Harbinger of Spring

Harbinger of Spring- MDC

The Harbinger of Spring is out.  I am not referring to ticks but to the flower.   Erigenia bulbosa, also known as "Pepper and Salt", is one of the first wildflowers out in the spring.   I am always surprised when I find it, usually while doing the road cleanup.  The picture here is deceptive as the plant is usually less than a half inch tall, best found when searching the roadside for cigarette butts.

The Fresh Afield blog by MDC by Tim Smith will whet your appetite for a walk in the woods with a lot of the bending over necessary to see these early flowers.  Barbara refers to Linda Ellis as her favorite "bottomist" because that is what you see when botanists are looking at plants.

Tim's article has a set of pictures to get you started, as well as the link to http://www.missouriplants.com/ where you can begin identifying wildflowers by color and leaf arrangement.  For the Master Naturalists, we hope to have Linda with us at the first of two Wildflower Field Trips to Bull Mills next Saturday, March 26 at 1:00 PM.  Directions are on the Springfield MN calendar.

Harbinger of Spring is also a reminder that it is time to get your hummingbird feeders sugared up.  The Hummers are reported in mid-Arkansas and are bound to be hungry when they hit the Missouri Ozarks.  Check the map for their progress at http://www.hummingbirds.net/map.html.

Black Fawn

What is the rarest color abnormality in whitetail deer?  I would have guessed albino deer, the lack of pigment - and I would have been wrong.  The answer is melanism.  This mutation creates a darker deer, varying from dark shades of brown to almost totally black.

The website of the photographer R. M. Buquoi  has an array of beautiful nature photographs including these pictures taken from his urban home.

"I took the photos of the black fawn near Austin, TX. That area of central Texas seems to have a concentration of black "white-tailed" deer, although it is still extremely rare to find them. This is a wild deer, but resides in a greenbelt near a neighborhood. I took the images when the deer were roaming through the neighborhood. The two fawns in the photos are twins, but only the one is black."

Family- Click to Enlarge

Melanism, the production of excess melanin, is usually genetic but occasionally occurs from environmental conditions or diet.  Melanistic deer can run the spectrum from a darker brown to almost black.

Pigment variation in animals can range from none to excessive.  Albinism is a congenital lack of pigmentation and is known to effect all vertebrates.  This is a disadvantage because the animal lacks protective coloration and the loss of eye pigmentation allows unfiltered light into the eyes, impairing the vision in bright light.   Both are a disadvantage when you are trying to avoid predators.

Melanistic deer are very rare unless you are living close to San Antonio, Texas.  There the variation is very uncommon although they have more melanistic deer than the rest of the country combined.  Unlike albino deer, melanistic deer may have had a survival advantage, living in the deep shaded draws where a dark color would help them hide from predators. 

One question unanswered by the information at Northamericanwhitetail.com is about breeding.  What do the "normal" whitetail deer think about this variant?  Do they become attracted by appearance or other factors?  The fact that they are more common in an area of Texas suggests that they breed successfully.  The fact that melanistic deer continue to propagate in the region of eight counties suggests that appearance isn't an important factor.

One thing seems sure - their momma's and siblings don't care.  They are treated as family, suggesting that smell and other traits overrule the fact that they look different.  If only humans could get along as well. 

Visit the website R. M. Buquoi for other beautiful photographs. Thanks to Larry Whiteley of BassPro sending me the story.

A Site to Expand Your Mind

Guest Column by Bob Ranney

I read an article in Newsweek today “Can You Build a Better Brain?” (Newsweek January 10, 2010) that spoke to how we can improve our mental abilities.  It made two points that really stuck out for me.  The first was that we can achieve up to a 20% improvement in memory and thinking ability simply by walking 45 minutes three days a week.  The second was that as we use brain cells to learn new skills or consider new ideas, the area of the brain that is involved in that activity actually expands.

In discussing how the process works, the author recommended a YouTube page called Kahn Academy.  Watch the Gates introduction.  I haven’t researched who the speaker is on this site, but he is an amazingly knowledgeable individual who is capable of expressing complex ideas in easily understandable terms.  Also, it seems to me that at least one of his lines of subject matter would be of great interest to most Master Naturalists, and that is biology.

This being YouTube, all the discussions are on videos.  The speaker illustrates his talk on the virtual blackboard with line drawings that are entertaining, sometimes humorous and always enlightening.  The first screen on the page provides a list of subjects to choose from.  I watched and listened to his first four videos under Biology.  They included: “Introduction to Evolution”, “Intelligent Design and Evolution”, “Evolution Clarification”, and “Natural Selection and the Owl Butterfly”. The next in the series is “DNA”.

You might start with the Biology presentations at the Khan Academy.  Then choose the series you want to watch from the long list on the right side of the screen.   Biology is right on top, and I‘m sure any Master Naturalist will enjoy that, but if you’re an intellectual giant you might want to peruse the list and choose something else, too – maybe calculus or statistics or physics or - you name it and it’s probably there.

Try this site. It’s a real treat.

Editors Note:  A good way to sample this is the Evolution and the Owl Butterfly Video.  Not perfect - he mentions an injured butterfly wing might grow back - but his teaching of concepts is very lucid.

Antlers For Your Valentine

What makes a female Master Naturalist happy at Valentines Day?  Finding whitetail deer sheds makes a very memorable and inexpensive gift, especially when she finds them by herself.  You may be thinking that this is a cheap trick, but actually a set of high quality sheds may sell for thousands of dollars. *

The Wild Mammals of Missouri ** describes antler growth which starts around April as the increasing hours of daylight stimulate the pituitary gland.  The initial buds are covered with soft skin and short hair, referred to as "velvet", which covers the antlers as they grow to full size by early fall.

Testosterone surges at the beginning of the rut or breeding season.  The blood supply to the antlers is cut off, and the velvet starts to shed.  Bucks finish the grooming process to get ready to mate, rubbing off the last of the velvet and polishing the antlers on small trees, much like a teenage boy standing in front of the mirror before prom.  Interestingly, the sight of buck rubs on saplings has the same testosterone-laden effect on fully grown male hunters of deer.

In December, decreasing testosterone levels lead to reabsorption of the bone at the antler base and eventual shedding.  The best time to find sheds is January and February, before they are covered with the new plant growth of spring.  It is important to get them before rabbits, squirrels and other rodents find them as they will chew them up for their minerals and protein.  "Up to 1/2 of a whitetail antler cast in an oak forest in the Midwest can be consumed by calcium-craving squirrels in a three-day period." *

Consider hunting antler sheds for your wife's next Valentines Day.  You will be happy you did, save a lot of money, and she might enjoy it too.  Taking her to dinner might help too.

*  For details on the antler industry go to Northamericanwhitetail.com
** The Wild Mammals of Missouri, Schwartz and Schwartz, University of Missouri Press and Missouri Department of Conservation, 1981.


Whitetail facts at Wikipedia,

Missouri Native Grapes

from Wikimedia

Many of our Master Naturalists will recall the program that Patrick Byers presented in February of last year on how the Missouri native grapes saved the European wine industry.  Now there is an opportunity to learn about the man who made it happen.

This is a historical and scientific exhibit about Hermann Jaeger, the naturalist, grape breeder, and viticulturist of Neosho, Missouri, whose wild and hybrid grapes helped Europe recover from an economic disaster during the 19th century.

Overcoming the phylloxera invasion was one of the greatest triumphs of natural sciences of the times, and Hermann Jaeger was a key part of that victory. Through his work, plant biodiversity from the Ozarks helps make grape cultivation cleaner, and more environment friendly all around the world.

The exhibit opens with a public and free, catered reception on Friday, April 8 at 6:00 p.m., with a program of speakers at 7:00 p.m., at The Discovery Center of Springfield, 438 E. Saint Louis Street in downtown Springfield, Missouri. For more information on the display visit this link.

To read an excellent article written by Kay Hively on Hermann Jeager's Horticultural Work visit this link to the Neosho Daily News: http://www.neoshodailynews.com/features/x188778897/Exhibit-to-focus-on-Hermann-Jaegers-horticultural-work

Thanks for the story written by Dr. Chris Barnhart of MSU and forwarded by Friends of the Garden.

First Tick of Spring

My compulsive wife always comes in first, this time by collecting the first ticks of the year.  Even the tiny one, the size of a period, had eight legs, indicating a degree of maturity.  When ticks emerge from the egg they have six legs.  After a blood meal they molt and develop the structure they will carry through the next molt to a sexually active adult.  The only solace we can get from this is that after they mate and lay eggs they die.

Ticks are tough.  Their hard shell resists squeezing unless between your fingernails- (Barb just bites their heads off).  In one study of the nymph stage they kept them underwater at near freezing temperatures for 160 days, then let them out and they found a blood meal.  Lone Star ticks have been shown to live as long as three years before finding a meal.  It is therefore no wonder that they hang on so tenaciously once they find us.

Ticks are arachnids, related to spiders and scorpions, thus the eight legs.  Many articles make a point of saying that we are not their desired host.  In spite of this, I have never had one apologize for its error. 

According to Conservation magazine, ticks find us by questing, hanging on vegetation with their back legs while reaching out with their hooked front pair of legs.  They sense our presence by "exhaled carbon dioxide and emitted body odors".  I do not intend to speculate which sense they used to find Barb.

The Missouri Department of Conservation has a good source for avoiding and treating tick bites at this site.  Insect repellent and careful observation of all body areas after being outside are important.  The rapid removal of a tick will decrease the likelihood of their transmitting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, ehrlichiosis, Lyme disease, etc.  Removing them with clear tape while they are crawling on your skin makes it easier to differentiate dog ticks, deer ticks and Lone Star ticks, the sign of a hard core Master Naturalist.

Tick anatomy and mouthparts- see this site.

Story of Stuff

Story of Bottled Water

Someone sent me an fascinating cartoon video on bottled water a while back and I shared it with some of you.  It summarized the industry of selling individual water doses and the costs to our environment.  You can see it at http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/. 

I am revisiting this after a trip to see my son's family in California and visiting with their friends, Michael and Laura.  It turns out that he works at Storyofstuff where he is Associate Director. 

Let me warn you about the website http://storyofstuff.org/.  It is highly addictive as you are likely to go from the Story of Bottled Water to Stuff, Cosmetics and Electronics, losing considerable time.  Don't say I didn't warn you!