A-oooooo, Where wolves in Yellowstone?

Back in 2005, I wrote a tune called “A Deer In My Cadillac” about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone Park (join my mail list and get it free in 11/2012!). This effort was, to say the least, controversial.  How would you feel if someone released a couple packs of large predators into a park near you?  On the other side of the issue, if wolves can’t live in Yellowstone where can they live? In the end, pro-wolf forces prevailed and, in the winters of 1995 and 1996, a total of 66 wolves left tracks in the Yellowstone snows that hadn't been seen in decades.

 Why did they disappear in the first place? The early 1900s saw deer and many other “game” animals in steep declines due to unregulated hunting.  Wildlife officials decided that controlling predators was part of the solution and promoted indiscriminate hunting of wolves until 1926. Some unknown time thereafter, the last Yellowstone wolf disappeared. 

In the wolves’ absence, elk populations exploded and, being especially fond of the tender shoots of aspen,willow and cottonwood trees, elk grazed upon them to the point that these forests were failing to regenerate.  

For scientists, reintroducing wolves was about much more than the thrill of seeing a dominant predator surveying  its kingdom again. They hoped the predators would restore balance to the Yellowstone ecosystem and foster the return of other species that had declined or disappeared in the wake of the ravenous elk. 

Within ten years, scientists were noting signs of recovery in aspen forests and the wildlife they support. With the return of cottonwoods and willows, the slap of a beaver’s tail, once nearly unheard in the park's 3742 square miles, echoes again with renewed vigor and frequency.

In  a 2010 study, however, scientists found that, despite the fact that wolves had reduced elk populations by dramatically, elk were still gobbling up aspen shoots and preventing forest regeneration.  A greater population of wolves would be required, they felt, to bring the restoration so many had hoped for.

Unfortunately, wolves are now battling microscopic nemeses in addition to local ranchers: parvovirus, canine distemper, mange and more. Their population, once up to 170, has dropped to  about 100.    

The story of Yellowstone continues to unfold and wildlife managers are now working tirelessly to make sure that wolves are a part of it. Scientists, for their part, are documenting the cascade of effects that ripple through the Yellowstone ecosystems that will inform other efforts to reintroduce top predators.  

With continued time and support I, for one, hope that Yellowstone can support wolves, aspen, beavers, eagles, foxes and all the other species that have called it home for countless years.

Bats? I say "Yahoo!" not "Boo!"

Photo by John Abbott, used by permission

Halloween makes me shudder but it’s not the goblins, ghosts, and zombies thumping on my door. It’s the rubber bats on elastic strings with painted-red mouths agape and fangs bared.

The singing zoologist afraid of bats? Nope. It’s that I can’t stand the way SOME people use images of bats to creep folks out! In an effort to counter the season's bad bat PR, here are some bat FACTS  that might change your perspective. 

Bat fact #1: Bats are the second largest group of mammals. Of the 5,700 mammalian species, about 1,240 of them are bats--nearly 22%!  Rodents are the biggest group with nearly 2,300 species.

Bat fact #2: A bat’s wing amounts to a webbed hand with super-long finger bones.  Many bats can manuever better than birds and have specialized sensory cells in their wings that can feel when they’ve trapped an insect. 

Bat fact #3: Bats are divided into the fruit bats (usually bigger) and insectivorous bats (usually smaller). We have mostly the latter in the US but we do have some fruit bats in the deserts of the southwest.

Bat fact # 4: Fruits bats are thought to be primary pollinators and seed distributors in many tropical rainforests.  If we lose fruit bats, we’ll lose huge numbers of rainforest trees and other plants!

Bat fact # 5: The large flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus), from southeast Asie, boasts the greatest wingspan: nearly 5 feet!

Bat fact #6: San Antonio, Texas, is home to the world’s largest colony of bats: up to twenty million in the summer!  That’s also thought to be the largest colony of mammals anywhere in the world! While more famous, Austin’s Congress Avenue bats number “only” about one and a half-million. They're the largest urban colony of bats. 

Bat fact #7: Some bats can eat more than their own weight in bugs each night. Thus, the mass of bugs those 20 million bats in San Antonio consume would be equivalent to the weight of 93 elephants. Thanks, bats!

Bat fact #8: bats are NOT blind. Many do, however, depend primarily on their hearing to find their ways through the dark. Note, however, that most fruit bats do not echolocate; hence those big-eyed, fox-like faces. 

Bat fact #9: Bats will NOT get caught in your hair. Insectivorous bats navigate by echolocation and the system is so precise that they can easily detect even the poofiest of hairdos.  When a bat flies close to me I like to assume that it’s snagging a bug that was about to feast on ME!

Bat fact #10: You should NEVER handle a bat. Rabies is truly scary and bats, like all mammals, can carry the virus. Skunks and racoons actually carry the virus and transmit it to us more commonly than bats but, still, there’s a risk.

I once had a student show me a bat that they had found on the ground, put in a shoebox and passed around their kindergarten class! Fortunately, no one was harmed but, my goodness, this shows the importance of educating folks about wildlife!

Ready to host a monarch?

I saw a few monarch butterflies on the move this weekend so it seems their southern migrations have begun. Monarchs east of the Rockies head to forested mountains in south central Mexico and those west of the Rockies journey to a number of locations along the California coast. The monarchs that start in eastern Canada migrate nearly 3000 miles--pretty amazing for an animal with a brain the size of a pinhead!

A tagged monarch--hope it gets found!

With this year’s record-breaking heat and dry conditions across much of North America, monarch watchers will be taking a keen interest in their population. While it’s always tempting to make your judgment based on your individual experience (“I saw a lot fewer monarchs in my garden this year”), collecting hard numbers from a large number of people across their range is much more helpful. This is the way science works and monarch specialists invite everyone into the process!

In one of the world’s biggest “citizen science” initiatives, scientists,students and monarch enthusiasts of all ilks have been counting and tagging monarch butterflies for decades now. Want to get involved? JourneyNorth.org is a phenomenal monarch resource and provides lots of monarch information, the latest findings, and ways to report the monarchs you've seen. They even have an app to make submitting your sightings as easy (and COOL) as possible!  

Ready for the next step? Order monarch tags from another great site, www.monarchwatch.org. “How does one tag a butterfly?” you ask. First, catch a butterfly (HINT:nets come in very handy) and then put the little tag, which is basically a round sticker, on the butterfly’s hind wing (in about the middle). While you need to get your catching and handling skills down, it’s pretty much as simple as that.

I know what you’re wondering: “Doesn’t it slow them down or make them fly in circles?” Scientists love monarchs at least as much as you do and they’ve made sure that the little sticker doesn’t harm or slow the insects down. As long as you handle your little insect friend gently they’ll be just fine. 

Children as young as four year olds are known to participate. As a matter of fact, they say that children’s little digits may better suited to the task than big, grown-up fingers. Something like 2,000 schools and 100,000 children participate in this effort every year but the more the merrier.

Fewer than 1 in a thousand tagged monarchs are recovered so finding one is like winning a science lottery. If you’re the lucky one, make sure you contact the scientists with the date, location, weather conditions and any other information you think is important or interesting.

One more easy way to help is to create a “monarch way station,” a collection of plants the monarchs need during their life cycle. Native flowers will provide them with nectar, the sugary fuel adults need to energize their flights and some milkweed plants where mamas can lay their eggs. I hear mixed things about what they’re SUPPOSED to do in the fall but I have personally seen a lot of eggs left on my milkweeds in the fall so I say go ahead and put some out for them!

I know we’re all looking forward to the cool fall days ahead after the summer heat so get out there and look for those monarchs. If you’d like to try your hand at tagging them with me, I’m at Balcones Canyonlands Nat’l Wildlife Refuge between Austin and Marble Falls on October 13. I’ll play some tunes and help folks catch and tag monarchs. Come on out!

Workshop on curriculum-based stories

Tomorrow I present at Tejas Storytelling Association's state conference at St. Edward's University in Austin.  My topic is creating stories (and songs) that tie in directly with school curricula and I'm posting a few links here for the attendees and anyone else who might stumble across this. 

First of all, for a good idea of what's required to be in Texas school curricula visit: Tx Education Agency's site and scroll down to find a list of of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills by Chapter.  There you can see a list of the different required disciplines and open each one to see the items required by grade.  I opened the science chapter as an MS Word document and just DELETED the ones I didn't feel like my programs fulfilled.  That, obviously, left me with an impressive list of what my programs DID fulfill that I could post on my website and send to principals, librarians, etc.  Educators LOVE this. 

Next, review a list of storytellers and kids' musicians on the Texas Commission on the Arts' Touring Artist Roster.  See if you notice any openings in disciplines that you might be able to fill.  There are many folks who specialize in tales and tunes from various cultures (Hispanic, Native American, African American, old west/Texas are well represented) and I know there are many stories that focus on communicating morals or ethics.  It's a big world with a lot to learn.  Stories are probably the BEST teaching tool out there so see what you can think up...

Bluebonnets revisited

One last look at bluebonnets for the year.  My neighbor had a nice stand in their yard now they look like this:

Not such a pretty backdrop for a photo anymore, huh?  The pods, green and tender when we last viewed them are now dried out and opening.  I haven't witnessed it yet but, apparently, the seeds actually pop out. 

I got a good shot of a pod that was beginning to open:

And another of a pod that had opened but one seed, apparently didn't get "ejected."

The parent plants are dying and the seeds will nestle down in the soil.  If the weather's right, they will germinate late in the fall and grow over the winter.  They'll really grow tall in the spring and, hopefully, we'll have another great bluebonnet show next spring.  This year has been great.  Lots of other beautiful flowers out there now to enjoy.  Texas springtime is something special isn't it?

 

Looking REALLY closely at a bluebonnet

I've been talking (and singing) about bluebonnets quite a bit this spring.  I'm trying to learn as much about them as I can so I dissected a couple florets and a bluebonnet pea pod today.  Let's take a closer look, shall we? 

A single bluebonnet has many, individual "florets" like this one

This is called a floret and a single bluebonnet is made of many of these arranged in "stacks.    Some flowers are laid out in a circle (such as a dandilion) but bluebonnets have petals of very different shapes and functions. 

You'll see, at left, the petal with the white spot called the banner. It looks like two petals but it's really just one with a crease through the middle. A white spot on the banner means the pollen is new; it turns magenta/purple after a few days to discourage bees from visiting this floret which has probably already been pollinated. 

Below the banner petal are two petals clasped together to make a sort of cup.  These are called the "wings" and, inside, is the "keel," the black structure you see protruding in the picture to the right.  Normally a bee lands here and will use her weight and rear legs to push open the wing petals.  You can pull it down yourself the next time you see a bluebonnet!  Do it gently and you won't hurt it.

There will be some orange pollen at the tip of the keel (you can see a tiny bit in the photo).  As far as I know, bluebonnets do not make nectar--bees only get pollen from bluebonnets (pollen's the primary source of protein for growing larvae back in the hive). 

The keel is actually made of two flower petals that make a sheath for the stamens (which produce the pollent) and pistil (which receives the pollen and creates the seeds).

Keel petals, in background, pulled aside to reveal pistil & stamens 

At left, you can see what's inside the keel.  Lots of orange pollen.  It's produced by the anthers which are on the ends of stem-like filaments (anther + filament = stamen).

The white thing protruding out somewhat further is the pistil.  The stigma is the little bulb at the end--once the pollen gets there, the flower has been officially pollinated and seeds can begin to grow!

Pistil, isolated.  The stigma at the tip, the "stalk" is properly called the style, and the thickness at the right is the ovary, which is where the seeds will develop.

It's early May and most of the bluebonnets are now producing seeds inside little pods--yep, bluebonnets are  in the same plant family as peas. 

I looked inside one of these, too, and here's what I saw: 

Those are seeds inside, of course (I think the knife I was using cut the edges of the seeds inside).  The outer layer is the covering and the part that will actually sprout is within.  Layer upon layer upon layer!

 

I squeezed the outer covering and the actual seed came out!

The seed within--looks like a cartoon quote bubble, no?

More changes to come.  I'll be keeping an eye on the bluebonnets in my neighborhood and showing you the changes in the pods and seeds.  Stay tuned!!

My take on the world of children's publishing

Last week I exhibited at TLA (Texas Library Association conference) for something like my 11th time. This is the largest single library conference in the nation and it has been key to getting my performance career started and keeping my schedule full.

I’ve always been, essentially, an “indie artist” but, over the last couple of years, I’ve felt like I could benefit from some promotional help from a publisher. I’ve built a successful career as a performer but I feel like I need to find a significant alternative to getting my books, CD’s and DVD into the world beside just doing 500 shows a year (that’s not hyperbole).

One publisher, in particular, seems like a good fit to me. I won’t name them here but they are a small publisher that does children’s picture books, most of which tell scientifically-oriented stories. The books conclude with educational tidbits and activities. With my career in science education and heavy author visit schedule, I would think that doing a book with me would be a no-brainer; it’s certainly no-risk.

I submitted one of my most popular pieces, “The Chimichanga Song,” through their online submissions process but I got a quick reply that they will have nothing to do with a song. I spoke with one of the founders at TLA and he was dismissive. My previous successes and business were of no significance to him. “Show me a manuscript” was his basic message.

I get that. I understand that his company was not at the trade show to find authors and that they surely have hundreds if not thousands of wannabe-authors approach them every year, if not month. Another publisher said basically the same thing—they’re not interested in my starred-review DVD, my previous publishing successes or my adoring fan-base. “Show me the manuscript…”
I do have a manuscript but this whole thing got me thinking. My wife and I talked for hours over the weekend and wondered: can a publisher take an interest in the author first? Could they look for people with an established business and body of work and just help them get that to a wider audience? Might that not actually be the BEST way to manage a business?
The other issue is that publishers will basically promote a book for 6-10 months and, after that, they’re going to move on to the next title. Again we asked, can a publisher stick by a title for the long haul? Once they’ve accepted a manuscript and spent the time and money to get it printed and distributed wouldn’t it be a wise to stick with it as long as it takes? Granted some books are just going to bomb but I think many good books fall into obscurity simply because they didn’t find their audience and start selling quickly enough.

Round and around I go—stay indie, go with a publisher, stay indie. The aforementioned manuscript is nearly finished and I think I could find a publisher or I could do it myself. It is, I believe, a guaranteed hit in Texas schools for reasons I can’t publicly discuss. I think this is a project that, once submitted, at least one publisher will get excited about and I think that it could also be one of those rare, self-published breakout successes. If I stay indie and it does NOT sell as I’d hoped, however, I’m going to feel like a missed a good chance. Hmm… what to do?

awww, look at the baby crab!

crab larvae saying hello
Originally uploaded by nature adrift

There's an entire world of seemingly alien life adrift in the ocean currents. There are plant forms, or phytoplankton, and animal forms called zooplankton.

Not all plankton are microscopic. Some can be easily seen without any special instruments and this crab larva's about 3 mm, comparable with a half-grain of rice.

Basically, the defining characteristic of plankton is that they just drift with the ocean currents; they cannot swim strongly enough to "go against the flow." So, technically, jellyfish can be considered plankton and some of them are quite large.

Many sea animals start life as plankton and then, once they're bigger, they'll settle down all the way to the sea floor or be strong enough to swim wherever they want. I just love this guy; he looks like a Pokemon doesn't he?

Bald eagle nest

Another cool thing I saw on the way home from San Angelo last week--a bald eagle nest!!  I passed this a couple of years ago and thought, "Man!! That's GOT to be an eagle nest!"  Didn't have time to stop but this time I did and took this shot.  Wish I had a more powerful telephoto!! It's about 8 miles east of Llano, TX, on Hwy 29.  There's a nice little pull-off so you can park safely.  Just remember to bring your binoculars; it's in plain view but it's about 100-200 yards behind a fence.  I visited with some people who drop by regularly and they said that there were some young eaglets in the nest and a fledgling that was sticking around and helping take care of the young (that one is highlighted in the photo).  There's lots of info on this nest online so you can browse around to learn more if you want but you should definitely pay a little visit if you're in the area!

If you're nowhere near the nest you can google "eagle watching" + your city or state and find a place near you where you can see them.  Great to see the national bird and great to see a creature thriving that was once on the verge of extinction in the lower 48!

The bluebonnets are blooming!

Driving home from San Angelo last week I saw the first bluebonnets of the season in Kingsland, near Llano.  As some of you know, I have a new bluebonnet song I've been working into my programs so I found some blossoms in my neighborhood and I'll be taking some photos to show during the song.  I really want to show the full-cycle from bud to seed pods.  Check out today's photos.

For my fans in other state, I must explain:  here in Texas, it's a cultural tradition to search for the biggest field of bluebonnets we can find, hop out and take a picture.  Kids, dogs, girlfriends, cattle, donkies--you name it--all make great subjects. 

Not much can compare with acres of bluebonnets in all their glory but don't forget to take a close look at an individual flower, too.  Click on the photos for larger images and more detail...