Western Grebe at Fellows Lake?

Ok, I know very well the role that anticipation plays in birding...... Once I was sure that a stick was a Belted Kingfisher at Fellows Lake on a pre-dawn CBC morning..... And, the thought of a life bird (or an Ivory-billed :) ........) literally changes what you "see" in the field. But I confess here. I'm second guessing this bird. I know the default is a Western, but this black cap seems to run very high, above the eye even, and that bill..... it sure is yellow.

I thought I had the Clark's Grebe, and from what I've read, some individuals are indistinguishable from Western. Better safe than sorry, I conclude. But why is this a distinguishable Western Grebe? I'd really like to know for some reason other than the 90% Redtail Rule in the Ozarks. And, I may just have to go back to try for a closer look. But here's 4 crummy pictures of a bird waaaaaayyyyyyyyy out there, two from Charley and 2 from me.

Any insight would be great!

Charley's photo: To me, the verdict is out. Just what is it: Clark's or Western?

My photo: The black cap seems to intersect with the bill at the top of the culmen

Charley's photo: Most convincing evidence of Western, thick black on back of neck. But still, note the pale plumage on the back.

Ok, I know that white "bleeds" in photos, but again the black cap intersects at the culmen.

And so, I make my case, tenuous as it is. But, I'd like to learn......... And, I hope the bird sticks around a while, and decides to come closer to shore when I am there.....

Green Leadership Academy for Diverse Ecosystems (GLADE)

I promised in my last blog entry to elaborate on a brand new environmental education project that my colleagues and I have been developing. The best way to describe the whole exciting project is to share the press release with you, incorporating a few green partner logos* and pictures along the way. So, here's our new project, the collective brainchild of GOAS environmental activist Lisa Berger, MSU Biology professor Dr. Janice Greene, field station manager Celeste Prussia, and environmental educator, me!


If you are currently in the 10th or 11th grade in Southwest Missouri and have a strong interest in ecology and environmental issues, the Greater Ozarks Audubon Society Green Leadership Academy for Diverse Ecosystems is looking for you!The Greater Ozarks Audubon Society is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a TogetherGreen Innovation grant to help fund a Green Leadership Academy for teens. The seven day residential academy is a joint project of GOAS and Missouri State University, and will be held June 21-27, 2009. GOAS is one of 41 newly-announced TogetherGreen national innovation grants that will help change the lives of some local young people and help them to shape a better environment.

Teens working with entomologist at recent TogetherGreen Volunteer Day.

A $26,000 one-year grant will allow the Greater Ozarks Audubon Society and Missouri State University to join forces to create a seven-day teen leadership skills academy, building on previous educational collaborations to bring new environmental skills and restoration opportunities to local students.

Participants in the GLADE project, located at MSU’s Bull Shoals Field station, will learn about local species and habitats, endangered species, riparian corridors and water quality. They will participate in hands-on habitat restoration and will design environmental programs.

Organizers expect the program will equip academy attendees with a green skills toolbox for initiating conservation projects in their schools, homes, and communities.

"Each teen participating in the academy with develop the leadership skills and ecological knowledge to reach others and to make a positive difference in our natural environment," said Greg Swick, Director of GLADE.

“Our long-term goals are to build a network of young conservation leaders and to develop a working model for youth conservation leadership development. We are excited about the possibilities.” “We hope to build an enthusiasm for the natural world that will continue to grow as participants return to their communities, and we hope that each will gain the confidence to know that they can make a difference,” added Janice Greene, Director of the Bull Shoals Field Station.

The solar powered renovated Drury House at the Bull Shoals Field Station.

The Bull Shoals Field Station is located within the White River Glades and Woodlands Important Bird Area and the Drury-Mincy Conservation Area, managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation. This area was historically characterized by abundant hill-top gladed areas mixed with savanna and woodland and streams lined with giant cane. Today, many of the glades are overgrown with eastern red cedar. Encroaching commercial development from nearby Branson and Table Rock Lake resort districts poses a threat to habitat coverage, continuity, and management.

TogetherGreen is a National Audubon Society program funded by Toyota Motors.

For more information, go to the official GLADE website.

*logos of Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri State University, Greater Ozarks Audubon, and TogetherGreen used with permission only.

Envisioning a World of Change

Being a science educator for 31 years, I often advocated for alternative energy use and habitat restoration/preservation in the biology classroom. As evidence of human-induced climate change mounted, I also incorporated this knowledge into the curriculum.

Since everyone I know is excited about the election results and is talking "change" these days, I thought I'd add my $.02. On that note, the interaction on ecological and energy related issues within the public school system is simply not enough to enact the scope of changes that we need in this area of public debate. We need hands on, experiential learning environments and resources for our brightest students so that they can develop the ecological ideas and technology that will lead us into an environmentally sustainable future.

Working specifically with identified populations of gifted students, as I still do, has allowed me to touch the future in many ways that are undetectable during the students' years in my classroom. I try to plant seeds, but it's these students' ideas and dreams have the potential to become the cornerstone of American ideals and to make indelible, positive marks on the world of the future.

The magnitude of human environmental impact is upon us. In this time of change, I envision the proliferation of green leadership academies that select enthusiastic, community minded young people from all over the United States and the world to participate in experiences designed to develop within them a deep ecological awareness and an equally in-depth awareness of leadership skills that can rally people to take actions that ultimately lead to a ecologically sustainable planet.

Awareness of environmental and energy issues among our very brightest can unleash a myriad of possible solutions. Ecological awareness, combined with training in leadership, conflict resolution, and group interaction will ensure that each of these young people returns to his/her community as an activist in the areas of environmental public policy, including, but not limited to, alternative energy sources, climate change issues, and habitat preservation/restoration projects.

I am excited to share that I am a green partner and the director of one such prototypic model of a habitat restoration based green leadership academy which will be launched next summer. More on that in my next post.

For a preview, go to our website, www.greenleadershipacademy.org

Bois D'Arc Boids

The advantage of semi-retirement is the fact that it provides opportunities for spontaneous birding with my retired friends. Realizing that I would be finished with my day's work at 8:30 Thursday, I e-mail Charley early to see if he was into slipping out into the field for a few hours. It wasn't long before my cell phone rang, and by 9:00 am, we met on the banks of Lake Springfield. After a suggestion from Charley's wife Lisa, we headed to Bois D'Arc Conservation Area to scout it out for Spraque's Pipit.

Well, that seemed like a long shot, but even a Sedge Wren would be a lifer for me, and both species were definitely possibilities in Bois D'Arc habitat.

The Missouri Department of Conservation is primarily an agency that serves hunters, in spite of the fact that all Missourians pay a 1/8 cent sales tax for conservation. Bois D'Arc Conservation Area is clearly designed and managed for hunters. An extensive shooting range lays in the middle of acres of brushland, largely choked with autumn olive and other non native and native shrubs, specifically managed to increase the carrying capacity of White tailed Deer, Wild Turkey, Bobwhite, and Eastern Cottontail.

For we birders, the small amount of the CA left in native grassland still attracts one of my favorite sparrow species, the LeConte's. Usually best viewed when a large group of birders circles around the ground dweller and "pens" it in, we managed to get excellent views with only two of us closing in on the bird.

You can clearly see the bird in the lower right corner, and Charley very nearby!

A very cooperative bird!

After our sparrow encounter, we went to a mudflat on the reserve. There we were delighted to find several shorebirds and others still hanging around on this November day. Highlights were Wilson's Snipe, Least Sandpiper, Dunlin, Greater Yellowlegs, and American Pipits.

One of many Wilson's Snipe and one of 3 Least Sandpipers in the flooded field.


A single Dunlin remained in the area.


One of the two Greater Yellowlegs we spotted.

American Pipits were plentiful on the flats.

The Bottoms are the Tops

Recently I returned to my home town of McPherson, Kansas, only 60 miles east of a fantastic wetlands ecosystem. Cheyenne Bottoms, located in the heart of the mid-grass prairie, is perhaps the premiere birding locale in the Sunflower State. Although rival birding locale Quivira National Wildlife Refuge is only 20 miles to the south, Cheyenne Bottoms, with its fresh water basin, continues to attract a multitude of avian guests throughout the migratory season.

I remember as a child hearing the Cheyenne Bottoms waterfowl reports on the news just prior to the duck hunting seasons. I know that I was young (and things were bigger then!), but I still remember numbers being reported in the tens and hundreds of thousands for a variety of waterfowl species. The highly endangered Whooping Cranes stopped by occasionally, and still do in larger numbers, thanks to a well known conservation success story. My return this time was in late September, long before the arrival of ginormus flocks of waterfowl. Blue-winged Teal and American White Pelicans numbered in the mere hundreds on this day, but shorebirds in the thousands gathered in drainage ditches built to manage the wetlands.

My first stop resulted in a number of beautiful American Avocets strung out across the mudflats gracefully sweeping their upturned bills across the water's surface. Hundreds of peeps surrounded them, including Least, Semipalmated, Pectoral, Stilt, and a few Western Sandpipers. Dowitchers probed the mud shallows.

Waders included Little Blue Heron, White faced Ibis, Great Blue Herons, and Great Egret. Here is a photo of an unlucky frog in the beak of a Great Egret.

It was soon after that my life Red-necked Phalaropes arrived. Whipping wildly around the masses, literally working circles around their fellow shorebirds, these beauties were a true bird highlights for the day. Working my way to the open water of the bottoms, I watched several flocks of Yellow-headed Blackbirds swooping in and out of the reeds, alighting on the resident sunflowers lining the levees. Franklin's gulls were abundant overhead.

Black-bellied Plovers and a single Sanderling joined the gulls and pelicans on a distant mudflat.

Across the levee, hundreds of Double crested Cormorants temporarily inhabited islands in the vast lakes formed by the natural basin.

Soon, I headed north of the waters to search the prairie. Three Ring-necked Pheasants, a rooster and two hens, alit in a tree for a brief moment, just long enough for me to get my binoculars up to my eyes for a quick rear end view.

I slowly creeped up the road in search of Prairie Dogs. And soon, there they were just 1/2 miles north of the bottoms! Scattering into their holes upon my arrival, it was only seconds after I got out to look that they began emerging from their burrows. A small mudhole attracted White-faced Ibis and Common Snipe to the area.

And then the prize appeared! A Burrowing Owl walked out into the open and quickly disappeared behind a prairie forb. For another fifteen minutes I waited patiently, hoping to get a photo of the bird. But it was not this bird that I eventually photographed. It was a second owl emerging into the clearing in a different location on the other side of Prairie Dog Town.

I was pleased as I leisurely made my way out of the refuge, but the best was yet to come. It had nothing to do with birds. Willows and cedars lined a drainage ditch on the exit road, and it was there that hundreds of Monarchs gathered to spend the night on their long trek south to Mexico. It was truly an incredible sight!And so, my birding afternoon came to an end. A couple of nights ago, I listened to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, as he waxed philosophic about the Nature that was so much a part of each of our childhoods. On this day, I returned to see that place unspoiled, and perhaps appearing larger than ever before, contrary to popular beliefs about childhood memories. Soon, I will return virtually...., to the Cheyenne Bottoms website and the Ks-Birds listserv. Why? To see if the coming waterfowl numbers are as great as I remember them being when I was a kid. Maybe, just maybe, they will be even greater!

My Phavorite Phalarope, until I see Red!

American Avocet on point!

Recently, so many great birding and nature moments have passed without me reflecting upon them here. I'd really like to catch up, but find myself suspended in time on the mudflats at Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands near Great Bend, Kansas.

I'll write later, but today simply want to celebrate my 401st lifer on my way to 500!
Here they are: Two Red-necked Phalaropes!

RAVEing about GOAS

Valley Water Mill Pond

My son and I became involved with the Greater Ozarks Audubon Society (GOAS) in the early to mid 1990's. We have come to know the individuals involved in our Audubon chapter as a group of movers and shakers unlike any other in the Springfield environmental scene. These people are leaders in the community, and coalition formation has always been at the top of the club's priorities, second only to the birds of our region.The history of GOAS is relayed to current members through oral traditions. Names like Nathan Fay, Leonard Confer, Rebecca Matthews, Betty Dyer, Kay Johnson, Betty Johnson, Jan Horton, Dorothy Thurman, Sue Schuble, Charley Burwick, Dave Catlin, and Lisa Berger echo from the past and shout into the future.



A new page has turned in the tradition of "moving and shaking" for GOAS, and this page emcompasses a much wider radius of influence, and thus, leads us into new frontiers of discovery. Things started moving fast when the Toyota Corporation donated $20 million over the next 5 years to the National Audubon Society for use on "green" ventures. The win-win collaboration has resulted in the TogetherGreen project. This project is now awarding grant money to innovative groups and chapters that organize green partnerships to educate and shape the public's view of conservation and bird ecology.

Thanks to the lightning quick reactions of Charley Burwick, Lisa Berger, and Dr. Janice Greene, our local chapter has received two grants, one for Green Volunteer Days and the other for Green Innovation Projects. Today, I'll address our $7000 Volunteer Days grant. More later on the cool innovation grant!

The volunteer grant requires that GOAS organize and coordinate six volunteer work days in the coming year. We have partnered with Springfield Parks and Recreation to carry out our projects.The first Volunteer Day will occur this Saturday, September 20, at the Valley Water Mill Park, the home of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks and the future LEED certified Watershed Education Center.Our green partners include the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, who will host the many groups and the Springfield Plateau Master Naturalists, who, along with GOAS, will coordinate the volunteers. The local Sierra Club will work in the Rain Garden, while the Ozarks Greenways Project will work on linear parks and trails in the area. All participants will receive a free T-shirt, will be assigned to one of the many groups of workers for the morning, and will join with others for a combined lunch.To me, GOAS, has the most fun project for the day. Of course, as a child and adult, I've always been thrilled when I ran into a snake, frog, toad, lizard, or other animal along the way. So, for all of those volunteers so inclined, we are conducting a R.A.V.E., Rapid Assessment Visual Exploration, which will provide us with a four hour plant and animal inventory, a mini-BioBlitz. Teams formed will inventory all birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, insects, aquatic species, herbaceous plants, and trees/shrubs at Valley Water Mill Park in that four hour window. Many university and MDC experts are acting as team leaders for each group.

Videographers will be brought in to make a 3-4 minute video of our day, and our event will serve as an example to others with TogetherGreen projects awaiting completion.Here's me, looking forward to a grand Volunteer Day. Hope this weather holds!

Of course, I'll have a follow up entry soon.