Report from the 2021 Annual Meeting

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Carolyn Henderson

Linda Jo Conn received special recognition Saturday night at the annual meeting of Texas Master Naturalists in Dallas/Ft Worth. She has reached a milestone of 4,000 service hours. She was in very tight company. Only one other statewide member qualified. 

Congratulations to Linda Jo

The award included a dragonfly pin of brushed gold with a ruby in the center and a special pin and certificate from the office of the President of the United States. 

The Presidential pin

In other categories, Eric Neubauer received recognition for reaching 250 service hours. All who received initial certification from the class of 2020 were also recognized (there were many statewide).

Eric stands as his name is called.

Larry Kocian was recognized for “109!” hours of service in the Texas Water Specialist program with TPWD. Kocian and Sandra Dworaczyk were both given recertification this year. 

Good job!

I attended a 3-hour session on this program, and it looks particularly interesting. If we can get a group of three interested, they can take the class and gain certification. I have a connection to it if anyone is interested. If you’d like to find out more information, contact Melissa Felty, conservation education manager for TPWD, at Conservation Edu@tpwd.gov or go to the web site. The class counts as advanced training hours (8) and the service, which can be education, water testing, CoCoRaHs precipitation measuring, and other things, count as service hours for Texas Master Naturalist. 

Yay for our folks!

The meeting had some very educational sessions. I went from water conservation, to wildscaping in the shade, to Chronic Wasting Disease, to iNaturalist advanced training, to Tarantula sex with live tarantulas in one day. That last one was particularly amusing to me, Eric, and the rest of the packed class. A few members gave play-by-play commentary. My favorite occurred on Saturday. It was an excellent program given by a fellow iNaturalist from the Blackland Prairie chapter on identifying trees. I now have a brochure to carry with me. 

Award recipients

The meeting was educational, entertaining, and a great place to meet other TMNs. I came away with some good ideas for our chapter. 

Oh, and by the way, the new TMN pin for recertification in 2022 is the Lightning Whelk.

Scissor-tail Beauty

Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall1 Comment

by Donna Lewis

I am sure all of you have noticed the numerous little mini flocks of scissor-tails lately around the county.   They are a bird even amateurs can identify.

Male and female. Photo by Martin Hall on iNaturalist.

We drive to our destination and everyone in the truck says look, look, a scissor-tail!

They have something to say! Photo by the late Greg Lasley on iNaturalist.

So, why do these birds have this tail?  This bird is a flycatcher, so it needs to be agile and able to turn quickly on a dime and in mid-air.  To catch an insect you have to be fast.

She caught a fly! Photo by Judy Gallagher on iNaturalist.

Its tail splits in two to redirect its flight.  Pretty handy.

Scissor-tailed flycatchers (Tyrannus forficatus) are beautiful birds with a pearly gray head and chest, and dark wings and tail. They can be found all over Texas and Oklahoma.

Photo by HD Cooper on iNaturalist.

During the winter they will migrate south to Mexico and even South America. That is what they are doing now. Otherwise you would not see them in a flock.  They like to be solitary, except at night when they may roost together as a community.  A sleepover with your friends.

Photo by Lena Zappia on iNaturalist.

In some places they are known as the Texas bird of paradise.

Females (who don’t have as long of a tail as the males do) lay three to six eggs that are white or cream colored with some dark red on them. Lovely to see.

Keep your eyes up and you will see them now.

All photos are some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) and authorized for nonprofit use and were selected by Sue Ann Kendall to go with Donna’s narrative.

Donna’s Garden in October

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by Donna Lewis

Can you believe it’s October!   A crazy year for sure.

I have not done very much to the garden the last few weeks. I like to let  her go to sleep slowly for the winter months.

My back also needs the rest. Any gardener will know what I mean.

Salvia

The fall loves salvia. It is everywhere in the garden. 

Salvia up close
Two colors of salvia

The last butterflies are fighting over the best nectar spots, and chasing the hummers out of the garden. It’s every man or woman for themselves.

Then the flame acanthus are on fire with blossoms .The orange Celeste tree is also blooming now.

Cowpen daisies are proliferating as usual, and autumn sage is putting out its last blast of flowers.

Then there is the lovely and dainty coral vine. Bees and butterflies alike love her sweet pink blooms.

I’d say pretty nice for a little stroll through the garden.

The secret garden…

Dead Trees Are Very Valuable for Our Wildlife

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by Donna Lewis

Trees that have died  and are still standing (snags), and trees that have fallen provide many homes and food for wildlife. Here are some examples.

  • Excavated cavities provide homes for woodpeckers.
  • When they leave a cavity, secondary nesters move in. These include chickadees, titmice, wrens, and bluebirds. 
  • The hollow part of limbs also house owls, raccoons, squirrels, and some bats.
  • Many invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals live in or on fallen trees. 
  • Fireflies use decaying logs to complete their life cycle. 
  • The hollow trunks provide homes for skunks, foxes, mice, and weasels, to name a few.

That’s a ton of uses as a tree finishes its life. It helps coming and going….as a fallen tree decomposes it provides nutrients back to the forest floor.

So, you might think twice before cutting a grand old tree that has died down. Of course there are times when you have to remove one, like being too close to a structure or fence. But if it’s a safe distance, then save it for our wildlife.

Everything has a purpose. Hug a tree today.

A Prairie Project Report

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by Eric Neubauer

In 2018, wheat was planted here at my property, where there was once blackland prairie. Since then, nature has taken over. A mix of native and non-native grasses and forbs quickly came up by themselves. Each year the mix changed, but by 2021 it was obvious Johnson Grass was a huge threat and would eventually outcompete and overwhelm everything else. I was reluctant to use herbicides, because they might affect the plants and animals that I wanted to keep. For example, it’s unlikely anyone tested the effect on wolf spiders. So, I was left with only mechanical means of control.

I decided to focus only on the Johnson Grass to keep it simple. I came up with several plans depending on how thick the Johnson Grass was and whether an area would be mowed. One image shows an area where I pulled the Johnson Grass and ragweed starting early in the year. It looks pretty nice now and only a few unwanted seedlings have come up since. I’ll mow this area in early spring before the bluestem comes up and after it goes to seed. You can see some Johnson Grass I haven’t gotten to lurking in the background on the right.

The other image shows where the mowed area meets the unmown area. Johnson Grass doesn’t like regular mowing. There are numerous small plants in the foreground, but these have limited root systems and will die or are easy to pull. King Ranch Bluestem tolerates regular mowing. I mowed around the plant in the foreground and now it’s going to seed. I mowed around other plants, primarily legumes, and hand pulled any Johnson Grass that didn’t get cut. In the background is a mass of Johnson Grass. I’m hand pulling this. You can see little of anything is left except leaf litter where I have pulled it to the right. Some will  regrows, and I’ll have pull it again, but subsequent pulling goes much quicker than the first. In the meantime, other plants, such as asters, now have enough light to spout and grow. By the way, if you hand pull Johnson Grass, wear good gloves. Otherwise it can give you a nasty cut if your hand slips.

Other areas I’ve promoted with selective weeding are stands of goldenrod and a large patch of frogfruit where water collects sometimes.

It’s possible another threat will rise out of the several species of non-native grasses present, but for now I have a plan.