Newsletter title

June 2015

In This Edition

 

Helping the TeamUp Calendar Work for Everyone

—Kay Krebbs & Bill Alexander

The TeamUp calendar introduced this year has several nice features. One of the major new features is the reduced version which appears on the Tallgrass Prairie docent website (http://www.tgp-docents.com/docent/ — select the visitor center schedule menu selection), which allows visitors to see if the visitor center is going to be open on a particular day. The reduced calendar does not have docent names but only shows the blue background with the word reserved entered once for each docent scheduled.

Another important aspect of the full version of the TeamUp calendar is that it shows a quick overview of who is signed up each day and also the days where there is nobody scheduled. While it may seem a little strange, each docent needs to have his/her own sign-up so that it will show two individuals working that day. Below is a sample showing how to schedule a shift at the Visitor’s Center.

TeamUp Screenshot 1

Please note the yellow arrows. You should click on the date that you want to work. Once the box is open, enter your name on the line designated Title, be sure the box for All day has a check mark, and then click Save. Your name will appear on that day with a lock beside it — you will not see the lock when you view it, as the lack of a lock indicates a reservation you made, though everyone else will see it with a lock.

The instructions for removing your name are fairly simple. Please note the red arrow. You should select your name on the date which you need to cancel which will open the box, then select Delete. This will remove your name and the blue box.

As a side note, we have found that if you only remove your name from the Title line, the blue box will remain on the reduced version of the TeamUp calendar showing Reserved. A visitor checking the website will assume that the Visitor’s Center/Gift Shop is staffed that day. So please remember to select delete to remove your name and the blue box from the schedule.

Remember that signing up early not only assures you of getting your desired times to serve at the Visitor’s Center, but also provides more advance notice for our visitors about docent availability. You have done an amazing job of keeping the Visitor’s Center open this year. Thank you!

The TeamUp calendar also provides information in red, green, and orange bars covering meetings, workdays, special events, tours, etc. for everyone to be able to see when they look at the calendar. By clicking on these events, information is quickly available about the time, place, purpose, what to bring, and other information for this particular item.

Below is a sample showing the Butterfly Count at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve that was held on June 13, 2015. To view an event, simply click on the red box.

TeamUp Screenshot 2

If you have any questions with these instructions, please feel free to contact either Kay Krebbs or Bill Alexander for help.

Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)

—Nicholas Del Grosso

Great Horned Owl, by Nicholas Del Grosso

This tiger of the air is an extremely fierce and adaptable bird. In fact it is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its year round range reaches from Alaska across Canada, the United States, Mexico and parts of Central and South America. It is a permanent residence in most of its range although some far northern Great Horned Owls migrate further south during the harsh Alaskan and Canadian winters. Because of its large range the Great Horned Owl uses a broad range of habitats to include deciduous and evergreen forests, swamps, desert, tundra edges, tropical rain forests and cities, orchards, suburbs and parks. If there is a vacancy in an ecosystem this apex predator will fill it.

The color pattern of this highly adaptable species is a mottled gray brown, with a reddish brown face and a neat white patch on the throat. It’s has piercing yellow eyes that can look right through you.

The Great Horned Owl’s color tone varies regionally from sooty to pale. Birds from the Pacific Northwest tend to be a dark sooty color, while individuals across the southwest are paler and grayer, but the birds from the subarctic of Canada can be almost white. Even with these color variations there is no mistaking this owl; they are the largest common owl in North America, only the Great Gray and Snowy Owls are larger, but both of these Owls lack the distinctive ear tufts.

Great Horned Owls are nocturnal, you are most likely to see them at dusk when they start their evening foraging but as evening transitions into dark your chance of spotting them diminish but they are very vocal in defense of their territory and you can hear their distinctive call, a deep stuttering series of four to five hoots which are repeated throughout the night. Old wives tales tell of Great Horned Owls sitting on the roof of an ill person’s cottage waiting to catch the soul of a dying person. I have seen Great Horned Owls sitting on a roof at dusk surveying their territory but they are looking for prey not souls.

It is an awesome sight to see this 22-inch apex predator launch itself from its roost on silent wings and after two or three wing beats glide to snare its unsuspecting prey. Its talons can apply 300 pounds per square inch of crushing power. These are the owl’s main weapon. They are such a powerful predator that they have no natural enemies. Its nickname tiger of the air is an apt moniker as it often takes birds and mammals larger than itself. Its menu includes skunks and great blue herons. But it will also dine on scorpions, mice and frogs. Nothing is too big or small to make a meal out of. The Great Horned Owl is an opportunistic predator, I have seen it come from nowhere and snatch a large mallard drake out of the air as it locked up to land on the pond. When it picks its prey the outcome is pre-ordained.

Great Horned Owl, by Nicholas Del Grosso

Great Horned Owls are well known for their ferocity, especially when protecting their owlets. In addition to preying upon mammals and large birds, they will attack, kill and eat other species of owls. I have seen Great Horned Owls attack and dispatch Barred Owls with no problem. They will even attack and kill Red-tailed Hawks. This is remarkable because the Horned Owl fills the nocturnal niche of the day time Red-tail. But remarkable things do happen, when I was in Utah I saw a pair of nesting Great Horned Owls share a large hay shed with a pair of nesting Barn Owls. I am sure both species were aware of each others presence, but there was so much available prey that neither species bothered the other. Both species were using nest boxes at either end of the shed. The male Great Horned Owl is smaller than the female. The fledged owlets are balls of inquisitive feathers protected by the two large gray brown sentinels. Both parents are good providers and it is rare for Great Horned Owls to engage in siblicide.

The Horned Owl is one of the earliest nesters in Oklahoma. The breeding season is from January through May. I have found Great Horned Owl nests with hatched owlets in it as early as March. The Great Horned Owl is monogamous. Typically it will use the abandoned nests of other birds, including herons, hawks and crows, to nest in. The literature indicates two owlets are common but several nests I have found have had three to four owlets. This usually occurs when prey is abundant. The adults invest a lot of time in raising the owlets. The female will incubate the eggs for 30 to 37 days. When the owlets hatch the female will feed the owlets with food brought to the nest by the male. After hatching the owlets will leave the nest at six weeks, but the adults will continue to feed them for weeks or months thereafter.

Here at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve look for this owl during the day roosted in the outer branches of large trees looking like a large gray-brown cookie jar sitting on a branch. As dusk transitions into night you can listen to the Great Horned Owls serenade with deep distinctive hoots in the woods around the research center and the stucco building. This Owl is common at the preserve; the 15-year average for the Christmas Bird Count is five Great Horned Owls a year. Typically the great Horned Owl will live for 13 years but there have been banded birds recovered that have lived as long as 21 to 28 years in the wild. Look and listen for this owl at the Preserve your efforts will be rewarded with some interesting behavior.

Common Butterflies of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve:
Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele)

—George Pierson

There are five species of fritillaries that have been found at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve: gulf, variegated, regal, diana and great-spangled. The gulf and variegated aren’t true fritillaries like the others, that all feed on violets. The gulf and variegated are Heliconians that feed on passion vine. Like all other Heliconians, they are tropical in origin. Both species emigrate north each year from the south though a few variegateds do manage to make it through the milder winters here.

Great-spangled Fritillary, Female, by George Pierson

The great-spangled fritillary is a large orange-black-brown butterfly with a wingspan of 2½–4 inches; it prefers wet open areas, including open woodlands. There is one brood which flies from June until September. The caterpillars overwinter here and feed on violets in the spring.

Great-spangled Fritillary, Male, by George Pierson

The females are larger and darker than the males. Above they are orange with black markings and are much darker toward the base of the wings. Below, the hindwing is brown with large silver spots toward the base and a lighter colored band near the edge of the wing. They feed on the nectar of many tallgrass prairie plants, including milkweed, thistle, ironweed and coneflower.

Great-spangled Fritillary, Mating, by George Pierson

There is also an html version of this aticle at the end of this link.

Prairie Watching:
The Pollination Drama of Butterfly Milkweeds

—Dwight Thomas, Ph.D.

After months of not being able to travel to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and work as a Docent or even see it as a visitor, on June 9, 2015, I decided it was time for a visit. I was not scheduled to work that day as a Docent; I just had missed seeing the prairie while I was recuperating from my back surgery and wanted to see it again. So my wife, Judy, packed some snacks, and we headed for the Preserve to see how the prairie was coping with the good spring rainfalls and cool spring that had turned suddenly to hot summer weather. I was eager to see how the grasses and wildflowers were responding to the season, and I was eager to see this year’s crop of Bison calves. As usual, the prairie performed well. It showed me a sea of green grass waving in the wind. It also showed me a riot of colors produced by many wildflowers in full bloom. And it showed me a healthy herd of Bison with many calves peeking from their mothers’ sides.

Bison by Dwight Thomas, PhD

The Bison are always impressive, and the array of different wildflowers in bloom was as beautiful as ever, but perhaps the most exciting sight on that day was the widespread blooming of the Purple Coneflowers (Echinaceae pallida Nutt.) and the Butterfly Milkweed (Aesclepias tuberosa L.). Both were spectacular, but let’s concentrate here on the Butterfly Milkweeds. We can explore the Purple Coneflowers another time. The Butterfly Milkweed’s bright orange flowers dominated the landscape everywhere. And to top that off, it seemed that every Butterfly Milkweed plant was covered with butterflies—imagine that. They were flitting about, landing first on one flower and then another. There were also a number of bees that were buzzing around the Butterfly Milkweed flowers. It would take a major effort to stage a theatrical production equivalent to the one that was occurring naturally.

Purple Coneflowers & Butterfly Milkweed by Dwight Thomas, PhD

The Butterfly Milkweed is a favorite flower for pollinators. First, the flower color, that ranges from bright orange to yellow, is well within the color spectrum that many insects can detect and to which they are attracted. Second, the flowers are on a bushy plant that stands about two feet tall, and the entire top of the bush is covered with flowers, providing those pollinators with an easy-to-reach and productive target. Third, each flower produces copious amounts of nectar, which as you know, is what the pollinators are working for. That nectar is full of sugar and apparently was even used by Native Americans as a sweetener. The Butterfly Milkweed flower pollen sacs are firmly fastened to the flower, and then when the pollinator comes near, they attach themselves to it. This means that it requires a fairly strong pollinator to wrench free from the flower. So weaker pollinators have been known to fail to escape from milkweed flowers. Each flower has five petals hanging downward and five horns that stand up. The nectaries and the pollen-producing stamens are inside these horns. As the pollinators dig in to get the nectar, they also take some of the pollen sacs, which they may deposit at the next flower that they visit. The nectaries produce a large quantity of nectar, which means that there is likely to be nectar remaining in the flower even if it has just been visited. The Butterfly Milkweed and the relatively large pollinators such as butterflies and bees probably evolved together to meet the needs of each.

Butterflies on Butterfly Milkweed by Dwight Thomas, PhD

It was obvious that the Butterfly Milkweed is attractive to a large variety of pollinators. As I said above, there were many butterflies and bees, but the butterflies weren’t just Monarchs or just Honey Bees. On one clump of flowers, I counted seven different butterflies of three species. I saw Pearl Crescents by the dozens, numerous Clouded Sulfurs, Monarchs, and Black Swallowtails among several species that wouldn’t be still enough for a butterfly amateur to identify.

Monarch on Butterfly Milkweed by Dwight Thomas, PhD

I looked closely at the Butterfly Milkweed plants to find the Monarch caterpillars. Monarch caterpillars feed only on milkweeds including the Butterfly Milkweed. I didn’t find any caterpillars, but they were likely present. The Butterfly Milkweeds do not produce the milky sap that contains latex as do most milkweeds, but they still contain several chemicals that the caterpillars take in as they eat the milkweed leaves. Those chemicals provide protection from predators due to bad taste or being poisonous or both. Milkweeds grow fast, which allows them to survive the onslaught of caterpillars devouring their leaves. Some plants don’t survive the caterpillars. Last year, we watched as Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars ate Judy’s Parsley plants to the ground twice.

Swallowtails on Parsley & Butterfly Milkweed by Dwight Thomas, PhD

It is wonderful that the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve has such a large population of milkweeds to support the butterflies, especially the Monarchs. And it is wonderful that these milkweeds are so beautiful and so entertaining. It’s not too late to see the Butterfly Milkweed and Butterfly spectacle at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

Visitor Counts

—Iris McPherson

Please remember to always politely request our visitors to sign the guest register.

Annual Number of Known Visitors to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Summarized by Month
YearJanFebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNovDecTotals
1994260280569 9511,4561,5291,5651,0451,0101,11767233810,792
19952824206681,1671,6021,7001,4851,598 9921,58877026212,534
19962163257051,1001,9042,0811,3621,0301,1971,41653039912,265
19972912889121,0551,9221,8771,2991,0551,0321,30457841712,030
19983173406091,1781,4561,2581,182 960 8841,13366728910,273
1999215417628 7771,7121,8571,209 703 7541,54992234211,085
20002292825831,1761,6241,6141,017 597 8181,125438 93 9,596
YearJanFebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNovDecTotals
2001131149855 9101,8111,5501,100 6381,0491,25065325210,348
2002217114761 7251,7451,3831,057 685 951 688517140 9,010
2003 98 39527 8081,190 832 594 6721,008 ????????? 7,125
2006????????? 586 810 629 709 310 605 641405 68 4,763
2007 47 35361 575 810 737 756 407 660 688396 81 5,553
2008 26 74299 507 941 664 629 436 488 724560111 5,459
2009117 72482 428 9691,026 790 688 746 615443 25 6,401
2010 23194471 735 979 739 898 538 769 793450 72 6,661
YearJanFebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNovDecTotals
2011 35 42478 547 612 587 634 293 494 672313 92 4,799
2012 73 42368 436 732 699 446 293 389 416466 36 4,396
2013 64 33437 466 720 760 846 580 543 612391104 5,556
2014 81 41482 811 784 635 874 601 464 687385114 5,959
2015 92 78822 992

As of December 2014, we have received 154,605 visitors who took the trouble to announce their presence in the Visitor’s Book.

In 1994, George Myers started recording the numbers of visitors to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and from whence they came. He did this for almost ten years. His last report appeared in the September 2003 edition of the newsletter.

Beginning in April 2006, Iris McPherson took up the task of chronicling Tallgrass Prairie Preserve visitation, as recorded in the Visitor’s Book.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Bill Alexander

The May Visitor’s Center coverage would have been 100-percent again this month, except for the two days when we had docents signed up, but the weather was not appropriate for opening the Visitor’s Center. So the average for the month was 92-percent and the average year-to-date is 92-percent. The 2014 year to date at the same point was 74-percent coverage, with 24 days closed in the first three months compared to 7 for the first three months of 2015 (of which 6 were weather closings.) This shows what a huge impact the 2015 class of docents is making for visitors who visit the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and would like to talk with someone and get a few questions answered about the Preserve. Thanks to all for your help in making this significant improvement for our visitor outreach and education.

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
Vistor’s Center Docent Coverage of Season Days Compared
2014DaysClosedCoverage 2015DaysClosedCoverage
March 311165% March315 84%
April 30 873% April300100%
May 31 584% May312 94%
June 301067% June30
July 31 487% July31
August 31 487% August31
September 301163% September30
October 31 777% October31
November 30 873% November30
December 14 471% December14
Year2897275%Year to date927 92%
Docent Coverage of Season Days Annual History

Other Places to Visit

Here we provide some links to other places worth visiting.

Visitor’s Center Latitude & Longitude

Here is the latitude and longitude of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Visitor’s Center that you can give to visitors for entry into their GPS navigation device.

These coordinates are a verified position on the parking lot in front of the Visitor’s Center. This link to Google maps shows the position superimposed on satellite imagery: https://goo.gl/maps/hBUIu.

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.

Available Back Issues:

2015January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2015
2014January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2014
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.

Biodiversity

Birds

Bison

Bison Roundup

Books

Botany

Butterflies

Butterfly Counts

Docents

Docent Recognition Luncheons

Docent Reorientations

Docent Council Meetings

Forbs

Insects

Grass

Haiku on the Prairie

History

Josie of the Prairie

Miscellaneous

Osage

Prairie Watching

Rangeland Management

Recipes

Science

Sightings

Trails

Trees

Verse

Visitor’s Center

Visitor’s Center Kiosk

Visits

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.