In the News

There were two news items recently that touched on past blog stories that are worth repeating.

Ozark Hellbender- Jeff Briggler, MDC

NPR carried the story of efforts by the St. Louis Zoo to propagate the endangered Ozark Hellbender by creating a little "love nest" in artificially created flowing water.  The hellbender doesn't look like much of a lover, but it is a good daddy.  The story explains the process as well as showing pictures.

National coverage of the snowy owl irruption in the Ozarks quotes Charley Burwick and Janice Greene as well as presenting some nice graphic information on the Owl.  It also covers the Audubon Society's 112th annual Christmas Bird Count which included ten of our chapter's Master Naturalists. 

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/04/134820/audubon-watchers-find-snowy-owls.html#storylink=cpy

See mcclatchydc.com.

Parapatry for Beginners

Some years ago on Bull Creek, I made the mistake of identifying a Black-capped Chickadee to a group on an Audubon (GOAS) field trip and heard a resounding chorus of "They don't occur here- that is a Carolina Chickadee."  I was unaware of parapatry, a lesson that was burned into my brain that day.


A defining characteristic of a true member of the GOAS is apparently knowing that Carolina Chickadees are in our region while Black-capped Chickadees occur just a little further north.  There is only a very narrow overlap zone between the populations where both may be found.  As described by an MDC site:

"Black-capped: generally northern Missouri, occasionally moving southward in winter. Carolina: generally southern Missouri and seldom wander north of their range. Where the ranges overlap, the birds sometimes hybridize and sing intermediate songs." 

Map from Birdsource

The appearance of the two species is very similar to most observers.  They are hard to identify even with side-by-side pictures. So to add further confusion, hybridization occurs in the overlap zone, making it even more difficult to separate the two species.  As if this weren't complicated enough, the overlap zone is creeping northward in recent years as climate change moves the average warm temperatures to the north.

Back to parapatry in the title.  Parapatry describes when two similar species ranges meet with little or no overlap.  A study in Eurekalert.org. describes the range of two closely related millipede species in Tasmania, Australia.  The mixing zone where they meet is 140 miles long but only 100 meters wide.  You might expect some geographical or environmental features to define this territory, but there are none.

In a world in which we humans create, and fight over, artificial boundaries, these millipedes have apparently peacefully established their distinct boundaries just like our chickadees.

Woodpecker Headaches

Red-Bellied Woodpecker- MDC

Ever wonder how a woodpecker can put in 1,000 pecks a day and still not go home with a headache that night?  Francis Skalicky has the answer in his Thursday's News-Leader column.

Our brains are suspended in fluid within the skull.  If we were to hammer our head against a tree, the sudden stop of the head cause the brain's forward momentum to bang it against the inside of the skull.  This is the mechanism of football player's concussions.

Woodpeckers avoid this because their brains fit tightly inside the skull with no room to slosh around.  Their brains are small without a lot of mass to build up momentum and their skull is made of somewhat spongy bone which helps cushion the blow.  Finally, they tense their mandible muscles just as they strike, letting the body absorb much of the shock.

Another adaptation which is fascinating is their tongue.  Hiltonpond.org has pictures showing the barbs at the end of the tongue and a red-bellied woodpecker's fully extended tongue which is three times as long as its beak.  If we had the same tongue to head ratio, our tongue would be 2 feet long!  The barbs allow them to extract beetle larvae and other prey from deep inside the tree.  You could say that woodpeckers speak with forked tongue, a positive attribute in the bird world.

Mining Fracking Sand

Frack Sand Mining- Ozark Waters

 By now, everyone is familiar with hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction, a.k.a. "fracking."  The environmental concerns about effects of the process on our aquifers were outlined in last year's blog.  The first report of possible ground water contamination was released by the EPA on December 8, 2011.  Unfortunately, that isn't the only possible side effect of fracking.

Even areas of Missouri which are spared the concerns or potential wealth of fracking may be facing environmental side effects of mining the special sand which is used in the process.  David Casaletto has outlined the concerns in the current issue of the .

Without becoming an alarmist, there are some real potential problems that should be considered before major mining takes place in environmentally sensitive areas (meaning around water, land and wildlife).  David's article explains this fully and can't be summarized any better than he has done.  Click on Ozarks Water Watch newsletter for a quick review.

An Irruption of Owls

This story from Charley Burwick of GOAS* and Master Naturalists fame.

Click to enlarge- Greg Swick, GOAS

“Irruption,” yech! - sounds like something you would hear from your doctor.  However, in the birder’s world that is a word that really grabs attention.  An irruption, in the avian world, specifically means some bird, or group of bird species from the tundra, or northern boreal forest moving much farther south than the norm during the winter months.  While it includes many songbird species, the one that really grabs our attention and excitement is when raptors, and more to the point owls, are the ones coming far into the lower 48 states. 

A few years ago, the Great Gray Owls, and Northern Hawk Owls came flowing south into the lower 48 northern tier of states.  Both of these species can be seen in Minnesota from time to time, but this particular year, they were down in huge numbers.  The numbers were much, much higher than ever recorded, or noted in history.  On a visit to Minnesota during this event, my friends and I saw a few of the Hawk Owls (hence my license plate HWK-OWL), and on one day spotted over 70 Great Gray Owls.  Because these birds are not typically around humans, they have no fear of us.  You can stand within just a few yards of them, and they pretty much ignore you.  We observed one, just a few feet from us, fly from a stump, and dive into the deep snow, and come up with a rodent to eat.  What an exhilarating experience.

What caused this irruption?  It is believed there had been an explosive number in the population of rodents, and consequently, a very successful fledging rate of Great Gray Owls.  The sad part of this event is that many of the Great Gray Owls, which were mostly immature birds, starved, and a significant number ended up being road kill.  Once again, not being around metal animals, they would just sit in the middle of a road, and watch a vehicle as it would run them over.  In response, special teams organized to catch and relocate the birds.  To what level of success, we don’t know.

Now, this year, we are experiencing another irruption of owls.  Only this year the species is the Snowy Owl.  It is not unusual for a Snowy Owl or two, to show up in the very northern counties of Missouri during the winter months.  One may stick around in one area long enough for one of us crazy people to make a run to the north to spot one.  I have been so fortunate twice in past years.  However, this year, we are experiencing, once again, an irruption of numbers of a historical magnitude.  At first, two, and then three Snowy Owls were hanging around Smithville Lake, just north of Kansas City.  I had to make the run to see this owl species once again.  They really are a magnificent bird to see, and it is not just the same as viewing them on TV, or a picture on a calendar.  Fortunately, my friends and I spotted three that cool morning.  Remarkable- I never, in my wildest dreams, ever expected to see three Snowy Owls in one morning within a mile of each other in our state.

The story for this year is not over yet.  Just this past week, five Snowy Owls were spotted around Smithville Lake and another one was spotted in Columbia, next to a Holiday Inn, along I 70.  On at least two Christmas Bird Counts, a Snowy Owl was noted on the counts, including one at the Squaw Creek refuge, northwest of St. Joseph.  Yet, the numbers are still going up, as at least another 6-8 have been noted across other northern counties in the state this past week.  Several have been reported in Kansas, from Topeka, to Wichita, and Hutchinson area, and as far south as Oklahoma, northwest of Tulsa.

The next chapter is already being played out.  Several Snowy Owls in the state have been reported found dead, thought to be from starvation.  And, yes, the metal monster has already harvested a few.  As we can note, the numbers are still increasing every day.  When will the numbers slow down?  Who knows?  What has caused this irruption?  Right now, who knows?  The major tool being used to track this activity is eBird (http://ebird.org/content/ebird), a citizen science reporting system sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and National Audubon Society.  Take a look at the eBird web page; learn more about the Snowy Owl, and what is going on during this irruption.  eBird is an outstanding tool, not just for Snowy Owls, but all birds, even the ones in your backyard.  Watch out, you may get hooked.

*GOAS- Greater Ozarks Audubon Society

Solar Power- Green with Brown Spots?

70,000 Solar Panels- Click to enlarge

A news release from eurekalert.org reminds us that everything has its price.  Even something as "green" as solar power has environmental costs beyond the production of the solar panels themselves.   

The pictured field shows 40 acres of unused land on Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada with 70,000 solar panels.  With hundreds of thousands of acres of solar fields being considered, we need to have an estimate of the environmental costs.  Unfortunately, we don't.

Many of these fields are planned for desert areas where species survival can be fragile.  Habitat changes would include fragmentation from power lines and roads, soil disturbance creating excessive dust and evaporation ponds for the collection of toxins.  Pollutants such as the necessary dust and rust suppressants could threaten the area.  The facilities will generate heat, electromagnetic fields, noise, and polarized light whose cumulative effects on the environment are unknown.

Environmental impact studies will need to be performed before solar fields proliferate.  Solar power is definitely renewable, but once again, everything has its environmental price.

Remote Pollution

from Lund University

There is new evidence of nitrogen pollution that began with the industrial revolution, and it is found in remote lakes.  Studies reported from Lund University in Sweden have found increased nitrogen levels occurring since the late 19th century in lakes thousands of miles from cities.

Studies in the USA, Canada, Greenland and Svalbard, Norway show the nitrogen pollution levels started in 1895 and have accelerated in the last sixty years.  This correlates with the rise in combustible fuels and increasing artificial fertilizer use across the developed world.

 “I have studied lakes on Svalbard, where the effects of the increased nitrogen deposition are clearly visible in the algal flora”, says Sofia Holmgren.  She explains that both the species composition and production of diatoms – microscopic siliceous algae – have changed dramatically in the lakes on Svalbard since the start of the 20th century, with the most significant changes over the past decades.

Like acid rain in the past, these remote changes demonstrate the continued planet-wide impact of humans.  We act at the local level by educating our neighbors about preserving our clean water supplies.  One way is to start with our 5th graders at the Watershed Festivals held by JRBP.