It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas Bird Count Time

There's no better way to become a better birder than by spending time in the field with experienced birders!

Beginning on Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank Chapman, an early officer in the then budding Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition - a "Christmas Bird Census" - that would count birds in the holidays rather than hunt them.

So began the Christmas Bird Count.

From December 14 through January 5 tens of thousands of volunteers throughout the Americas take part in an adventure that has become a family tradition among generations. Families and students, birders and scientists, armed with binoculars, bird guides and checklists go out on an annual mission - often before dawn. For over one hundred years, the desire to both make a difference and to experience the beauty of nature has driven dedicated people to leave the comfort of a warm house during the Holiday season.

The data collected by observers over the past century allow researchers, conservation biologists, and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, it provides a picture of how the continent's bird populations have changed in time and space over the past hundred years.

If you are interested in participating in a Christmas Bird Count for the first time, visit the Shreveport Bird Study Group website or join us on Facebook. We will put you in touch with the compiler who can pair you with an experienced local birder. Or, if you happen to live within the count area, you can phone in the species and numbers you observed on the count day.

Upcoming CBCs include the Claiborne CBC, Shreveport CBC, Natchitoches CBC, and the Bossier-Caddo-Bienville CBC (the BCBCBC).

For more information on what a CBC is, visit http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/index.html

The Weed of Cortez

Caddo Parish parks are crawling with people – and I mean ALL of Caddo Parish’s parks are crawling with people! Noah Tyson Park in Rodessa is so far from the urban center that most people haven’t even heard of Rodessa, let alone Noah Tyson Park. Robert Nance Park in Hosston is usually the same way – usually.

But twice a year the parks get a boost from the treasure hunters. The Holiday in Dixie treasure in the spring, and the Holiday Booty in, well, you know how that goes “Christmas starts earlier every year…” The clues always seem to suggest one of our parks is the treasure site: The treasure is always hidden on public property; it’s always NOT on a busy highway; it’s often away from the hustle and bustle; there are children playing and a proximity to a body of water.

This year there are old coots and the Weed of Cortez.

“Not far off
The weed of Cortez
Knowing where to find it
Would be for the best.”

At first, we scoured the native plant databases and field guides and vascular flora books looking for a native plant named after, for, or by someone named Cortez. Then we realized something: The people who wrote those clues aren’t botanists or horticulturists. They probably have no science background whatsoever, and they are hinting at something more mundane…

So who was Cortez and what is his weed? This naturalist thinks the clue writers were referencing the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez, and “Cortez = Spanish” and “Weed = Moss.” My apologies in advance to everyone who knows better and wants to tell me that Cortez had nothing to do with Spanish moss and Spanish moss isn’t even moss, it’s a bromeliad, hardly a weed.

And where does Spanish moss grow? On cypress trees in the bayous and lakes of South Eastern/Gulf States, of course!

Well, it doesn't grow anywhere in Walter B. Jacobs Memorial Nature Park that I know of, but I know you can find it at Noah Tyson Park, Robert L. Nance Park, and Earl G. Williamson Park. You might also check out Horace M. Downs Park, Milton "Hookie" Cameron Memorial Park, the Historic Caddo Lake Drawbridge, and Norris Ferry Boat Launch. Check out http://www.caddoparks.com/ for more information, or call the parks office 318-929-2806 for driving directions.

Happy Hunting!

WBJ Park this Late October

As of yesterday, we've received 13.93 inches of rain. We anticipate breaking the monthly rainfall record of 14.00 inches when we check the gauge tomorrow.

Ozark Trail is almost completely submerged. Ouachita Trail sports a dead fish here and there. As it nears the Ozark junction, it, too, goes underwater. Miracle Trail is washed out from the irises to Fordney Bayou. Caddo Trail is under water from Fordney Bayou to Shettleworth Bayou on both the north and south ends of the park. Adai goes under just north of the Yatasi intersection.

Even the paved Audubon Trail shows signs of recent high water, its south bend coated with mud.

This is the "occasional flooding" of a forested wetland. The palmettos and cane are thriving. The frogs and toads are booming. Dragonflies race to keep up with the plague of mosquitoes.

The Louisiana State Fair is in town, and not surprisingly, many folks would rather be down at the fair grounds than here sloshing through the water, ducking spider webs, and fending off ticks and mosquitoes. But, from the picture windows of the Interpretive Building, the fall colors are vivid: Chartreuse leaves frame fuchsia berries; turmeric, terra cotta, rust, and sulphur highlight the forest green, chocolate, and slate palette of evergreens. It seems unfair to have this view all to myself.

Craft Solution

Problem: We’re going to the National Hunting and Fishing Day Wildlife and Forestry Festival to set up a booth. About 500 festival-goers will swim past. What can we bring that will draw them in, that will distinguish us from the other exhibitors, that will send them home thinking “I’m gonna have to check out that Walter B. Jacobs Nature Park?”

The objects we bring overlap with the fur trappers’ exhibit. The animals we bring overlap with the falconers’ exhibit as well as the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ booth with the baby alligators.

Pamphlets and fliers end up lost on the grounds of the recreation area more often than they make it all the way back to the cars.

Solution: Crafts! And more precisely, crafts that directly relate to our traveling exhibits. We have that old alligator on a stick! If we label the craft with the park’s contact information, it might just make it all the way home.

To complement the live owl, I came up with an Owl Mask. It met all the criteria in my wanted ad for a craft: It would be a memento of meeting the live owl; it would illustrate the relative size of owl eyes to human eyes; it would have the park’s contact information on the back; it would be pre-cut and ready to decorate in the interest of saving time; and it could be decorated any way the maker wanted, using markers, crayons, glitter, etc. (Okay, the glitter part wasn’t optional. We painted every eyeball with gold glitter paint.)

The mask was a raving success! All over the festival there were children wearing owl masks.

“Where did you get that mask?”

“At the Walter B. Jacobs Nature Park booth over there!”

Craft Conundrum

We have this craft in ‘the vault’ that comes out from time to time. It’s a cardstock alligator on a stick. It’s cute. It has googly eyes, zigzagged felt strips, and a brass fastener that allows its tail to swing back and forth. It was employed at Earth Camp for a number of years to complement a folk tale about how the alligator got its bumpy, scaly skin.

I took it out of circulation for two reasons: 1) Returning campers were complaining that they remembered and even still possessed the craft from previous summers; and 2) It is a step-by-step assembly that offers little room for creative expression. In fact, campers had to write their names on the crafts in order to tell them apart.

It makes reappearances for three reasons: 1) If you don’t already have one, it is a cute craft; 2) A child is more likely to get all the way home with it than he is with a brochure or flier; and 3) One of my predecessors prepared thousands of alligator on a stick crafts. Someone cut out over one thousand alligator feet, 300 bodies, 300 tails, 900 strips of felt. Someone bagged up sets of 40 crafts that included the exact number of googly eyes and brass fasteners. I do not want to waste that time or materials that were invested.

But, why do we employ crafts at a nature park? What kinds of crafts are appropriate? And how do we balance the need to be economical with our time against the need to express creativity? What a conundrum!

Here are my objectives for doing crafts:

· To create a memento of an interpretive experience
“I made this!”
“I touched a real live alligator today!”

· To reinforce concepts explored in a game, hike or presentation
“Alligators have bumpy, scaly skin that protects them from all sorts of nasty things.”
“Alligators’ eyeballs can look straight even if their bodies are tilted.”
“An alligator’s tail is half the length of its body.”

· To shamelessly promote my site
“Look what I made at Walter B. Jacobs Memorial Nature Park today!”

For me, finding or creating appropriate crafts that can be done quickly and still allow participants opportunities to do them their own ways is a constant challenge.

(By the way, if you want the alligator folktale or alligator on a stick craft instructions, send me an email or Facebook message.)

Two Checkered Skippers

For the July count, I tried to cram into my brain an inordinate amount of details regarding butterfly identification. After the count I suffered a bit of burn out, and did not revisit the subject until yesterday. Yesterday, we performed a seasonal NABA count. The old adage that says cramming isn’t learning holds true. If you want to do it, you’ve got to do it right.

Two Checkered Skippers

There are two checkered skippers in the Northwest Louisiana area: the Common Checkered Skipper and the Tropical Checkered Skipper. In theory, the ‘common’ one is more abundant than the ‘tropical’ one - but you’re not out there to make assumptions about populations – you’re out there to make observations.

It’s little and light and skips along the ground… It could be a blue… it could be a hairstreak… You track it and watch it land. It’s checkered, so it’s a checkered skipper.

Step 1: Get an up-close look with your binocular. (It may be all you get.)

Step 2: Take a photograph from a distance.

Step 3: Get closer to the butterfly and take another photograph.

How can you tell which checkered skipper it is? I call it “continental drift.”

Take a look at the images.

The top row shows male and female Common Checkered Skippers. The bottom row features male and female Tropical Checkered Skippers.

Look again.

Common Checkered Skippers have a large spot (the continent) about half-way between the body and the tip of the forewing. Sometimes there is a tiny dot next to it, but usually there is only one large spot.

Tropical Checkered Skippers have the same large spot, though it’s often a tad slimmer. Next to the large spot is a second smaller spot. To me, it looks like an island broke off the mainland and is drifting away.

There are a couple other differences: Common Checkered Skippers have a uniformly checkered fringe, whereas the Tropical Checkered Skippers seem to be missing a few patches of white in the fringe pattern. Also, just inward from the fringe, Tropical Checkered Skippers have a row of white spots that extends all the way to the tip. That row is incomplete on Common Checkered Skippers.

I’ve just received word that the trail through C. Bickham Dickson Park was mowed and widened this morning. So, the place that hosted dozens of Tropical Checkered Skippers yesterday is now devoid of any skippers at all. I hope that movie they’re going to film out there is a good one.

Natural Resource Mining

Overview:
Through game play, participants discover that non-renewable resources are finite, and that a resource is collected until it is no longer profitable to do so.

Concepts covered:
non-renewable
cost/benefit
strategy
teamwork

Materials:
1 pound of mini pony beads in assorted colors
1 pair tweezers per player
1 large bowl with locking lid
11 small bowls with locking lids

How the Game is Played:
· Teams must extract an assigned color from the large bowl filled with beads.
· One at a time, team members use forceps/tweezers to pluck one bead from the larger bowl and transfer it to the smaller bowl.
· The bowl cannot be moved, shaken, or stirred.
· When no target beads are visible, the team can choose to sacrifice a player in order to mix up the bowl and expose more target beads.
· The game ends when the sole surviving teammember runs out of visible target beads, or a team chooses to cease mining activities in order to preserve existing players.
· Points are tallied and the team with the most points wins.
1 bead = 1 point
1 player = 10 points

Wrap up:
The winning team explains how they acquired the most points.

Extension:
The game can be played again with a different target color. Scores from the second game can be compared with the first to draw inferences about probability.

Note:
Sorted beads can be acquisitioned for Water Cycle Game. Don’t you love it! Segue into Renewable Resources.