were concentrated into large wintering flocks. Scientists noticed a significant decline in United States breeding Dickcissell populations upon investigation they determined that the problem was the poisoning of the large winter flocks in the Llanos by farmers trying to protect their rice crops. Since the birds were concentrated into large flocks it was easy to kill great numbers at once when they were in their roosts. Audubon scientists recognized the declining populations and through an education and enforcement program with Venezuela changed attitudes in the Llanos, thus saving the Dickcissell. So this scenario is certainly a feasible explanation for population decline resulting in extinction.

Passenger Pigeon: Juvenile, left; Male, center; Female, right

Generally Passenger Pigeons inhabited North America east of the Rocky Mountains. A review of the literature of early Spanish conquistadors who explored the southern and southwestern United States makes no mention of the skies being filled with Passenger Pigeons. The following range map indicates that the eastern portions of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas had resident populations of Passenger Pigeons. They were probably sustained by the mast production in the cross timber regions in these areas. The principle nesting areas were in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Ontario, Pennsylvania, New York and New England.

In the northern and mid-atlantic states early explorers and settlers remarked in their letters and diaries about the large numbers of Passenger Pigeons. The first surviving record of Passenger Pigeons was from Jacques Cartier when he reported seeing an infinite number in 1534 at Prince Edward Island. Samuel de Champlain mentions seeing countless numbers of Passenger Pigeons in 1605. In Jamestown settlers remarked about flights of Passenger Pigeons in winter so large that they blocked out the sun. In New England Cotton Mather says Pidgeons, which annually visit my own Country in their Season, in such incredible numbers, that they have commonly been sold for two-pence a dozen; yea, one Man has at one time surprised no less then two hundred dozen in his Barn, into which they have come for food, and by shutting the door, he has had them all. In March of 1631 Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Colony states that the sky over Massachusetts Bay grew so dark with a flock of Passenger Pigeons… they would easily load three ships. Even Governor John Winthrop remarks that one year a large flock of Passenger Pigeons descended upon the colonies crops destroying most of the crop and the next year they arrived in winter providing a source of relief for the hungry colonists. Similar reports can be found from the Dutch on Manhattan Island in 1625 and some of the first explorers in Louisiana in 1698.

Even the Indians of the northeast held the Passenger Pigeon in high regard. The Huron believed that every twelve years during the Feast of the Dead the souls of the deceased changed into Passenger Pigeons, which were than hunted and eaten. Before hunting the juvenile pigeons, the Seneca made an offering of wampum and brooches to the old Passenger Pigeons to appease them for taking their young. The Seneca even developed a pigeon dance as a way of showing their gratitude. To the woodland Indians the Passenger Pigeon was a reliable food resource in its season just as a Bison played an important role to the Plains Tribes. When an animal is important to a people it is enshrined in its religious and cultural practices and that is what the woodland tribes did with the Passenger Pigeon.

The Passenger Pigeon was a stunningly colored bird; the male was 15.4 to 16.1 inches in length with a blueish-gray head, nape and hind neck. The upper back and wings were a pale gray, turning to a grayish brown on the lower wings. The tail was long and had a distinctive white edge, the lower throat and breast was pinkish-rufous and became paler pink further down the belly. The female was smaller (14.9 to 15.7 inches) and browner on the upper parts and paler on the under parts. It weighed between 12 and 16 ounces. The male had red eyes and the females eyes were an orange yellow.

It was initially thought that the closest living relative was the Band-tailed Pigeon but in 2010 DNA tests showed that the Mourning Dove held that dubious honour. Its life history was very different from its relative it concentrated its efforts on eating small seeds and it still graces our lawns and parks today with its mournful song. On the other hand the Passenger Pigeon specialized in eating big seeds such as acorns and the nuts of hickories, beeches and chestnuts. The Passenger Pigeon lived life in the fast lane on a continental scale. They spent the winter at the southern end of the forest — the Gulf States, Tennessee and Arkansas — and they summered around the Great lakes, New England, and upstate New York or in Ontario. The population consisted of a small number of large flocks. They roosted together in winter, migrated together in spring and nested together in summer. They were constantly on the move in search of mast across a half million square miles of woods. The Passenger Pigeon was like a feathered plague. Imagine being a Turkey in Georgia, who has a comfortable mast crop available for the winter, when out of nowhere a flock of migrating Passenger Pigeons descends upon your woods eating all the mast and moving on. Flying at 60 mph they could breakfast in Georgia and enjoy dinner in southern Alabama, leaving behind snapped tree limbs from the weight of their own biomass making the roost area look like the trees in Oklahoma after a severe ice storm. The final indignity would have been the storm of dung raining down by the ton burying the trunks of trees and when the flock left the roost it would be made up mostly of dead trees. It would be very rare for these flocks to visit the same roost or foraging areas in consecutive years because the resource would have required time to recover. To give you an idea of the scope of the problem a nesting colony might cover 50 square miles and every branch was loaded with nests, as many as 500 birds in a single tree. The Passenger Pigeons path looked like the scorched earth of Sherman’s Army marching through Georgia. In any given area even the local natural predators could not handle the numbers and they became satiated long before they could impact the population.

But as European populations expanded man became the Passenger Pigeons nemesis. They hit the Passenger Pigeon with a double whammy. Cutting vast swaths of forest and market hunting to provide cheap food for the immigrants in growing eastern cities did them in. The scale of the mass slaughter increased over time to the point that the billions of Passenger Pigeons could not rebound from the onslaught. In 1860 in Grand Rapids, Michigan alone 235,000 pigeons were shipped east. Nine years later, in 1869, 7,500,000 pigeons were shipped out of Michigan in a single season. By 1874 the take was decreasing, only 1,000,000 pigeons were shipped from Ocean County, Michigan. This was the heart of the breeding area and roosts were vulnerable to exploitation by man. These staggering numbers began to fall in the 1880s but nobody recognized the problem, Technologies like the telegraph made the flocks vulnerable to exploitation and the railroad made getting to the flocks easy and transporting the pigeons to market convenient. By the 1880s take numbers began to diminish, the vast flocks could not withstand the slaughter and the remaining diminished flocks could not reproduce in such small roosts. Numbers were the key to their reproductive success. By 1914 it came down to one last Passenger Pigeon dying in a zoo, her half million square mile range reduced to a 4x4 enclosure.

Passenger Pigeon: Extinct

Visitor Counts

—Iris McPherson

The month of June had 635 visitors with 614 from 38 states. Oklahoma was represented by 363 visitors followed by Kansas (36), California (24) and Arkansas (18). There were 21 visitors from 8 foreign countries.

Visitor Counts

Keep up the good work of getting as many visitors as possible to sign the guest register. We seem to be having a pretty good year, as far as number of visitors is concerned. I know that the Saturdays that I have worked have been really busy. Hopefully the weather will continue to cooperate with us this summer.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Bill Alexander

A small change has been made to the yearly number in our docent coverage information to reflect year-to-date average. It shows what the average coverage is from the start of March through the end of the previous month. July has been the best coverage month this year. The Visitor’s Center was only closed for four days during the month due to the efforts of Dwight Thomas reminding us of the coverage needs and the 32 docents serving during July. Special recognition goes to Nancy Irby who served four days during July. Thanks also to Anita Springer who was there for three days during July doing training for our new docents who will be able to help support our coverage needs. To compare to last year’s closings, we are currently at 90-percent of the days closed for 2013, at two weeks past the middle of our visitor center year. The 75-percent average 2014 year-to-date coverage through July relates to an average Visitor’s Center closure of one day in every four day period. As new docents are coming online, your service is especially appreciated by the visitors who come to the Tall Grass Prairie each day.

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.

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.

2014January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2014
2013January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2013
2012January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2012
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.