“Frog days” of summer begin at sunset June 30

Put down the blackberry bucket and pick up a frog gig.

Courtesy MDC

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missourians can celebrate summer with a favorite outdoor pastime, as frogging season begins at sunset June 30.

Frogging can be practiced with either a fishing permit or a hunting permit. The Wildlife Code of Missouri allows those with a fishing permit to take frogs by hand net, gig, trotline, throw line, limb line, bank line, jug line, snagging, snaring, grabbing or pole and line.

With a hunting permit, you can harvest frogs using a .22-caliber firearm, pellet gun, atlatl, by hand or hand net and with a longbow or crossbow. The use of an artificial light is permitted when frogging. Children under the age of 16 and adults over the age of 65 are not required to have a permit.

Missouri has two species – bullfrog and green frog – that are legal game. Bullfrogs are larger and therefore more sought-after, but the legs of both species are delicious. The taste and texture of frog meat is similar to fresh-water fish.

The daily limit is eight frogs of both species combined. If you catch eight frogs before midnight, you can start frogging again at 12:01 a.m. and catch another day’s limit. However, it is not legal to possess more than one day’s limit while on the water, so you must put your first limit in a cooler before starting on the second day’s limit. The possession limit allows you to store no more than 16 frogs at a time.

Once a frog is speared, it must be harvested. The Wildlife Code of Missouri prohibits release of a speared frog as “wanton waste” because the animal is not likely to recover. However, a frog is not fatally injured by methods such as grabbing or pole and line and thus may be released.

Frogging season ends Oct. 31, so grab a gig and head to the pond or simply grab a frog and head to the fryer before the frog days of summer are over.

Bison hike planned July 9 at Prairie State Park

Image via Wikipedia

JEFFERSON CITY, MO., JUNE 29, 2011 – If you are interested in seeing one of the greatest symbols of the vanishing tallgrass prairie, take a guided bison hike July 9 at Prairie State Park near Mindenmines. Join the park naturalist at 10 a.m. for a trip back in time to see bison, one of our most magnificent mammals on its native prairie habitat. The event is free and open to the public. 

During the one hour hike, you will learn about bison biology, Native American uses of the bison, herd dynamics, prairies and much more. Dress for the weather and hiking across the prairie; long pants and sturdy shoes are recommended.

Prairie State Park is located at 128 NW 150^th Lane in Barton County. Call the park at 417-843-6711 for more details and to register for the hike. For more information on Missouri state parks, call the Missouri Department of Natural Resources at 800-334-6946 (voice) or 800-379-2419 (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf), or visitmostateparks.com.

Missouri Prairie Foundation’s Second Annual BioBlitz June 4 & 5

Image by ImAges ImprObables via Flickr

Nature lovers of all ages are invited to help experts discover and document grassland plants and animals from Golden Prairie, a National Natural Landmark in Barton County.

By Carol Davit, Missouri Prairie Foundation

JEFFERSON CITY Mo -- In spring and summer, Golden Prairie is often carpeted with wildflowers as far as the eye can see. An original prairie remnant owned and managed by the Missouri Prairie Foundation, Golden is a peaceful place and haven for native prairie plants and wildlife.

On Saturday and Sunday, June 4 and 5, however, it will bustle with human activity as nature lovers statewide team up with biologists at the conservation organization’s free, second annual Prairie BioBlitz.

Barbara Van Vleck, a Missouri Master Naturalist from Kansas City, will definitely be there.

“MPF’s Prairie BioBlitz last year at Penn-Sylvania Prairie was the best outdoor event I have attended in 20 years,” said Van Vleck. “Cordial experts in many fields taught us at an appropriate level. A plant survey revealed blooms everywhere, including orchids! From a bat survey, herpetology talk to nighttime moth identification, it was an exciting two days. I wouldn’t miss it this year for anything.”

Across the country, nature lovers and professional biologists team up at “BioBlitzes” to identify as many species as possible (the “bio”) in an area over the course of 24 hours (the “blitz”). The Missouri Prairie Foundation is hosting its own version at Golden Prairie on Saturday, June 4, and Sunday, June 5.

Golden Prairie is in Barton County, about three miles from Golden City. The Missouri Prairie Foundation purchased the 320-acre Golden Prairie in 1970, and since then, 310 additional acres adjoining or near the original tract have been purchased and protected. More than 300 plant species are known from the original 320 acres of the prairie, but for many other groups of species, little information is known from any of Golden’s 630 acres.

“Today, ecologists consider temperate grasslands to be the most endangered, least conserved of any terrestrial habitat on earth, and no temperate grasslands are more threatened than tallgrass prairies,” said Carol Davit, the Foundation’s director of communications and development. “Collectively, our remaining prairies in Missouri support up to 800 plant species, dozens of vertebrates and thousands of invertebrates. We want to see how many of them we can find at Golden Prairie, and BioBlitz participants will help in that effort.”

On the afternoon and evening of June 4 and the morning of June 5, biologists who study ants, bees, birds, beetles, butterflies, true bugs, moths, mammals, aquatic invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, land snails, vascular plants, mosses and liverworts will lead groups across the prairie to survey and inventory as many species as possible.

Several Missouri Conservation Department (MDC) biologists, including Mammalogist Debbie Fantz, Natural History Biologist Mike Arduser, Resource Science Division Field Chief Rochelle Renken, Fisheries Management Biologist Tom Priesendorf and Naturalist Shelly Cox will be group leaders. Other leaders include Shaw Nature Reserve Biologist and Entomologist Dr. James Trager, Botanists Justin Thomas and Nels Holmberg, Malacologist Ron Oesch, Lepidopterist Phillip Koenig and Naturalist Elizabeth Hamilton.

“We are thrilled that so many biologists are giving their time to help uncover the plant and animal treasures of this prairie,” said Davit. “If you love wildlife, this is a great opportunity to learn from experts passionate about their given subjects, and play a role in much-needed data collection as well.”

MDC’s Mike Arduser, who will lead the bee group, added, “The Missouri Prairie Foundation’s Prairie BioBlitz brings two important things together -- scientific data collection and the opportunity of nature enthusiasts at all skill levels to participate in this work, and also interact with each other. At the end of the weekend, BioBlitz participants go away with a greater understanding of prairie then when they arrived.”

Following the afternoon activities on June 4, there will be a potluck picnic supper, stargazing and free tent camping on the prairie. The BioBlitz is free, but participants must RSVP. For a detailed BioBlitz schedule, directions to the prairie, and to RSVP, visit the Upcoming Events page at www.moprairie.org, email info@moprairie.com or call 888-843-6739.

The Missouri Prairie Foundation is a 45-year-old membership organization that protects and restores prairie and other native grasslands through acquisition, management, education and support of prairie research. The organization owns 2,600 acres of prairie across the state and helps manage an additional 1,500 acres owned by conservation partners.

Major periodical cicada emergence imminent

JEFFERSON CITY–Buy your earplugs now; they might be in short supply in a few weeks. Missouri is on the verge of a major periodical cicada emergence.

Periodical cicadas emerge earlier and are different from the more familiar dog-day cicadas, which come out later in the summer. The periodical varieties have dark bodies and reddish eyes and wings. Dog-day cicadas range from brown to green with black-and-white markings. Periodical cicadas also are noticeably smaller than dog-day cicadas

.

Periodical cicadas come in several varieties. Some spend 13 years in the ground feeding on sap from tree roots before emerging en masse. Seventeen-year cicada nymphs take four years longer to mature.

To further confuse matters, periodical cicadas exist in broods that inhabit geographic areas ranging from a few thousand square miles to vast chunks of real estate spanning several states.

When a brood emerges, as many as a million noisy male cicadas can gather in trees over a single acre and join in a piercing chorus of mating calls. Their combined voices create an unforgettable din, drowning out lawnmowers and making normal conversation impossible.

Missouri witnessed the emergence of a particularly large brood of 13-year cicadas in1998, so 2011 promises to be a noisy spring in much of the state. This year’s emergence is expected to cover most of Missouri. The Bootheel and part of northwest Missouri will escape the phenomenon. If this disappoints you, cheer up. The existence of multiple broods means you don’t actually have to wait 13 or 17 years for the next emergence. Other single-brood emergences are expected in northern Missouri in 2014 and in west-central and southeastern Missouri in 2015.

The cicada chorus is likely to begin tuning up in early May, reach a deafening crescendo in a couple of weeks, and taper off in June. Although periodical cicadas are not much bigger than the end of your pinkie finger, their numbers allow them to drown out a chainsaw.

Male cicadas use a pair of structures called tymbals to produce their song. Tymbals are elastic membranes located just behind cicadas’ last pair of legs. Tiny muscles contract and relax rapidly, crumpling the tymbals and letting them snap back into their original shape. They make a loud click with each muscle twitch, creating a high-pitched droning sound. The process is similar to crumpling a soft-drink bottle.

2011 marks the return of the 13-year periodic cicada.

By: Jim Rathert

Missouri Department of Conservation

Female cicadas use a sharp appendage to slice into tree twigs, where they lay their eggs. Twigs often die, and sometimes they break and droop. This “flagging” can be quite visible in areas with large numbers of cicadas. The damage to mature trees is minor, so pesticide use is not recommended. Cheesecloth, mosquito netting or netting with mesh smaller than 1/4-inch is effective for protecting small trees.

A periodical cicada emergence creates a brief food bonanza for birds and fish. It also creates opportunities for anglers. As fish go on feeding binges, anything resembling a cicada can prompt a bite.

When the brood that is emerging in Missouri this year last appeared, it was joined by a large brood of 17-year cicadas. It was the two broods’ first joint emergence since 1777. Their respective life cycles dictate that such joint emergences occur every 221 years, so the next one will take place in 2219.

For more information, visit http://1.usa.gov/hPWdD1,http://bit.ly/gPyCtG, http://bit.ly/gX2WVy or http://bit.ly/hDQwkd. 

-Jim Low-

Prairie chickens make new stand at Wah’Kon-Tah

By Bill Graham, Missouri Department of Conservation

Photo Courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation

El Dorado Springs, Mo. -- On a recent spring afternoon, Kansas-born prairie chickens stepped cautiously onto Missouri soil bearing radio transmitters and biologists’ hopes for this endangered icon. The first two prairie chickens scanned the open skies above Wah’Kon-Tah Prairie. Suddenly they fluttered skyward, prompting a dozen more of the black and white speckled birds to leave the release box and glide over a knoll, out of sight but not beyond the telemetry equipment that will track them through the seasons.

The birds were captured where greater prairie chickens are plentiful in the Smoky Hills near Salina, Kan. But the species is critically endangered in Missouri.

Their release this spring at Wah’Kon-Tah will help the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) restore prairie chickens to a onetime stronghold and refine management to help all native grassland birds in decline.

“I firmly believe we will succeed,” said Len Gilmore, an MDC wildlife management biologist and prairie expert.

Prairie chickens and many grasslands birds are in peril because only small fragments of Missouri’s once-vast tallgrass prairies remain. The football-sized birds, a member of the grouse family, have dwindled from hundreds of thousands statewide in the early 1800s to less than 100 native birds in scattered flocks today.

But a year-round radio telemetry study at Wah’Kon-Tah is showing MDC biologists what types of ground cover prairie chickens prefer for nesting, raising broods, feeding and evading predators. That’s guiding how the area’s virgin prairie remnants and restored native grasses and wildflowers are managed with prescribed fire, grazing, haying or unaltered growth.

“Our telemetry has shown that we can’t just walk away from a prairie and let it sit,” Gilmore said. “You’ve got to do something every year to create disturbance and habitat diversity. The more diversity we can provide, the more success we’ll have.”

A small flock of prairie chickens lived in the Wah’Kon-Tah area north of El Dorado during the 1950s and 1960s, Gilmore said. But in recent decades they vanished, similar to how other small flocks at other prairie remnants in western and northern Missouri have declined.

Scientific studies at the Wah’Kon-Tah area aim to reverse that trend. That includes re-establishing a flock there as part of a translocation study, with almost 400 prairie chickens trapped in Kansas and released beginning in 2008. They are fitted with leg bands and a small, lightweight radio transmitter before release. That enables trackers using radio receivers to plot the birds’ movements through various habitats, and they can move miles in a day.

The 3,030-acre Wah’Kon-Tah is the largest protected tallgrass prairie complex in the eastern Osage Plains ecosystem. A large portion is owned by The Nature Conservancy, a private, non-profit conservation group. MDC also owns tracts and manages the prairie in cooperation with private partners.

An effort in the 1990s to re-establish prairie chickens at Wah’Kon-Tah with birds captured in Kansas was unsuccessful, Gilmore said.

But this time, changes in habitat management may make this effort successful and a model for long-term prairie chicken restorations statewide.

“We’re seeing evidence of successful reproduction,” Gilmore said.

Prairie chickens in early April use hilltop spots called leks as “booming grounds,” where males make a booming sound and drum their feet on the ground to attract females in a sunrise mating ritual resembling a dance.

Males are booming this spring on the Wah’Kon-Tah’s traditional lek sites and females are checking them out, said Stasia Whitaker, an MDC wildlife management assistant. Whitaker tracked the birds in recent years with radio telemetry. Prairie chickens also used the leks last year, and hens with chicks were spotted afterward. Some birds captured during studies do not have leg bands, which indicating they were hatched and raised at Wah’Kon-Tah.

“We’ve been doing lots of habitat work before releasing birds, and that’s helped them stabilize,” Whitaker said.

Managers used to simply let prairies grow, or they would hay large tracts or conduct large-scale prescribed fires.

But Gilmore and the MDC crew are using management practices on smaller, 40-acre units so prairie chickens have easier access to both open areas for feeding and dense cover for shelter. They need sheltered nesting cover but also open areas that are easier for chicks to travel in and find food.

Using prescribed fires followed by cattle grazing is boosting habitat diversity and the use of Wah’Kon-Tah by various bird species. One strong trend, the study shows prairie chickens like “high-clipped” grass where cover is mowed or grazed about a foot tall.

“Chicks and adults both have a hard time getting through grass when it’s tall and thick,” Whitaker said. “But at 10 to 15 inches, they can conceal themselves and also see out and watch for predators.”

Tree removal at Wah’Kon-Tah and on neighboring private farms also improves open vistas for prairie chickens. But it’s a mosaic of habitats with varying grasses and wildflowers that helps prairie chickens thrive as seasons change. Fire, grazing and haying are all tools to create that diversity.

“The more good habitat we can provide,” Gilmore said, “the more prairie chickens will survive.”

Nature lovers invited to “BioBlitz” May 29-30

Help discover and document plants, butterflies, birds, mammals and more on a remnant of Missouri prairie.

STOCKTON, MO – Missourians with a passion for nature can help document some of Missouri’s vanishing biological diversity at a “BioBlitz” sponsored by the Missouri Prairie Foundation.

On the afternoon and evening of Saturday, May 29, and the morning of Sunday, May 30, professional biologists whose expertise spans everything from ants and orchids to birds and butterflies will lead volunteers across Penn-Sylvania Prairie in Dade County. They will survey and inventory as many species as possible in 24 hours. Amateur naturalists are welcome. Following the afternoon activities on May 29, participants are invited to stay for a potluck picnic supper, stargazing and free tent camping on the prairie.

“Public involvement is an important part of the event,” said Carol Davit, the Prairie Foundation’s development coordinator. “We encourage anyone with a strong interest in nature to join us. We want to spur people’s interest in prairies. Besides, the more eyes we have looking, the better our chances of finding new plants and animals.”

Participants must RSVP to take part in the BioBlitz. To RSVP, for a detailed BioBlitz schedule, and for directions to the prairie, visit www.moprairie.org, e-mail info@moprairie.com, or call 888-843-6739.

The 160-acre Penn-Sylvania Prairie is tiny fragment of grasslands that once covered more than 15 million acres in Missouri. The Missouri Prairie Foundation owns the prairie remnant and has protected it since 1971.  Botanists have identified more than 260 plant species there. However, much less is known about other species that live on the area.

“Tallgrass prairie is one of the richest ecosystems on the planet but also one of the rarest,” said Davit. “Collectively, our remaining prairies in Missouri support up to 800 plant species, dozens of vertebrates and thousands of invertebrates. We want to see how many of them we can find at Penn-Sylvania Prairie.”  

BioBlitzers will work in groups under the guidance of Missouri Department of Conservation staff and other experts in subjects such as insects, snails, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, mosses, liverworts and butterflies.

“We are thrilled that so many professional biologists are giving their time to help uncover the plant and animal treasures of this prairie,” said Davit. “If you love wildlife, this is a great opportunity to learn from experts passionate about their given subjects, as well as to have a tremendous amount of fun.”

Conservation Department Naturalist John Miller, who will lead the amphibian and reptile group added that prairies are important habitat for at least 15 amphibians and reptiles. “This is going to be a neat event because spending time like this helps connect us to the past. We’re going to see some of the same plants and animals that pioneers saw when they settled the prairies and traveled west across the plains.”

-          Jim Low –

Missouri Ozarks Trout Fishing Reports