the

prairie
Dec. 17
Manhattan
Christmas

falcon
Bird Census

VOL. 34, NO.3

DEC 2005
NORTHERN FLINT HILLS AUDUBON SOCIETY, P.O. BOX 1932, MANHATTAN, KS 66505-1932
INSIDE
2 HUNTING SEASON
3 SEASON OF CEDAR
4 SKYLIGHT
Christmas Bird Census 5 THE BRIDGE IS IN
“Tradition” 6 MANHATTAN CBC MAP
6 WONDER WORKSHIP
7 TAKE NOTE
In December, it’s a tree, lights, presents, giving, family
and for many of us the Annual Christmas Bird Census. The CONTRIBUTORS:
DRU CLARKE
Manhattan area CBC is Dec. 17th this year. It’s a great
PETE COHEN
opportunity for the “new” birdwatcher, to introduce someone THOMAS MORGAN
to birdwatching, or just improve your birding skills and have a RICHARD PITTS
LOT of FUN. JUDY ROE
Also, don’t forget the Compilation “Chili Supper.” Carla
Bishop is the coordinator (and does some cooking!) she could UPCOMING
always use some help, so please contact her at 539-5129. DA TES:
DATES:
Check other area CBC dates by visiting KSBIRDS Dec10 Beginning Birding
website at http://ksbirds.org There you will find the most meet at Ackert/
Durland parking lot,
complete list for Kansas. One CBC just isn’t enough! KSU 8a.m. - 11 a.m.
Join in the “Tradition.” Dec 3 PICKUP Birdseed
Sale 9a.m. -12n
UFM 1221 Thurston,
(map and group leaders on page 7) Manhattan, KS
Dec 3 Celebrate the Tall
Grass Prairie
McDowell Creek
Community Center
Field Trip Dec 16 Olsburg CBC
(contact Gary Jeffrey
BEGINNING BIRDWATCHING WALK 785-468-3587)
Dec 17 Manhattan
Join us Saturday, Dec. 10th and every second Saturday at 8 a.m. in the Christmas Bird
Ackert/Durland parking lot on the KSU campus. We will carpool to a Census
local birding hotspot and should return by about 11 a.m. Birders of PRINTED BY
every age and interest level are welcomed. Children are especially CLAFLIN BOOKS & COPIES
encouraged to attend. Dave Rintoul will lead this month. MANHATTAN, KS
 HUNTING SEASON
dru clarke
Some of you may remember
“Stalking the Wild Asparagus’
by Euell Gibbons: That guide
to sleuthing for untamed
edibles has led me far afield,
and while I never had the
gustatory pleasure of the titled
veggie, I did acquire a taste for
and lifelong pleasure in finding
certain mycological wonders.
These ‘fun guys’ seem to turn
up everywhere.
One adolescent summer spent as a mother’s
helper in Princeton (N.J.) I had time to explore the
nearby woods and found Pleurotus ostreatus, delicately
gilled, translucent layered caps of mushrooms that
grew like oysters in an eye-high tree trunk bed. The
father of the household was particularly pleased
when I fried up a platter of them for supper. (The
kids in my charge were less thrilled.) Luckily I had
discovered the ants and various other squatters who
inhabited the gills before the fry, and a cold soak sent
them hightailing in search of alternate digs.
The summer of 1971, when I was supposed
to be in Guadalajara studying, I was
laid low by mononucleosis, and spent
two warm months recuperating at my
childhood summer home, then my
mother’s permanent residence. Armed
with an unruled composition book,
pencils, and oil pastels, I took daily
walks on the thirteen wooded acres,
scaring up box turtles (one of whom I
caught in the act of munching on a
mushroom), chipmunks, copperheads
and a host of fungi. The fungi were
stationary, hence much simpler to
visually capture, and my book filled with their diverse
forms. That summer I sketched and identified about
40 species, whose colors - vivid pinks, coral reds,
velvet browns, and lurid purples as well as the
expected ivories and alabaster whites – and shapes –
slender, fat, round, long, layered like shelves, and
Dec 2005 pg. 2
squat - live today on the
pages of that long –
forgotten sketch book.
Here in Kansas, we
hunt morels in spring, but
more often encounter
witch’s butter, a jelly-like
lemon yellow fungus that squeezes out from bark like
spread from bread. Tree ears, another jelly, really do
appear to be listening as we seek the elusive Morchella.
We have gotten more joy and satisfaction, however,
from finding a field of Lycoperdales (puffballs), Calvatia
and Lycoperdon sp., in various stages of growth. Caught
in the fleshy state, they can be sliced like a loaf of
bread and fried up like steak. The name, Lycoperdon,
means “wolf flatulence,” referring, I assume, to the
smoking spores that puff out when a ripe ball is
squarely kicked. As for aroma, I remember it as
somewhat pleasant (sort of like decaying oak leaves),
and not at all repugnant.
The Lycoperdales include the wondrous
earthstars. (Earthstars can be differentiated from
puffballs by their darker, purplish-brown flesh.)
Geastrum saccatum, the common earthstar, I have found
in all of its stages under our Eastern
Red Cedar windbreak, which forms a
natural corral in our north pasture.
Only about a half a centimeter wide, it
pokes through the litter, then splits its
outer skin, opening in a star-like
pattern to reveal the spore-bearing
capsule. Some rays of the skin are
hygroscopic, folding in and out in
response to changing moisture. These
earthstars are thought to enrich poor
soils through mycorrhizal association
with the roots of the trees. I have never
found them in rich woods, so are a joy to discover in
otherwise barren places.
All of this reminiscing on the pleasures of
hunting has worked up my appetite. Before autumn
has fled and a killing frost has made my quarry go
dormant, I’d better head out to my favorite hunting
grounds. (No license necessary!)
©10/31/05, Dru Clarke
 THE SEASON OF CEDAR
tom morgan

“Beautiful in itself, with a magnificent flared base tapering suddenly to a tall straight trunk wrapped in reddish brown bark,
like a great coat of gentle fur, gracefully sweeping boughs, soft feathery fronds of grey green needles.”
From “Out of the Silence” by Bill Reid (1971).

The late artist, Bill Reid, helped restore the dignity of
Native American art forms such as the carving of
western red cedar. Judging by his words, he loved
cedar and loved to carve its wood which was “...
beautiful in color, reddish brown when new, silvery
grey when old.”
This cedar, Thuja plicata, is unrelated to
eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, which is more
familiar to the residents of eastern Kansas. Western
red cedar occurs from the Pacific Ocean to Montana,
from Alaska to California. It grows in my yard in
eastern Kansas, although it is certainly out of its
native range here. Last fall, I planted two trees which
are known as arborvitae, the tree of life. The tree I
call the “honeymooner” (the one I planted
immediately after our honeymoon) is a northern
white cedar, Thuja occidentalis (which I’ve written
about in an earlier column). I planted the other one
(Thuja plicata), in a partially shaded, sheltered area
that it loves. It is becoming a tree of great beauty
with soft sprays of aromatic needles.
The foliage is harvested for decorative
wreaths and garlands. Wonderful perfumes are also
made from oil that is extracted from the foliage. But I
would rather plant this tree and live companionably
in its presence, occasionally sniffing its aroma. Such a
tree may live a thousand years. Although marbled
murrelets don’t actually build nests, they will sit on
their eggs on mossy depressions on cedar branches.
Oh, such a location - ensconced in the bark of an
ancient branch like “a great coat of gentle fur.”
The wood of western red cedar is valuable in
part because of high durability. And yet a succession
of invading fungi can overcome its defenses against
decay, and hollow trees can be common. A tree in
Magic Grove (of Stoltmann Wilderness in British
Columbia) had a small opening which led into a
hollow that was large enough to hold ten people and
had been used by bears. This tree only exists as wood
products now. There are respectful ways to harvest
and utilize arborvitae. The wholesale harvest of old
growth arborvitae is unjustifiable.
During the last five thousand years, much of
the northwest coast has been well suited for this tree
with dry summers (which it tolerates) and wet winters
(with ample sunlight for this shade-adapted evergreen
tree). During these several millennia, this tree
encouraged a non-agriculturally based civilization,
providing wood and fiber which served as the
foundation for the culture of Native Americans on
the northwest coast.
As I gaze out at my tree in my yard in Kansas,
the touchably soft tree nourishes the imagination.
© 2005 Thomas Morgan

MANY THANKS!
Many thanks to Tom and M.J. Morgan for helping with the Michel-Ross Audubon Nature Preserve
cleanup on November 5th. Amazingly, the area was pretty clean to start with; we had only a bag and a
half of trash to show for our efforts. Thanks, too, to Kent and Pat Yeager for the use of their truck!
Jan Garton

Dec 2005 pg. 3

 SKYLIGHT
pete cohen
One of the great achievements of life on
earth, at least by human kind, has been the naming
and classifying of things and experiences. Earlier this
year I spent a couple columns telling how in 1802,
Luke Howard resolved an ages-old difficulty of
studying the clouds by providing functional
classifications and consonant names, and was
celebrated for his ingeniousness. By contrast the task
of giving “handles” to items further out in the sky
has only gotten more difficult. Originally there were
only the fixed stars and five wandering planets, and
once one was accustomed to the wonder of their
being there, each could be identified simply by the
few characteristics that the patient naked eye could
observe. There was only those specks of light, and
some of their arrangements, to name. And various
cultures were so separated in distance and time that
they could apply whatever names they wished.
Now, increasingly, technology has brought
about the need for agreement on myriad names. Mars,
for example, is no longer merely Mars no more than is
your neighbor a mere silhouette of existence, brighter
or dimmer as the case may be.
A recent syndicated Los Angeles Times article
by Jia-Rui Chong makes the Mars example an
interesting one. Chong wrote that ancient Egyptians
referred to it as “Hardecher,” the “Red One;” to the
Babylonians it was “Nergal,” the “Star of Death.”
Though no reason for such an association is given,
what comes to mind is red being the color of spilled
blood and Mars gets to be the brightest of the
celestial reds. Ray Williamson’s “Living the Sky; the
Cosmos of the American Indian” (Univ. of
Oklahoma Press, 1987) reports that certain sacrificial
rituals of the Skidi Pawnee were guided by what they
named the (red) “Morning Star” whose appearance at
that (reddish) time of day they regarded as
significant. And to the Romans the god of war was
“Mars”. Modern technology has confirmed Mars’
redness (some moderns say it’s reddish tan), without
finding any evidence of human violence. From their
telescopes in the 1870s, Giovanni Schiaparelli and
Eugene Antoniadi devised 100 names for the ice
caps, continents, channels, and other features they
perceived there. Modern equipment has provided the
Dec 2005 pg. 4
need for over 4000 designations for notable hills,
significant pebbles, etc.
Chong reported that in satisfying the
International Astronomical Union, which now has the
say in such matters, scientists, having used up
classical references, began naming large craters after
deceased relevant scientists and lay writers like H.G.
Wells; small craters after towns of less than 100,000
population. Such guidelines arose not from
forethought, but out of necessity to help diminish
conflicts over suggestions, and to ease the endless-
seeming strain of picking names out of the blue, or in
this case, the red. The article informs that one early-
found crater is now known as “Sleepy Hollow”
because it was named after many long hours of
investigation. And following a hunger-driven freezer
raid, an area of chunky pebbles was named “Cookies
N Cream,” and a light-colored soil patch became
“Vanilla.”
A reference librarian recently told me that
modern technology has greatly reduced the number
of steps he takes daily about his library and that he
suspects that the overall weight of librarians is likely
on the increase. Think what might happen to the
girths of astronomers if all the objects they referred
to were referred to in such mouth-watering ways.
Mars will keep being mouth-wateringly
brilliant through most of each night, serving as a
marker for one of the more modest figures of the
zodiac, Aries, whose three stars, like a short bent
arrow, will be about a fist width above it. Venus will
be setting gleamingly westward a short time in the
evening dusk, as it moves from Sagittarius into
Capricorn, and be at its brightest on the 9th. Jupiter
will be reappearing a little earlier each night, starting
a little before 5 a.m. as it moves into Libra, with
Mercury, best seen on the 12th, to its left. Much
nearer on the horizon Saturn rises noticeably about
9p30 December 1st, and a little earlier and brighter
thereafter. The gems of the Geminid meteor shower,
on the night of the 13th -14th, will have to compete
against light from the nearly full Moon. Full is 11a15
the 15th, between two new Moons, December 1st,
10a01 and the 31st, 10p12.
© 2005 Peter Zachary Cohen
 The Bridge is IN!

A Bridge to the Prairie

(Judy Roe Nov. 6, 2005)

A ship of grass in an urban sea,

We celebrate our restored prairie.
Although not quite as far as the eye can see,
The grass is taller than a coyo-tee.
A ship of grass that gives us hope,
Nature, at least here, is afloat.

Impromptu bridge celebration at

Northeast Park
(Nov. 6, 2005)

MJ Morgan read “Upon Westminster

Bridge” by William Wordsworth
(1802), Judy Roe read her poem
“Dedication to a Bridge,” and Tom
Morgan and Steve Pfister joined in
celebrating the completion of the
suspension bridge connecting the
southwest corner of Audubon’s restored prairie at Northeast Park with the
Linear Trail. The magnificent bridge was built by Westar Energy’s Green
Team. You really must check it out! We look forward to more celebrations in
the spring as the prairie kiosks are finished and the prairie plants bloom again.
We thank everyone who has been involved with this project. It is really
coming together, and there are some interesting birds out there too.
Judy Roe
Tom Morgan, MJ Morgan, &
Steve Pfister

Dec 2005 pg. 5

 WONDER WORKSHOP

The Wonder Workshop partnered with the Northern

Flint hills Audubon Society starting in 2004 to offer weekend
and summer campouts for students of all ages. This fall we
had a weekend campout at our cabins near Randolph.
The pictures you see in the newsletter are students
involved in our weekend campouts this fall of 2005. As part
of that weekend we took a four-mile hike through woods to
the beach. Kids always complain but everyone makes it to the
end. We used the binoculars provided by the NFHAS and
learned how to use them.
The Wonder Workshop would again like to thank the
Flint Hills Audubon Society, and especially Madonna
Stallmann and Judy Roe for all of their involvement and
support in helping to bring nature programming to our youth.

Richard Pitts
Wonder Workshop
785-776-1234
www.wonderworkshop.org
wonder@kansas.net

Dec 2005 pg. 6

 TAKE NOTE

On Oct. 26, 2005, Judy Roe and Cindy Jeffrey took

binoculars, bird books, bird songs (CD), pictures and signs ...
and spent the day with First graders through Eighth Graders.
(Not all at once!) We were only one part of a myriad of
activities as part of their “Alternative to Drugs” program.
Tom Watkins contacted the Audubon of Kansas requesting
someone come and present “Birdwatching.” Judy and Cindy
gave it their all, not really knowing what to expect, but it truned
out to be a GREAT
experience.

Mission Valley School

Eskridge, KS
Tom Watkins, Judy Roe &
Cindy Jeffrey having a
quick lunch!

MANHATTAN CHRISTMAS BIRD CENSUS

Audubon’s 106th Annual Christmas Bird Census to
Take Place December 14, 2005 - January 5, 2006
During the 106th CBC, approximately 55,000
volunteers of all skill levels are expected to take part
in this census of birds.

(Warm-up for Manhattan Count with the Olsburg

Count on Friday, Dec. 16th.)

Group Leaders; Phone (day); evenings

Dave Rintoul; 532-0104; 537-0781
Clyde Ferguson; 539-4856
Chris Smith; 539-6918
Hoogy Hoogheem; 539-7080
Doris Burnett; 537-2502
Brett Sandercock; 532-0120

The Christmas Bird Census supper will begin at 6:00 p.m. on Dec. 17th at the
Seniors Service Center, 412 Leavenworth, Manhattan. Chili, drinks, and tableware
are will be provided. Everyone is welcome and may bring a dish to share with the
group. If you would like to help with the chili supper call Carla Bishop, 539-5129
Dec 2005 pg. 7
 Northern Flint Hills Non-profit Organization
Audubon Society U.S. Postage Paid
P.O. Box 1932 Printed on 100% post- Permit No. 662
Manhattan, KS consumer recycled Manhattan, KS 66502
paper
66505-1932

Return Service Requested

Published monthly (except August) by the Northern Flint Hills Audubon Society, a chapter of the National Audubon Society
Edited by Cindy Jeffrey, 15850 Galilee Rd., Olsburg, KS 66520 (cinraney@ksu.edu)
Also available on the World Wide Web at the URL http://www.ksu.edu/audubon/falcon.html

Subscription Information: NFHAS Board

Introductory memberships - $20 per year; then basic mem- President: Judy Roe 539-5519
bership is $35 annually. When you join the Northern Flint Hills Vice President: Cindy Jeffrey 468-3587
Audubon Society, you automatically become a member of the Na- Secretary
tional Audubon Society and receive the bimonthly Audubon maga- Treasurer: Jan Garton 539-3004
zine in addition to the PRAIRIE FALCON. New membership applica-
COMMITTEE CHAIRS
tions may be sent to NFHAS at the address below; make checks
payable to the National Audubon Society. Membership Renewals are Membership: Carla Bishop 539-5129
handled by the National Audubon Society and should not be sent to Program:
NFHAS. Questions about membership? Call toll-free, 1-800-274- Conservation:
Northeast Park Jacque Staats
4201, or email the National Audubon Society join@audubon.org.
Education: Madonna Stallmann
If you do not want to receive the national magazine, but Richard Pitts
still want to be involved in our local activities, you may subscribe to Fieldtrips: Patricia Yeager 776-9593
the PRAIRIE FALCON newsletter for $15 per year. Make checks payable Land Preservation: Jan Garton 539-3004
to the Northern Flint Hills Audubon Society, and mail to: Public Outreach: Dolly Gudder 537-4102
Treasurer, NFHAS, P.O. Box 1932, Manhattan KS 66505-1932. Newsletter: Cindy Jeffrey 468-3587
At-Large Board Members: John Tatarko, Ingrid Neitfeld,
Paul Weidhaas
RARE BIRD HOTLINE: For information on Kansas Birds,
subscribe to the Kansas Bird Listserve. Send this message
Audubon of Kansas Trustee: Hoogy Hoogheem
<subscribe KSBIRD-L> to this address <listserv@ksu.edu>
and join in the discussions!
Addresses & Phone numbers of Your Elected Representatives (anytime) Write - or call 
Governor Kathleen Sebelius: 2nd Floor, State Capitol Bldg., Topeka KS 66612. Kansas Senator or Representative _______: State Capitol Bldg., Topeka
KS 66612, Ph.# (during session only) - Senate: 785-296-7300, House: 785-296-7500. Senator Roberts http://roberts.senate.gov or Brownback: US Senate,
Washington DC 20510. Representative ________: US House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515. U.S. Capitol Switchboard : 202-224-3121.
President G.W. Bush, The White House, Washington DC 20500. Information about progress of a particular piece of legislation can be obtained by
calling the following numbers: In Topeka - 800-432-3924; in Washington - 202-225-1772. Audubon Action Line - 800-659-2622, or get the latest on
WWW at http://www.audubon.org/campaign/aa/ To find out who represents you go to: www.capitolconnect.com/audubon/mylegis