Professional Documents
Culture Documents
prairie
February Program:
falcon RIPARIAN
BUFFERS
Charles Barden
VOL. 29, NO. 6
JANUARY 2001
NORTHERN FLINT HILLS AUDUBON SOCIETY, P.O. BOX 1932, MANHATTAN, KS 66505-1932 INSIDE
2 FEBRUARY BIRDING
2 BLUEBIRD REPORT
3 PLANT OF THE MONTH
Dr. Charles Barden, K-State Research and Extension Forester, will present
4 SKYLIGHT
a talk entitled “Why Kansas Needs More Streambank Trees (aka Riparian
5 CONSERVATION
Buffers),” that will describe the role that riparian forest buffers can play in
Kansas to improve water quality in our lakes and streams. He will provide CONTRIBUTORS
a brief summary on buffer research conducted nationally, and also describe PETE COHEN
some current projects he leads here in Kansas. LEANN HARRELL
“Prairie grass filter strips can only do so much for a stream,” THOMAS MORGAN
Barden says, “while trees provide the long-term nutrient retention, and
MICHAEL RHODES
the deeper rooting needed to stabilize streambanks.” If time allows, he
DAVE RINTOUL
will also provide some tips on making your own tree-planting endeavors
JOHN WESLEY
more successful.
Barden, an associate professor with the department of UPCOMING DATES:
Horticulture, Forestry, and Recreation Resources, has been with K-State Feb. 10 Sat. 8 AM
three years, and worked in Oklahoma for five years. Although he was BEGINNING BIRDING
born and educated back east, he has grown to love the Midwest. A native Ackert/Durland parking lot
Feb. 10 Final Bird Feed Sale
of Rhode Island, he earned his BS degree in Natural Resources from the ORDER DEADLINE
University of RI, a Master’s from Virginia Tech in Forest Biology, and his Feb. 16 Great Backyard
Ph.D. came from Penn State’s School of Forest Resources. A short stint Bird Count
with the US Forest Service rounds out his experience. Feb. 21 Wed. 5:45 PM Dinner
7:30 PM Riparian Buffers
1014 Throckmorton, KSU
NE corner Denison/Claflin
February 21, 2001 - Before each program, we invite our speakers to join us for an informal Feb. 24 Final Bird Feed PICKUP
dinner and discussion. Feel free to join us this month at El Cazador at 5:45 PM. The 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM UFM,
program begins at 7:30 PM, 1014 Throckmorton, NE corner of Denison and Claflin. 1221 Thurston
Refreshments are served after every meeting, please bring your own cup. All meetings are open Feb. 24 Stargazing on Lower
to the public. McDowell Creek, Overnight
Camping CALL 494-2556
Field Trips
BEGINNING BIRDWATCHING WALK
Join us Saturday, Feb. 10th and every second Saturday at 8 AM in the Ackert/Durland
parking lot on the KSU campus. We will carpool to a local birding hotspot and should PRINTED BY CLAFLIN
return by about 11 AM. Birders of every age and interest level are welcomed. Children are BOOKS AND COPIES,
especially encouraged to attend. Call Dave Rintoul, 532-6663 or e-mail him at MANHATTAN, KS
drintoul@ksu.edu for more information.
BIRDING
DAVE RINTOUL
birds are undergoing physiological feathers in the fall. As the season
“ A man can scarcely point to anything changes right now to prepare them progresses, these dull brown edges
like irrefutable evidence for the beginnings of
spring. He knows that the sun arises a little
for this event. They are also starting
wear off, revealing the brighter
earlier, and that the floods are going down. to pair up, finding the right partnercolors underneath. So the birds
That the noons are mild, and that in the last for the next season, hoping to get a look better, even though the
pockets, under the hemlocks in the steep head start on producing the next feathers are now 5-6 months old!
shaded glens, the snow lingers, or a paper of But beauty is more than
ice on the trout pools. There is an air of skin (or feather) deep. Birds are
certain success to be detected in each day, as undergoing some serious
the warm yellow mists rise up and become physiological changes at this time
soft patches of sunlit cloud in the sky; this
geniality may last but an hour or two and
of year. Puberty. Unlike humans,
give way, in the afternoon, to pale gray-blue birds have to endure the equivalent
skies and air with a keen edge to it.” of puberty and menopause every
“An Almanac for Moderns,” Donald Culross year. After the breeding season, sex
Peattie (1935), G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York hormone output declines, and
The air has quite a keen avian gonads shrink. As the days
edge on it as I write this in mid- grow longer in the spring,
January, but certainly spring is hormonal levels change and the
coming, and small clues can be seen generation. Many ducks, like the gonads enlarge (the testes mass
by the observant. Cardinals are Common Goldeneye shown here, increases 400-500 fold in some
singing on fine mornings, are primping and preening, making male birds!). The hormones
titmouses are scrapping in the sure that they impress the produced by the gonads initiate
thickets for the best nesting appropriate lady ducks. If you have some of the other seasonal changes,
territories, red-tailed hawks are a chance to spend some time such as increasing the frequency of
sitting(albeit warily) side by side in looking at ducks this month, you songs, changes in bill color (e.g.,
the afternoons, and great horned will see all sorts of interesting starling bills become bright yellow
owls are incubating eggs destined to behaviors designed to attract in the breeding season),and other
become next winter’s tigers of the attention. Other birds will look behaviors like aggression, migratory
night. February will bring even more impressive at the end of the restlessness, etc. So hormonal
more clues, and the end of the month too. Feathers will be storms are quietly raging inside that
month will include days that brighter and more colorful, due not junco or titmouse at your feeder. Be
promise summer, making the to a molt (which would be thankful that you are a mammal,
nights seem even longer and colder dangerous while it is still winter), and don’t have to deal with puberty
by comparison. but due to feather wear. Many and menopause on an annual basis!
Although most migration birds, including house sparrows And get out there to see what the
through this part of the continent and cardinals, have dull brown month brings to the prairies and
doesn’t start in earnest until March, edges on their freshly-grown woodlands of Kansas. Hints of
spring are all around© you, if you
2001 Dave Rintoul,
“Robert Pemberton, a weed scientist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, recently leafed through old
catalogs from the Royal Palm Nurseries, a famous, trend-setting company that bred and sold plants in Manatee county, Florida, from 1881
to 1937. He found that plants sold for just 1 year had only a 1.9% chance of establishing in the wild, while favorites that were in the
catalog for over 3 decades had a 68.8% chance of taking hold.” Enserink, M. (1999) Biological Invaders Sweep In. Science
285:1834-1836.
In January, I received a catalog there are no experts. herbivores, .... the new species
from Gurney’s Seed & Nursery There is little overlap of the might become the one that is
Company which advertized salsify ranges of the species of Tragopogon closest to achieving a perfect fit
seeds. According to this catalog, in Eurasia. But there is considerable within the ecological community of
the edible roots have “... a flavor overlap of the ranges in North a tallgrass prairie. I doubt that it
that hints of oysters.” Salsify America. Yellow salsify has was wise to introduce salsify and its
(Tragopogon porrifolius), meadow hybridized with meadow salsify and relatives, but I would like to be here
salsify (T. pratensis), and yellow produced a new species (Tragopogon a million years from now to
salsify (T. dubius) are Eurasian miscellus). The new species has only consider this intriguing question
species. They have been planted in recently become established in again. Additional species are being
gardens throughout our state. They large populations, and little is formed at the present time. Yellow
have become naturalized and are known about its potential salsify and salsify have hybridized to
now growing wild. Yellow salsify functions on the prairie. Like form another species (T. mirus) that
grows on the Tallgrass Prairie yellow salsify, the new species is becoming widespread. The
National Preserve in Chase County tolerates dry soil. The new species botanist, who discovered T. mirus
and on the Konza Prairie in Riley occurs in northwestern states and T. miscellus, introduced several
County. Its yellow flower is (Washington, Idaho, Montana, and exotic species of Tragopogon into his
pictured in Clenton Owensby’s Wyoming) and also in Arizona. It plots at the Department of Botany
book, “Kansas Prairie sometimes occurs in new places at Washington State University, and
Wildflowers.” I agree with that because of independent some of these species have
author that naturalized species are hybridization events which occur hybridized and escaped from the
worthy of inclusion in a book on in that location. The parental university’s gardens.
wildflowers. Salsify species are in Kansas, but it is not Please don’t accept the
resembles another naturalized known whether hybridization has opinions of others. Examine the
species, the dandelion. I have a occurred here. information yourself. Visit the
fondness for this naturalized The first hybridization university library – the American
species, and have enjoyed watching probably occurred after 1930. The Journal of Botany (78:1586-1600)
goldfinches feeding on dandelion primary hybrid may have had low has an incredibly interesting paper
seeds. Despite repeated requests fertility, but after the occurrence of written by Novak et al. (1991) that
from a neighbor, I have refused to chromosome doubling, the new examines population trends of
discourage dandelions in my yard, species had greater fertility. It was Tragogpogon species in the
except for occasionally eating reproductively incompatible with northwestern United States.
them. I would like to eat salsify the parental species, however, Informative sites on the internet
also. One expert claims that the because of the extra genetic include a range map for T. dubius,
roots are more palatable if material. Some of its extra genes http://stratsoy.ag.uiuc.edu/~vista/
harvested before the salsify could take on unique functions in a html_pubs/WEEDS/238.html, a
produces a flower, while another hundred thousand years. In a range map for T. porrifolius and T.
expert states that palatability is million years, ... as it achieves a pratensis, http://plants.usda.gov/ .
improved by a hard frost, which more perfect relationship with Other intriguing sites include http:/
merely reinforces my opinion that competitors, pollinators and /www.best.com/~timj/herbage/
A485.htm and http// © 2001 T.D. Morgan
FYI: Submit Newsletter articles by 15th of month to Cindy Jeffrey, 128 Dole Hall, KSU, orwaddell.ci.manchester.ct.us/
15850 Galilee Rd, Olsburg, KS 66520, or
id_goatsbea
email to cinraney@ksu.edu MAILING: contact Carla Bishop 539-5129
Feb. 2001 pg. 3
SKYLIGHT
PETE COHEN
gripping the ball with his cloven Canis Major, Dog-Catcher, will be
It’s a likely temptation, when hoof he could flip a mean crouched behind the huge right-
contemplating the constellations, to combination of knuckler and handed Orion, his bat uplifted, with
want to include in one’s thought slider. So – there they were at the Taurus, the Bull-Thrower, glaring
the stories of how each one in focus end of their very first season toward the plate with his red eye.
got its name. But a little research playing against a team of town Gleaming Jupiter and subtler
can dim one’s enthusiasm because men for the country’s amateur Saturn, will be hovering about
so many of the stories are loaded championship. Because they were Taurus’ neck.
with gory violence driven by anger, playing a large crowd had come, And if you want some other
jealousy, revenge and greed. not and dozens of reporters were planetary refreshment, drink in
exactly bedtime fare. focusing the nation’s attention on Venus, lower in the west, at her
Orion for example is said to this remote country contest. brightest on February 21st . She’ll
have had his eyes put out and to In the bottom of the 9th already be appearing lower in the
have been murdered in at least three they got into one of those sky each night, and will make more
different ways resulting from at least wonderful duels with two outs and or less a line with Jupiter, Saturn
two different affairs with women. I the count 3-and-2 and a huge and the moon, on February 27th,
propose it wouldn’t hurt to offer fellow, Orion, who made his living and will be out of the ballpark by
something cheerier. hunting, at the bat. The Dog- the end of March. mars meanwhile
Once upon a time, before Catcher slyly shifted his position chats with the Moon just west of
power movers, when baseball was before every pitch; the Bull- Scorpio’s head on February 15th, on
really “pasture pool” played where Thrower tried to give each toss a the 16th Mars is just north of
livestock had trimmed the grass and different spin, and the stirred-up Scorpio’s heart, Antares. An
where a ball might disappear into batter, trying to wham it, and interesting meeting because both are
rabbit hole pockets, a group of farm fouled off 17 straight pitches. Then red bodies and Antares’ name means
animals, weary of being chased off came pitch 18 ... “the anti-Mars” (considering Mars
their favorite pasture every Because of space as the war-god), which seems more
weekend, formed a team of their limitations, what happened next appropriate when they appear at
own. They learned to hold a bat or will be told next month. opposite points in the sky. Mercury
ball by teeth or claw and the meanwhile you can see the action is very shy in the sky before dawns
resident bull became their star just as those on the scene witnessed during this period. The moon, new
pitcher. his bone structure wouldn’t it. After dark each night the next Feb. 23rd, then full Mar. 9th, meets
let him throw overhand, yet by few weeks, high in the western sky with Jupiter and Saturn Mar. 1st.
(CORRECTION: FULL MOON - Feb. 18th - not 8th as stated in Jan. issue) © 2001 Peter Zachary Cohen
Published monthly (except August) by the Northern Flint Hills Audubon Society, a chapter of the National Audubon Society
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