Newsletter title

September 2014

In This Edition

Nature at Night: Friday, September 26, 7:00pm - 11:00pm

—Katie Hawk

Visit The Nature Conservancy at this month’s H&8th Night Market on Friday, September 26 for an earthy art show and wild critters to pet!

H&8th is a monthly, family-and-pet-friendly street festival built around a lineup of the city’s top gourmet food trucks on Hudson Avenue, downtown between NW 7th and NW 8th streets. H&8th takes place on the last Friday of each month through September and we will be participating in each one. There is no cost to attend.

Food trucks, live music, nature, and your family (including Fido)! What more could you ask for! We are located at 408 NW 7th St. and look forward to seeing you there!

Visit the H&8th web site (http://h8thokc.com/) for an event map and to see what bands are playing and what food will be served.

Fall Work Days

—Dennis Bires

Book Review: A Field Guide to Plains Bison

—Bill Alexander

New bison books went on sale at the Visitor’s Center during August. The book A Field Guide to Plains Bison was the first I purchased of these, and it has photos on every page, useful identification of bison age and sex that can be determined from a safe distance, and an interesting factoid on each of the pages about bison. An example of one of the factoids is: During the summer bulls have virtually no hair from the shoulders back to the hips. This ‘thermal window’ is an adaption to hot climates that allows the bison to radiate excess body heat. Bison cannot sweat so excess heat must be released through the thermal window or by panting with an open mouth. The author and photographer are both from Canada, and there is a short description at the end of the book as to the differences between the Plains Bison and Wood Bison. It has a classification of the bison in their life cycle. The book details the birth and aging process including behaviors that might not be typical at Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, since the Preserve doesn’t have bison in the herd throughout their life cycle as the herd is composed of bison in the first half of their usual life cycle in the wild. Be sure to check this out at your next day at the Visitor's Center along with the other new books.

Prairie Watching: Blue Wildflowers

—Dwight Thomas, Ph.D.

Last Summer, I wrote about yellow and purple wildflowers (Tallgrass Prairie Docent Newsletter, Yellow Wildflowers July 2013; Purple Wildflowers, August 2013). Yellow and purple wildflowers are abundant at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Both of these colors can occur in mass — whole fields of yellow or purple or a combination of both, and they are seen throughout the growing year and over a wide range of plant families. Some birds and other animals produce color by diffraction of light, but colors in plants are caused by pigments that are produced in the plants. The yellow wildflowers contain carotinoid and/or xanthophyll pigments. The purple wildflowers contain anthocyanin pigments. From these pigments and chlorophyll, we can get the whole range of colors of wildflowers: yellow, purple, red, pink, orange, green, and blue.

Prairie Iris

Probably the least abundant are the blues. By blue, I don’t mean the purple ones that are almost blue like the Prairie Iris (Nemastylus geminiflora Nutt.). I mean those that are truly blue. There are many purple wildflowers that are almost blue, but I can only think of one that I have found at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve that to me is blue. According to authorities, such as Doug Ladd and Frank Oberle, Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers, Morris Book Publishing, 2005, several Tallgrass Prairie plants are truly blue.

Blue wildflowers, like purple and red wildflowers, contain anthocyanin pigments. There are over 500 anthocyanin pigments found in the plant kingdom, so we should expect many shades of purples, reds, and blues. But there is another factor that influences the shade of blue, purple, or red that the particular anthocyanin dictates. That factor is the acid/base environment — measured by pH. Anthocyanins are red in acid situations, purple in neutral situations, and blue in base situations. This can be seen easily in some of our food plants that contain anthocyanin pigments. Red cabbage, for example, is red because of the presence of anthocyanin pigments and because of an acid condition within the cells. If you were to reduce the acidity in the red cabbage the red color would become blue. To see this, cut up some red cabbage and sprinkle it with sodium bicarbonate and some water. You will now have blue red cabbage. I found another example of changes in color on a particular set of plants in my yard. I had some Irises growing next to the South side of my house where it is usually shady under a Pecan tree. The Irises always bloomed a light reddish-purple. They weren’t doing particularly well where they were, so I moved them to another location in my yard where they had much more sunlight and different organic matter in the soil. At the new location, they thrived and bloomed a bright blue-purple. I didn’t check the pH, but seeing the result, I strongly suspect a pH difference in the soil [of course this was not a scientific experiment with controls — the additional sunlight might have made the difference, or escaping from the influence of the Pecan tree might also have been a factor (nothing else grows well under that Pecan tree)]. A plant’s flower color is determined by its genetics, but the color can be modified by its environment.

In nature, plants live and grow in a chemical as well as physical environment. The soil pH is the result of: the rock strata from which the soil was derived; the organic matter in the soil; treatments with chemicals such as lime; and the moisture content of the soil. At the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, the underlying rock structure is mostly sandstone and limestone with some shale (Tallgrass Prairie Docent Newsletter, Prairie Watching: Rocks, May 2013). Sandstone is mostly Silicon Dioxide but it contains many other chemicals and usually weathers into an acidic soil. Limestone is mostly Calcium Carbonate which weathers into a basic soil. But pH can also be influenced by the conditions in very small local environments, so there may be acid places in the prairie and basic places in the crosstimbers.

Even though prairie soils tend toward being basic, I would have to conclude that the small number of blue prairie wildflowers indicates that basic condition does not occur frequently within the cells of prairie plants. I have included photos of three plant species that are fairly common on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve that were described as blue by Ladd and Oberle.

Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis (L.) R. Br. ex. AIT):

This plant in the bean family blooms in the Spring with a tall spike of large blue flowers. The spike stands upright towering over the Spring grasses and can be spotted easily from a distance even though the plants grow singly. Ladd and Oberle call this blue, but it looks to me like these are very close to being purple — these two photos are from two locations within the Preserve several miles apart and two distinctly different habitats: The first photos is from a flat lower area near the South entrance of the Preserve taken in 2012; the second photo is from a hilltop near the northern end of the Preserve taken in 2013.

Blue Wild Indigo

 

Blue Sage (Salvia azurea Michx.)

This plant is in the mint family and blooms from Summer into Autumn. It will stand up to 3 feet tall with the thin spike of blue flowers waving in the wind. It often grows in large populations and is easy to spot throughout the Preserve.

Blue Sage

 

Scurfy Pea (Psoralidium tenuaflorum (Pursh) Rydb.)

This plant in the bean family is a short bushy plant with many branches and dark blue flowers on each branch. It will grow in masses especially in dry rocky areas, which allows it to be seen readily when it blooms in Spring. To me, this is also close to purple.

Scurfy Pea

 

Mourning Dove, (Zenaida macroura)

—Nicholas DelGrosso

September is a great time to look at the Mourning Dove. It is the first wing shooting season of the year. Growing up in North Carolina dove hunting was a social affair. Six or seven of my friends and I would head out to Anson County to hunt dove over cut milo fields. The shooting was always fast and furious. Dove are strong fliers capable of speeds up to 55 m.p.h., so they are a challenge to all but the expert wing shooter and I am a long way from that. I was also handicapped by my shotgun, the perennial excuse for a miss, a single shot 1913 Eastern Arms Goose Gun with a full choke. This $10 gun served me well through my teenage years. At lunch we would head to the general store and sit around the pot-bellied stove drinking Dr.Pepper and eating Moon Pies and telling tall tales about our mornings exploits. About 2 p.m. we would head back out into the field to hunt water tanks as the dove came in for their afternoon drink. About 5 p.m. we would load up and head back to Charlotte and home. We always pooled our birds and had a dove roast the next weekend hosted by one of our parents. There is nothing like roasted dove breast wrapped in bacon and seasoned with black pepper with sides of creamed corn and mashed potatoes and gravy. Well that all used to happen fifty-two years ago and the nice thing about that story is that it still happens today; I brought my boys up in Oklahoma with these same social hunting traditions and the Mourning Dove is still here in strong numbers. Every year hunters harvest more than 20 million Mourning Dove countrywide, but this bird remains one of our most abundant birds with an estimated U.S. population of 120 million. Several factors influence this number. On the regulation side expert wildlife management practices, paid for by license fees and taxes on ammunition, set hunting seasons and take limits which are set to insure that the Mourning Dove continues to maintain it average population. Input from State Wildlife Departments, review of Federal Migratory Game Laws, population surveys in the field and review of hunters migratory bird take surveys and International Treaties all work together to gather information which factors into hunting seasons and take limits. The adaptability and reproductive capacity of the Mourning Dove also contributes to its success. The Mourning Dove is a generalist; it eats the seeds of dozens of kinds of plants. They are ground feeders, once on the ground they occupy their time swallowing seeds and storing them in their crop (an enlargement of their esophagus). To demonstrate how large this crop is there is documented evidence of a Mourning Dove storing 17,200 bluegrass seeds there. Once they eat their fill they fly to a safe perch to digest their meal. Mourning Dove like thickets but they are equally at home in land cleared of trees by fire, windstorm, farmers or suburban developers. They nest on the ground, in brush or trees at the borders of clearings, always feeding on the open ground and at the edge of the woods. I have even seen them nest in hanging baskets on my deck, dove are not shy of humans. You can find them in parks, cemeteries, and suburban yards and quiet suburban neighborhoods. People create the habitats that Mourning Doves love. The range of the American Mourning Dove extends from southern Canada through the United States and down through Central America. It has been estimated that 81-percent of this population stay in the United States.

Mourning Dove via Wikimedia Commons

The Mourning Dove is a prolific breeder; in warm areas they can have up to six clutches a year. A clutch is composed of two eggs, so a single pair of doves can potentially add 12 new recruits a year to the population. Mourning Dove have a high predation rated, besides people, raptors also love to eat dove. I have a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks at my house and I constantly find Mourning Dove feathers around the yard, remnants of the raptors meal.

While driving through the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve you often see Mourning Dove perched on the power lines or picking up grit along the roadside. They have a distinctive silhouette with a small head and a long tail.

During the breeding season you will often see three dove flying in a tight formation. The first bird in the formation is usually the male of a mated pair. The second bird is an unmated male chasing his rival from his chosen territory. The second bird chases all paired doves from his territory because eventually he hopes to pair and nest in this area. The third bird is the female of the mated pair. Dove are monogamous. They pair bond after the male does a courtship dance consisting of a noisy flight a circular glide and upon landing a noisy approach to the female with his chest puffed out and bobbing head. Once she accepts him they preen each other.

In the spring males have a favorite cooing perch where they give a plaintive woo-OO-oo-oo-oo call that gives this bird its name. This announces to other dove in the area that this territory belongs to him. Since the dove is a symbol of peace it is remarkable that this bird is so aggressive. They defend these perches vigorously. The calls sound like laments and many a novice birder confuses the mournful sound with an owl call. In the past folk lore warned that the call of a dove foretold of death in the house and women would have to knot the corners of their apron to ward off the evil portent. Male dove usually call from these cooing perches early in the morning adding a melancholy sound to the cheerful morning chorus of other song birds. In the evening dove normally go to water for a drink before going off to the trees to roost for the night.

Mourning Dove via Wikimedia Commons

Unlike their relative, the Passenger Pigeon, Mourning Dove do not nest or congregate in large communal groups. They are spread across the landscape in isolated nests not huge communal flocks.

Nests are an unkempt affair made up of pine needles, twigs and grass stems. The male delivers the construction materials to the female often standing on her back as she weaves the materials into a nest about 8 inches across. The nest is unlined and often looks like the first good wind will blow it down. Two white eggs are laid in the nest. The male typically incubates the eggs during the day and the female takes the night shift. After fourteen days the eggs hatch. The squabs are helpless with eyes closed, unable to hold up their large heads and totally dependent upon the adults. The squabs are so ugly that only a mother could love them.

The pair feed the hatchlings pigeon crop milk. The milk starts to be produced in the crop of the parent doves two days before the eggs hatch. This milk is found to contain antioxidants and immune enhancing factors. This suggests that like mammalian milk, it plays a key role in enhancing the immune system of the developing squab. The pigeon is one of only three bird species (the others being Flamingos and male Emperor Penguins) known to produce milk to feed their young. Squabs are fed the milk until they are about ten days old. Once the young are weaned the milk stops being produced. The squabs usually fledge by the 15th day after hatching. It’s a dangerous world for both young and mature Mourning Doves; they are on the menu of a host of predators from hawks to blackbirds, squirrels and black snakes. Mortality is high. Each year, adult mortality can reach 58-percent a year and only 69-percent of the young survive. Populations remain high because infant survivals exceed the adult mortality rate. The parents are very protective. If danger is near the nest or fledgling they will perform nest-distracting displays, such as a broken-wing display. They will flutter around on the ground pretending to be injured and easy prey to draw the predator’s attention to them.

The Mourning Dove have a number of colloquial names such as Turtle Dove, Rain Dove, Carolina Pigeon and my favorite Carolina Turtledove. However the name that describes it best is its Greek name macroura or long tail. The sides of this tail are edged in white and stand out against the dove gray of the tail’s center. The Zenaida is in honor of biologist Charles Bonaparte’s wife, Princess Zenaide. Charles Bonaparte gave the Mourning Dove its species scientific name in 1838.

The coloration of the Mourning Dove is a soft, sandy buff, generally known as dove gray, with a long pointed tail bordered in white. It also has black spots on the wings. If you look closely the male has purple-pink patches on the side of the neck, otherwise both the male and female look alike. The average size is about 12 inches, much smaller than its extinct relative, the passenger pigeon, who measured between 15 to 16 inches long and had a flashier color pallet.

White-winged Dove via Wikimedia Commons

The Mourning Dove can be confused with the White-winged Dove at a distance, but when examining the silhouette you will see the White-winged Dove has a rounded tail. Up closed the white edges of their wings make identification easy.

The Eurasian Collared Dove is also present on the prairie; it is heavier looking than the Mourning Dove and has a square cut tail with a narrow black ring on its hind neck.

Mourning Doves can be long lived, their maximum lifespan in the wild is about 19.3 years; their average lifespan is 1.5 years. The oldest documented Mourning Dove was a banded bird which was recovered and is listed in the Longevity Records of North American Birds at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center as 31 years 4 months old.

Eurasian Collared Dove via Wikimedia Commons

The Mourning Dove is a bird of open country, scattered trees and woodland edges. That description fits the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to a tee. As I pointed out you can spot the small headed long tailed silhouette on the power lines and fences in the mornings and evenings as you drive through the Preserve. In the fall look for doves among the climax sunflowers, as you walk through these areas don’t be surprised when several doves take off from the ground making a sharp whistling or whinnying sound. This sound comes from their wings as they beat furiously to become airborne. In the evenings they come into the tanks and ponds on the preserve for water before going into the cross timbers to roost. The Preserve has all the habitats doves like to use. Over the past fifteen years the Mourning Dove count during the Christmas Bird Count has averaged 14 Mourning Dove. Not one of the most populous birds on the Preserve’s winter landscape. Dove tend to spend the winters in their breeding territories with the exception of northern birds which head south on the fronts during the winter. The Mourning Dove is a remarkable bird and is fun to watch in every season. Whenever you are in the field walking down a bird you really want to add to your life list remember God does not deduct from a man’s time on earth the hours he spends bird watching.

Visitor Counts

—Iris McPherson

The month of July had 874 visitors with 851 from 36 states. Oklahoma was represented by 465 visitors followed by Texas (78), Alabama (37) and Arkansas (28). There were 23 visitors from six foreign countries.

Visitor Counts

Keep up the good work of getting as many visitors as possible to sign the guest registry. 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

The 2014 August year-to-date average coverage increased to 77-percent from last month’s 75-percent. The days closed for August were four, the same as in July. The total days closed year-to-date is 42, which is the same as the days closed in all of 2013. Thanks to all who jumped in during August to bring our coverage percentage up. We also had the highest monthly docent count this year with 35 different docents volunteering during August. Nine docents served 2 or more days during the month, which is greatly appreciated to increase our coverage.

Visitors were awestruck by the large herds of bison seen this past month. As the season begins to change in September, it will provide an incredible panorama for viewing for docent and visitor alike. Come and enjoy the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, and visit with those from around the world who love to have docents to discuss what is occurring in the prairie wilderness.

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.