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.

Table Rock Temptations

It all started with unbelievable reports coming out of Arkansas and Oklahoma of Gustav birds falling out over regional reservoirs. It hastened a trip to Table Rock Reservoir on Friday morning, so Marvin and I set out in search of hurricane birds.

After viewing flocks of Black and Caspian Terns from the dam viewing area, we wound our way around to Old Highway 86 State Park. We scanned the area fruitlessly, but found a new friend in Joe Eades, St. Louis birder phenom, who in 2007, challenged the state year record with 313 species, one short of Tim Barksdale's long held Missouri year list of 314 species.

Joe suggested we head over to the Cow Creek Road look out, where we watched 8 Caspian Terns sail gracefully over head.

photo courtesy of Marvin DeJong

Time was getting away from us by this time, as Marvin and I had mid afternoon schedule conflicts, so we left without our hurricane birds. Joe continued the quest.

At 8:45 that evening, the call came. "I think you should come down here in the morning",. he cautiously said. Being careful not to reveal the species, I suspected a new state record possibility. Thinking Royal Tern was the most likely bird, I began to study the field guide. Shortly, thereafter, Josh Uffman posted on the GOAS message board:

I'm reporting for Joe Eades, who has just observed a ROYAL TERN at Table Rock Lake (Taney/Stone Co's) this evening (September 5) for about 45 minutes. Directions follow, and Joe states that he will be at the spot first thing in the morning to try to relocate the bird. This is a potential first state record and therefore needs to be documented with special care. There are two ways in which it can achieve acceptance: (1) Someone gets diagnostic photographs. These do not have to be great pictures, but they must show the diagnostic features of the bird. It may be hard to get such photos if the bird is far out on the lake, but let's hope someone gets lucky. (2) Two or more observers INDEPENDENTLY watch the bird, take careful field notes on the spot, and write up their documentations soon thereafter. The meaning of "independently" is that the observers should not be talking to each other, discussing field marks, and thereby possibly convincing one another of what they are seeing. The two (or more) documentations also need to be "independently acceptable," i.e., either one alone contains sufficient detail to make the record acceptable under normal circumstances (other than first state record).
Joe will of course provide one documentation, so other observers are needed to locate the bird and then do their own observing and note-taking and documentation (which neither Joe nor anyone else can help with). This policy may seem a bit arbitrary, but it is designed to avoid the situation where observers talk each other into agreement on certain field marks—a scenario that has actually occurred many times. With properly independent documentations, the MBRC will accept a record without the necessity of physical evidence (photo, specimen, etc.). I excitedly arrived at the point at 7:00 am without my photographer friend Marvin, who had gone on a family camping trip. At 7:10, I observed a large tern near the Branson Belle......black cap...... Caspian.Shortly after 8:00, Joe arrived. He felt that he could not discuss the bird, other than the fact that he had observed it for 45 minutes in good light the previous evening. This morning, however, the lighting in the same direction was blinding, as the sun rose over the Ozark hills. Even so, he spotted and began to follow a possibility. The bird skirted the shoreline in horrible light before it turned toward us!

During that quick flyby, I was having trouble getting my new angled scope on the bird, and I became frustrated. By the time I gave up and grabbed the bins, I couldn't get anything on the head. The bird vocalized. My first thought was that a heron was nearby, but Joe confirmed that it was the tern. The sycamore trees obscured my view, and by the time I got my bins on the bird, I was unable to get any features on the head. As the bird flew away and into the distance, I did see a profile of a slim build and long wings, but I did not see a forked tail, white forehead, or any other head features.

"Do you think this was the bird that you saw yesterday, I asked. "I think it was", he replied.

As the bird flew along the far shoreline, at least 2 miles in the distance, Joe shouted, "Sabine's Gull! Does that do anything for you?" Indeed it did, a life bird, but the vast distance to the bird prevented me from initially and independently identifying the bird. Luckily, the bird veered right at the Branson Belle showboat, and entered the cove across from our vantage point. As the triangular shapes on the wings came into clear view, I began to understand why Joe was able to make the call at such a long distance. This is a striking and unmistakable gull, beautiful in flight, suggesting balance, as in a yin-yang symbol.photo by Gerrit Vyn, off of Cornell website

I returned home ready to provide sketchy gizz related, albeit not conclusive in any way, documentation of a Royal Tern, thinking Joe had a slam dunk the previous day. Then, I remembered that vocalization! I checked various Internet sites, and the truth was obvious. This was a Caspian Tern. I called Joe to tell him the conclusion that I had reached. Caspian Tern. I was relieved to find that, in the end, Joe, too, backed off his call for the Saturday bird, and had decided to hold off on documenting the Friday evening sighting, too.

It was a reminder that anticipation is a powerful intoxicant for all birders, no matter what skill level, and that we all can make errors in the field.

I've learned much from the experience. If I ever get a chance at a Missouri Royal Tern, I will definitely be more prepared, and, as a result, probably would not give a second thought to a bird like I saw Saturday, a beautiful, yet common, Caspian Tern........

But, then, I would have missed all this excitement!

Bring those hurricane birds inland, Ike! Joe, Marvin, and I have already made plans for Sunday and Monday at Table Rock Reservoir!