|
                |
Reported on August 2, 2002
| What's blooming? The showiest flowers are the American lotus still blooming at Blackbird Marsh. Trumpet vine's orange-red flowers attract mostly ants and bumblebees, but an occasional hummingbird visits as well. Along Coal Creek trail, yellow gerardia gets the nickname "butterbuds" because the closed buds look like drops of yellow butter. | ||
 |
 |
 |
Forests and fall foliage report: Some trees will lose most of their leaves when a spell of hot dry weather causes them to go into summer dormancy. Fall webworms will chew up a lot of leaves, too. It is amazing that a good soaking rain is all the trees need to produce new leaves, and still provide a display of autumn color later! Autumn won't arrive until September 22, but some of the vines and shrubs, notably Virginia creeper and sumac, begin showing scarlet leaves as early as August.
 |
The prairie grasses at Oxley Nature Center's Meadowlark Prairie and at Redbud Valley's upland areas have begun to tassel out. The big bluestem is well over six or seven feet tall in many places. |  |
| Butterflies: It's time to start watching for late season butterflies, like Monarchs, Phaon Crescents, Common Checkered-Skippers, and Eufala Skippers. Some butterflies that produce several broods may also become suddenly abundant again. Remember, if you are landscaping to attract wildlife, providing water during hot, dry weather is the most effective thing you can do. Butterflies cannot drink from dishes or deep puddles, but, like bees, they will draw moisture from damp soil or gravel (or wet laundry hung out on the line!) |  |
Other insects and invertebrates: The West Nile Virus is in the news, having reached Tulsa, and so are mosquitoes, because certain species can carry the virus. The North American Butterfly Association has posted a clearly written information page on West Nile virus on their website.
| This is a good time to remember that mosquitoes have many natural enemies, like dragonflies. Another set of allies are spiders, including those little micrathena spiders who spin annoying webs across the trail at nose height during late summer (just look at the tiny carcasses hanging in the web!) Micrathena spiders come in an astonishing variety of shapes and colors. |  |
| Insect songs are an integral part of late summer. The crickets and grasshoppers have been joined by the loudest noisemakers, the cicadas (pronounced "sick kay' dahs") during the day, and katydids at night. Listen carefully: you can tell the species apart by the patterns of the songs and by the time of day they sing. |  |
Now is the time of year that the Nature Center staff gets the most variety of identification puzzles. Not only is summer a rich time for insects and other invertebrates, but there are immature and juvenile forms out crawling, flying, tunnelling, chewing, and coming to our attention. A recent caller gave us a mystery creature to identify; we think she had a dresser drawer full of House Pseudoscorpions. Looking like a TINY spider with scorpion claws attached in front, they feed on clothes moths, carpet beetles, booklice, and even bedbugs. House Pseudoscorpions are very shy and secretive, and are usually found during dry weather, when they go looking for water and become stranded in sinks or bathtubs (or when someone is cleaning out a drawer.)
Herps: Gray treefrogs, Narrow-mouthed toads, and Bullfrogs seem to be the only frogs still calling. We still find American toads and Leopard frogs and other species in our yards and along the trails, but with their breeding seasons over, they are now silent.
 |
 |
| Box turtles are still very active, searching for earthworms and ripe berries, and a good place to dig a hole and leave a clutch of eggs. | Snakes are most often found during the day in cool places, like the pond or a shady forest or a pleasantly shady patio or rock garden. Young black rat snakes have been spotted up in small trees, trying out their climbing skills or searching for birdnests. |
| Birds: The Purple Martins are lined up on the power lines at the corner of Winston Avenue and Mohawk Boulevard, and gather in their evening roost in downtown Tulsa by the tens of thousands. By mid-August most of them will be gone, migrating south for the winter. Shorebird migrations take place during August. We get many different kinds of shorebirds passing through, and a few that will spend the winter here in northeast Oklahoma. |  |
People might notice either more hummingbirds,or hummingbirds for the first time all summer, at their feeders. The young birds are out on their own now, searching for food sources not so heavily used by more aggressive adult birds.
| Mammals: A good-sized beaver dam spans Coal Creek just south of the Warren Bridge. While the dam does not back water up onto trails from this location, it still hampers park drainage and will probably have to be removed. The baby groundhogs rarely have time to play by the feeders outside the Interpretive Building these days. They are hard at work, packing on body fat for the winter. The raccoon children that live near the Interpretive Building are looking scruffy and awkward, as they change from cute little pups to half-grown adults trying to survive all the hazards of growing up and moving out on their own. |  |
Sky: August's New Moon will fall on the 8th, at 2:15 pm, when the moon is between the earth and the sun. Watch the western sky just after sunset: when will be the first evening that you can find the new little crescent moon? The Full Moon is on August 22nd at 5:29 pm. Join us for "A Tour of the Moon" on August 20th ($2, free to Members, to register call 669-6644.) Our first astronomy program of the season, this month's topic will take us on a telescopic tour of our nearest neighbor.
Venus will be at its greatest elongation of the year, 46 degrees east of the sun, on August 21st, meaning it will be at the highest point it will reach in the western sky after sunset. Mercury is at its greatest eastern elongation of the year, 27 degrees east of the sun, on August 31st. Mercury reached 27 degrees west of the sun earlier in the year, but that meant it was at its highest point in the eastern sky before sunrise. You can measure 15 degrees across the sky by making your hand into a "Texas longhorn" shape (with your pinky and index fingers spread far apart and the two middle fingers held down by your thumb) and holding your hand at arm's length. Try finding Venus before the sun sets by measuring 46 degrees east of the sun with your fingers (remember not to look directly at the sun.) You may need binoculars to find Venus against a bright blue sky. Dimmer Mercury will not be visible until after the sky has darkened enough to let its reddish-yellow point appear.