SOUTHERN ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
June-July 2003 - Volume 10, No. 6
Speaker: Jody Shimp, Regional Natural Heritage Administrator for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), on IDNR Strategies to Assess the Management of Chinese Yam and Kudzu.
Speakers: Lucinda and Richard LaSalle on The Continuing Adventures of Lucy and Ricky in Western Scotland and the Island of Islay.
Potluck & program. Speaker: John Magera on The Middle Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge.
Nov./Dec. combined meeting. Speaker: John Schwegman on "Birds I Have Photographed".
The National Audubon Society was started out of concern for species like great egrets and the decline in their numbers as a result of the feather plumb trade. It has grown into a highly respected force for conservation and preservation. The Illinois Audubon Society (IAS) was established in 1897, probably the oldest conservation organization in the state. IAS works to preserve habitats, assists the state in land acquisition, and sponsors environmental education programs for the public.
Marilyn Campbell, Executive Director of IAS, captivated the audience with the success stories of IAS's many Sanctuaries and Land Preservation/Restoration Projects. From a block of woods surrounded by houses and businesses in Springfield's city limitsknown as the Margery Adams Wildlife Sanctuary to the 500 acre War Bluff Valley Sanctuary in Pope County, IAS has worked to secure and preserve habitats throughout Illinois.
Some areas IAS has acquired like the H & B Bremer Sanctuary in Montgomery County are open to the public with clearly marked trails and interpretive signs. Others acquisitions like Karcher's Post Oak Woods Nature Preserve, with its hardpan soils and slow growing trees dating back to the American Revolution, has no general public access.
To encourage and preserve the Greater Prairie Chicken, a state endangered species, the IL Dept. of Natural Resources determined they would need a minimum of 5000 acres of contiguous habitat. IAS came in to assist the state. Robert Ridgway Grasslands Nature Preserve in Jasper County is one of IAS's contributions to this project area known as Prairie Ridge State Natural Area. These two holdings encompass over 2600 acres of habitat being managed for Greater Prairie Chickens and other grassland species. Although a great preserve area, it's roughly only half of what is needed.
Marilyn stated that IAS has more habitat projects in the works. She added that IAS applies for grants, has received bequeaths, and accepts donations to fund and maintain their acquisitions. IAS will continue to acquire and preserve habitat when possible. SIASer's and friends are encouraged to help by joining and/or renewing membership in IAS and by attending IAS sponsored field trips, like the trip to southern Illinois led by Vern Kleen each spring. Trip proceeds go to land acquisitions. SIAS thanks Marilyn for coming down and sharing all of IAS's success stories.
Thanks also to Betty Arnold and Lew Hendrix for providing refreshments!
Newsletter Sponsor of the Month: Laraine Wright
Help support the conservation and education programs of the Illinois Audubon Society. Annual dues are $25.
The Illinois Audubon Society P.O. Box 2418 Danville, IL 61834-2418 http://www.illinoisaudubon.org
For many years, the Illinois Audubon Society (IAS) has had the "Stamps for Wildlife" collection program. Stamps are collected, sorted, and sold to benefit IAS sanctuaries. Through this project IAS has raised more than $10,000 for new sanctuaries.
Following are the guidelines for collecting for IAS:
$1.00.Mail your collected stamps to:
The Illinois Audubon Society
P.O. Box 2418
Danville, IL 61834
OR bring them with you to Southern Illinois Audubon Society meetings
where Rhonda Rothrock will collect them for forwarding on to IAS. If
you have a sizable collection which you would like to donate to the
"Stamps for Habitat" project, please contact Vern Kleen, stamp project
coordinator, at kleen@quixnet.net or 217.787.3515. (The donation of
valuable collections can be a tax benefit in accordance with IRS
regulations.
On Thursdays from 12 noon till l p.m., birders meet informally to eat lunch, watch birds, and chat at Carbondale water treatment plant off McLafferty Road.
Movie Winged Migration Opens In St. Louis!
Winged Migration is a film by Jacques Perrin exploring the mystery of birds in flight. More than 450 people, including 17 pilots and 14 cinematographers in 5 teams, were necessary to follow a variety of bird migrations through 40 countries in 7 continents from the Eiffel Tower and Monument Valley to the remote reaches of the Arctic and the Amazon. All manner of man-made machines were employed, including planes, gliders, helicopters, and balloons, and numerous innovative techniques and ingeniously designed cameras were utilized to allow the filmmakers to fly alongside, above, below and in front of their subjects. The result is a highly acclaimedfilm of staggering beauty that opens one's eyes to the ineffable wonders of the natural world.
Winged Migration opens at the St. Louis Plaza Frontenac Shopping Mall Cinema on 07/04. The Mall is located at the junction of Clayton Road and Lindbergh Blvd, just south of Highway 64/40. For more info and exact show times phone 314.432.0604.
Snakes! (At The Cache River Wetlands)
Join the Cache River State Natural Area folks for a program featuring the snakes of the Cache River Wetlands. Here's an opportunity to view closeup the different species of snakes found in southern Illinois and to learn tips that will help you become experienced in spotting and identifying these elusive reptiles. Meet at the cafeteria of Shawnee College, east of Ullin, at 10:00 a.m. Phone 634.2231 or 634.9678 for more info.
Wood Duck Banding with Dan Woolard
Dan Woolard will be banding wood ducks in the fall and has invited SIAS to join in on the process. The actual date and location have yet to be finalized and will be printed in the August newsletter.
Illinois Audubon Society's Annual Meeting
Illinois Audubon Society's 106th annual meeting, Springfield. Check http://www.illinoisaudubon.org for registration information, field trip sites, and programs.
Brats, burgers, hot dogs, and real dogs were featured at the annual SIAS picnic on Sunday, June 1, and the 28 attendees brought a gourmet spread for a potluck. Balmy weather and walks on the trails to locate birds and plants made the event especially nice at the beautiful Trail of Tears shelter.
Thanks to Jerry O'Malley for arranging for the food (paid for by SIAS) and to Cathie Hutcheson, Lew Hendrix, and Jerry for serving as cooks at the grill.
Esther Hays is missing a red-handled utensil. If you brought this home by mistake, please give her a call. If anyone is missing a serving dish and/or serving utensils contact Jerry at 529.8450. He's ended up with a surplus.
SIAS has long supported the extensive bluebird trails at Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge. Originally set up by SIUC's Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory to study nestling parasitism, the 180 or so boxes have since been manned by volunteers for at least 15 years. Look for the descriptive sign along IL 148 near the photo blind: it gives a brief history of the trails and was paid for by SIAS last year.
Thirteen people (nine of whom are SIAS members) check the boxes on their trails once every seven to ten days. Bluebirds begin making nests in mid-March, with first fledgings by the second week in May. Often tree swallows will then use many of the boxes, followed by a second and even a third bluebird nesting. Chickadees and house wrens occasionally use the boxes, too, and once in a while a field mice family takes over.
This year, CONWR biologist Mike Brown launched the season with a volunteer meeting at the refuge. A special effort is being made to move boxes closer to the roadways and to repair older boxes to make them usable again.
Special thanks goes to Rhonda and Rob Rothrock, who have made and donated more than 100 inserts that fit perfectly into the old box frames. In years past, these inserts were constructed from wax milk cartons covered in tarpaper, but the Rothrocks designed permanent inserts using plastic sewer pipe. These boxes are augmented by traditional wood boxes set out in past years by Mike McMullen.
The season this year has gone well on our trail of 20 boxes. For the first time in memory, our boxes have escaped predation by raccoons and snakes. Every box has a nest and more than 40 bluebirds had fledged by late May.
Unfortunately, at least 12 dead tree swallows were found in CONWR boxes in April and early May, a pattern similar to what happened last year. Theories include West Nile Virus brought north in migration, competition for boxes, effects of pollution, and cool, wet spring weather.
--Laraine Wright and Jerry O'Malley
For the past several years SIAS has been using Commemorative stamps as postage on our newsletters. I'm writing to ask (and encourage) members and friends to donate the stamps from their newsletters to the Illinois Audubon Society's "Stamps for Wildlife" project. Before you dispose of your old newsletters, please clip off the stamps and put them aside until the next SIAS meeting you attend. Bring them along and deposit them in a container that I will provide. They will be forwarded on to Vern Kleen, Project Coordinator.
Also, please collect any Commemorative stamps you might receive on other mail at your home and work place. If you're not sure whether a stamp is worth collecting, save it. I usually sort through those I gather before sending them to Vern.
Remember to allow at least 1/4 of an inch around the stamp when clipping them off newsletters, envelopes, etc. Any postcards you might receive through the mail, no matter what type of stamp, are also accepted so don't remove the stamp, just bring the whole card. New (unused) postcards are accepted. too.
Thanks in advance for your efforts! -Rhonda R.
The State of IL is taking public comment on a proposed Interstate 66 through southernmost Illinois. Although IDOT reps state they have made no choices of a route, they do say the proposed I-66 would enter IL at Paducah KY and exit IL at Cape Girardeau MO.
Politicians and development-oriented folks are touting I-66 as an economical windfall for the area. To others it appears most wasteful in a time of state budget shortfalls and layoffs. Environmentally, it could be devastating, a major setback coming at a time when advances are finally being made in the conservation and restoration of the Cache River Watershed, area wetlands ,and the Shawnee forest. It also seems economically shortsided in lieu of current difficulties small town downtown businesses are having.
Small towns in the southernmost region could end up as ghost towns if locals and travelers are rerouted around them. We need only to look at Carbondale's new IL Rt. 51 South to see what happens to established businesses in the wake of a by-pass. On 06/19, The Daily Egyptian reported that some businesses along Old Rt. 51 south of Carbondale have had as much as 33% drop in commerce since the new by-pass was completed. Some of these businesses are less than 500 yards from the new by-pass.
Other than Metropolis, a route through southernmost Illinois would incorporate no large cities. And the number of exchanges (on/off ramps) is uncertain other than at I-57. Development along I-57, including that at Marion, is being used as examples of economic growth associated with construction of interstates which seems inappropriate since Marion sits at the intersection of I-57 and Rt. 13 to Carbondale, both towns of substantial size before I-57 was built. I-57 south of Marion to Cairo has been in existence since the mid-1960s and stills has little to no development along it at any other exchanges, nor at its exchange with I-24, another well traveled interstate.
The Missouri Department of Transportation district engineer favors
routing the proposed interstate from Kentucky through southern Illinois
and across the new bridge at Cape Girardeau or possibly the I-57 bridge
at Cairo. Kentucky has several proposed routes that would take I-66
straight through their state into Missouri but would require the
construction of a new bridge over the Mississippi River, at an
estimated cost of $140 million. This cost
would be shared in part by KY and MO.
I-66 was a cross-country highway idea originally proposed in the mid 1980s. A million dollar US Dept. of Transportation feasibility study done in 1991 proved that I-66 did not pass the cost-benefit ratio test. In the 1990s the State of Illinois Administration was not interested in having I-66 run through southernmost Illinois. The former Ryan Administration had no interest in it either.
At the recent I-66 Proposal Open House held at Shawnee College near Ullin, opinions among locals were mixed. An attendee from near E. Cape stated she was for I-66 as long as it didn't go through her back yard. A Metropolis resident stated he was adamantly against I-66 adding he would bring a law suite if the interstate was slated to go through his recently purchased woodland.
SIAS submitted a letter opposing I-66 in the early 1990s and is doing so again now. Comments are being accepted from the general public. Deadline for comment is July 1, 2003! Include the date and your name and address. Mail or drop off yours to: Beth Ponce, Program Development Engineer, IL Dept. of Transportation, 2801 W. Murphysboro Road, Carbondale, IL 62901. Or email your comments to Ms. Ponce at ponceba@nt.dot.state.il.us.
-Rhonda R.
PS Specific questions IDOT requested input on were:
On several occasions this spring my hubby Rob has seen a small group of turkey crossing Hickory Ridge on or by our property. Always it's been 3 adults. Trailing them at last count were 7 chicks (poults?). We've seen turkey with young for several years in a row. It's really comforting to know that the area around us is of such quality to support them. Same goes for red-shouldered hawks, Mississippi kites, worm-eating warblers and wood thrushes that have made Hickory Ridge their homes.
As residents of southern Illinois I think we all appreciate what is around us, the forests, wetlands, lakes and rolling fields. I believe that we with environmental ethics do see the forests for the trees but I fear that there are too many others who do not. In one of his recent columns Les Winkler wrote, "We've reached a sad state when we feel that nature can only be appreciated if you are ripping, roaring or riding through it."
How true.
H. W. Longfellow wrote, "And where the shadows deepest fell, the wood thrush rang his silver bell." We are all aware that wood thrush and many other songbirds are struggling against the onslaught of predation and cowbird parasitism, both reducing breeding success. With interest in motorized thrill crafts (MTC) increasing, songbirds look to have one more obstacle to breeding success and viability, the internal combustion engine. Motorized toys like ATVs tear up habitat and are loud and polluting. With so many of these vehicles buzzing across our lakes and racing through our forests, I wonder if songbirds can even hear each other singing. I must hope they can.
...and where the Shawnee Forest's shadows
deepest fell, the wood thrush rang his silver bell.
But no one will ever hear him again over the ATV's rev and whine and
spin. -Rhonda R.
A fulvous whistling-duck was located by Trevor Hinckley and Mike Brown at Heron Flats, Crab Orchard NWR (CONWR) on 06/20. Mike, CONWR Biologist, and Trevor were conducting wildlife surveys at the time. The duck was seen the next two days by other birders including Arizona SIASer Henry Detwiler who was here in southern Illinois visiting family.
On 06/21, Dan Kassebaum found 2 black-necked stilts in a rice field along Ditch Rd., East Cape Girardeau. Ditch Road intersects IL Rt. 3 at the rest stopnear the Rt. 146 turn-off towards Cape Girardeau and is not far from the new Middle Mississippi River Wetland Field Station
A birder from north of Centralia located a young (first summer) roseate spoonbill in a flooded corn field along IL Rt. 51 just outside Vandalia. Roseate spoonbills have a normal range of from Coastal Texas, southwest Louisiana, and south central Florida down through Central America.
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Fulvous whistling-ducks are most commonly found in fresh and brackish coastal marshes, as well as agricultural fields on the Gulf coast of Texas and Louisiana, in Southern California, and have recently expanded their range to include Hawaii and the Atlantic coast of Florida. They are common vagrants north of their range which is attributed to development of new rice production areas. Feeding primarily on seed and grain but also on insects, snails, and invertebrates, they often forage at night in shallow water, and on land, including ag fields and pastures. Their body is a rich buff color. They have a black strip down the back of their neck and a white rump and undertail coverts.
-Patuxent Wildlife Research Ctr.,
http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bioeco/fwduck.htm
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Many birds are named chiefly for their color or have a color as part of their name. Most of these are the common colors, as in red-winged blackbird and yellow warbler. A few, however, have unusual color names, but only a few of those few are applied to our southern Illinois birds. Among the least unusual names, for example are the ruddy in ruddy duck and the rose in rose-breasted grosbeak. We used to have rufous-sided towhees, but now, alas, they are called eastern towhees, and we also had slate-colored juncos, which have been changed into dark-eyed juncos. Rufous simply means reddish though my dictionary also offers "strong yellow-ish pink to moderate orange" for those who prefer a more carefully shaded definition. A western hummingbird also bears the name rufous as do the rufous-crowned and rufous-winged sparrows, both western birds.
In the spring we sometimes see the chestnut-sided warbler but not the chestnut-collared longspur, which stays farther west. Also, if we're lucky, we see a few bay-breasted warblers, both bay and chestnut being described as reddish brown. If we are especially lucky we might see a cerulean warbler, the color said to be "azure; sky blue." One non-native bird that is sometimes seen here is the olivaceous cormorant, whose olive color, if it exists, is less characteristic than its long tail. In this category is the vagrant cinnamon teal that was seen this spring at the Crab Orchard Refuge, a duck that normally stays far to the west as does the ferruginous hawk, whose rusty overtones give it its name.
Three color-named birds that don't appear in Doug Robinson's book on southern Illinois birds are the sulpher-bellied flycatcher, the vermilion flycatcher, and the roseate spoonbill, so we can assume they haven't been seen here.
I've saved the most unusual color names for last. They appear in the fulvous whistling-duck and the glaucous gull, both of which have been seen here though far out of their normal ranges. (The glaucous-winged gull apparently hasn't show up here.) But what do these words mean? My desk dictionary defines glaucous as "of a pale greenish or bluish green," but since it fails to list fulvous, I had to go to the unabridged dictionary where I found this: "of a dull reddish yellow with a mixture of gray and brown." Both of these definitions struck me as a bit much, especially as they might apply to the gull and the duck. The bird guides are predictably less subtle, one of them calling the glaucous gull simply "chalky" and the duck "tawny." I'll leave it at that.
-David Kvernes
Bev and Jim Shofstall are never short of patience or patients at Free Again. But they can always use supplies and volunteers. With new born fawns, toddler raccoons, fledgling kestrels, full grown barred owls and various others in their charge, Free Again could use pet food, bedding, and cleaning materials as well as the other items listed below.
heating pads paper towels aquariums
baby toys/balls cleaning chemicals food bowls
blankets/sheets/towels can openers water bottles
carpet knives chain link pens
cordless phone trash bags/liners fencing
wood chips hoses cages or carriers
straw and hay wheel barrow sand
mops/brooms/dust pans fresh fish hardware
lumber & landscape timbers monetary donations
Free Again could also use dedicated volunteers. Please phone ahead to schedule your volunteer visit. Bev and Jim can be reached at 988.1067. Deliver donations to 4031 Big Muddy Road, Carterville.
Here's a great bird-feeding tip from Barb and Greg Kupiec, who read about the technique in Birds and Bloom magazine.
Begin with a tall double-hook metal pole (available for
$15 at Rural King). Once you've stuck the pole into the ground,
hang one end of a Slinky over one of the hooks, keeping about 10 loops
together at the top. Then wind the rest of the Slinky down the pole,
going round and round until you get almost to the end. Finally, hang
two bird feeders from the hooks.
The Slinky dangling around the length of the pole will keep squirrels from climbing the pole to the feeders. Of course, you must place the pole far enough away from tree limbs so that squirrels can't jump on the feeders from above.
This system has also worked, in my yard, to keep raccoons from raiding my feeders at night. (Knock wood!)
-- Laraine Wright
"What if, for the space of a year, we no longer waited for the seasons,
what if we embarked on the most fabulous of journeys, what if, abandoning
our towns and our countryside, we went on a tour of the planet?
What if we understood that our borders did not exist, that the earth is a
one and only space and what if we learned to be free as birds?"
-Jacques Perrin, Director, "Winged Migration"
Is it a lie that hummingbirds can turn 360 degrees in mid-air?
-No, it's a spun tale.
What to you get when you cross a goat and an owl?
-A hootenanny!
Southern Illinois Audubon Society P.O. Box 222, Carbondale, IL 62903-0222
Affiliate of the Illinois Environmental Council and the Illinois Audubon Society
(Written on a contantly reused computer! Are you using recycled paper?)
:-)