Tale Feathers Newsletter

President's Message 

Bill Rowe

Welcome to our monthly newsletter! Here are notes on a few topics that may be of interest:

Field Trips and Beginner Walks: St. Louis Audubon is heading into its fall season with a full slate of birding Field Trips planned for a variety of destinations all around our area. These are listed on the website at stlouisaudubon.org; just scroll to the bottom of the page that opens up, and you’ll see a series of calendar “tiles” that link you to some brief data about each trip, and allow you to register. We do ask everyone who wants to participate to register there, so that the leaders have a complete list. They need to know how many people will be coming, and since they are given your emails, they can include you in a welcome note with more details about the trip, and in follow-up notes and eBird lists afterwards. Special note: The first trip, this coming Saturday, was originally going to meet at the Dierberg’s on I-70 and proceed up route 79, but that has been changed. We are now meeting at Teal Pond, Riverlands, at 7:30 and heading upriver to the Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge, hoping for better chances on shorebirds. The web site shows the new information.

Equally important are our Beginner Walks, which we lead in collaboration with several partners: Great Rivers Greenway, Forest Park Forever, Tower Grove Park, and the St. Louis County Library. These walks are a great way to get started if you have an interest in birding but haven’t tried it yet, or if you feel you would like more company and perhaps some leadership to improve your skills. They may also simply fit better into a busy schedule, as they are shorter and often closer to home than the Field Trips. And a final plus is that our leaders bring along good loaner binoculars, for your use as needed. You’ll find these walks on the website calendar too.

Strategic Planning: Those who have been members for a while may recall that during the fall and winter of 2018-19 the Board developed a five-year plan for 2019-2024, published in March of 2019. The text of that plan is available on the website, at the bottom of every page. At that time, of course, none of us had any idea that a global pandemic was almost at our doorstep; so our success with the specific goals we stated there has been spotty. I do believe, though, that overall SLAS has managed its way through this period very well and emerged well poised for the next iteration of planning. The Board will soon be settling on a process for revisiting that plan, with the expectation of publishing a revision for the next five years by March 2024.

Leadership Conference: After a hiatus of three years, National Audubon has once more planned a national conference, with emphasis on connecting its affiliate local groups (like us) with its own strategic plan for conservation and education across the Western Hemisphere. Because this sounds valuable, our Executive Director, Amy Weeks, will be attending the conference, held at the beginning of November in Estes Park, Colorado. I am also planning to be there, and other Board members may attend as well.

Volunteering: For most of its history, SLAS ran entirely on the time, energy, and dedication of volunteers. We now have three skilled staff members, but that does not diminish the importance of our scores of volunteers; their time, energy, and dedication remain central to what we do, from BCH site visits to birding trips to Board activities. If you have thought about volunteering, in any capacity, but haven’t yet made the move, please try clicking the “Volunteer” link at the top of every page on the website. If any of the possibilities listed there appeal to you, please hit the “Apply Now” button to get started. We would love to have you on the team.

Ornithological forecast: In terms of bird life, and the rest of nature too, August begins as late summer and ends as early fall. At this moment, the most obvious sign of migration is the presence of shorebirds, which leave their Arctic breeding grounds as fast as they can and begin showing up here in early July; by now they are around in force if you can locate their shallow-water-and-mud habitat. This can happen when a park or a refuge draws down the water level of a wetland for a while, as at the Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge in Calhoun County, IL, where the drawdown of Swan Lake has invited thousands of Pectoral Sandpipers and a variety of other shorebirds to linger and feed. Other water-related birds, especially terns, may be coming through as well, and herons and egrets may be here in their peak numbers, again depending on habitat. By mid-August, we may see some early-migrating passerines—certain flycatchers, for instance—and this will accelerate by the end of the month to include warblers, vireos, thrushes, etc. Meanwhile, the resident nesting birds have mostly fledged their young, and the level of singing has gone down—although this varies a lot by species, and some birds such as Indigo Buntings and vireos are still performing well and may continue into September. One surprise rarity, the Limpkin, has gone from zero to twenty-plus records in Missouri in a little over a year, and two of the most recent ones have just occurred here in the St. Louis area and may still be present, one at Simpson Lake in St. Louis County and one at Busch Conservation Area. This peculiar water bird could show up anytime, anywhere, in the vegetation around a lake or creek; so be sure you know what it looks like!

Photo above: Limpkin; Check out the Bird of the Week when we featured the Limpkin.

For those with warm-season buffalo grass lawns, this is your time to shine! By August, we are transitioning to late summer blooms. Many silphiums such as prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) and compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) are on full display, it is easy to spot their tall distinctive stalks full of large yellow flowers while driving down the highway.

If you are lucky, you may see hummingbirds zooming around your garden, especially from those red and orange blooms such as cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) and coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). Remember to keep an eye on new plantings and help them along with supplemental waterings if needed while they establish root systems.

Laura Arthur

Charlie Pitts

Large scale commercial greenhouses often treat their plants with neonicotinoids and other pesticides during the growing process. Some of these pesticides are permanently incorporated in the plants and remain potent throughout the plant's life. Sadly these poisons are also found in the plants' nectar and pollen. When the poisoned pollen and nectar are collected or eaten, death of the insect is almost certain. Xerces Society has produced an informative pamphlet on the subject.

A new US Senate bill (S.2199) was introduced by Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley to require the Department of Agriculture to create a certification program for plant producers in order to certify that their plants are not treated with pesticides harmful to monarchs and other pollinators. According to Xerces Society, "under the pollinator-friendly plant labeling program, plants must be native to the United States and must not have been grown using pesticides or substances that are not approved for use in organically grown products. Producers who choose to participate in the program would be able to use a “USDA pollinator-friendly” label on their plants and products." [https://xerces.org/press/new-legislation-would-establish-usda-label-for-pollinator-safe-plants]. 

Senate bill 2166 is co-sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Peter Welch (D-VT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). According to Congress.gov, the bill has been read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. Please consider telling your Senators and Congress that you support S.2199.

Check out St. Louis Audubon's features in the MoBCI July newsletter-

September 9 - Beginner Bird Walk - Mississippi Greenway