Snow Birds

Sometimes winter weather is really tough on birds; especially when the ground is frozen and snow covered.  Birds have a difficult time foraging and they must expend a lot of energy to locate food.  Native winter birds require a lot more high quality food just to stay warm.  Feeding stations may help, but this may also have its drawbacks.  When birds congregate at feeders they are easier targets for predators and disease.  Domestic cats can be a significant problem; especially in urban environments.  It helps to place feeding stations near good cover such as red cedar trees or dense shrubs.  This allows birds a place to hide from predators and shelter from wind.  Some excellent foods for winter birds include: black oil sunflower seeds and suit.  Mealworms are also good for insectivorous species such as Eastern Bluebirds and the Carolina Wren pictured here.

A Survey of Recent Science Web Sites for Teachers and Researchers

During Christmas break I had time to survey a number of science websites for educators and research.  Here are the best of the best:

http://www.earthscienceweek.org/?forteachers/index.html
http://www.fws.gov/letsgooutside/
http://www.ncsu.edu/labwrite/
http://som.ou.edu/
http://www.ags.ou.edu/
http://web.vims.edu/bridge/?svr=www

Content includes weather, wildlife, oceanography, and laboratory contant, but I am lazy right now, so I will let you explore these as I do and I will add some comments later.

Wynona High School Science Dept. Wins 2nd Year's Funding From Oklahoma Dept. of Environmental Quality

This project will provide our students with an appreciation of grassland ecosystems and the importance of their conservation. Students will visit The Nature Conservancy’s Tall Grass Prairie Preserve in Osage County, Oklahoma. Students will learn how to collect data using the scientific method and establishing sample plots and will compare species diversity among disturbed and relatively pristine sites.

This project is designed to educate and motivate students and to instill in them an intrinsic appreciation for grassland ecosystems. We hope this field experience will help shape our future leaders to be citizens of the global environment.

We will apply conservation issues to personal experiences in order to build positive student attitudes toward the natural environment. We aim to guide the development of student’s problem solving and critical thinking skills while exploring relationships among: biodiversity, ecosystem processes, and societal issues.

In 2009 we received this grant that allowed our school to the same field experience to forty five 6-12th grade students. This year we will collect data for comparison to our 1st sampling at our established sites. Last season this field trip was the highlight of our science lessons allowing students to apply what they had learned in classroom exercises. Our field trip also facilitated parents and community leaders to get involved. As a direct result of last year’s funding we now offer Zoology as a junior/senior level class at our school. The organisms we collected in the field were preserved for long-term use in our teaching collection. We intend to further expand the collection this year in addition to data that will compare to last season. This year we want to expand the field curriculum to include 4th and 5th grade students as well.

Students will be directed in the use of standardized methods for sampling plants and aquatic animals and basic experimental design. The number of species and their relative abundance will be compared among sites using elementary statistics and basic graphing techniques. We will apply appropriate experimental design and statistical analyses to data collected in the field. Basic statistical procedures will include measures of central tendency, dispersion, and variability. Additionally, tables and graphs will be used to analyze trends in the data we collect.


Several studies over the past two decades have shown that aquatic animals, especially invertebrates, are excellent indicators of water quality. These procedures are commonly used by municipalities and state and federal agencies to assess the biological integrity of streams. The basic underlying assumption is that aquatic organisms and their presence/absence are useful indicators of environmental health. For this reason, students can easily relate these field and laboratory activities to real-world applications such as water quality assessment, drinking water standards, and environmental protection policies.  To learn more abouty the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and it's education programs visit their web site at: http://www.deq.state.ok.us/mainlinks/eepage.htm

White Christmas in Osage County

This photo taken atop Mt. Sequoia in Fayetteville, Arkansas January 2007 is nothing compared to the blizzard we endured in northeast Oklahoma this Christmas eve. Governor Brad Henry declared a statewide emergency as blizzard conditions existed over much of the state. I drove to Pawhuska at about 6:30 pm to try and pull out a friend's vehicle. Little did we know that this would turn into a four-hour ordeal. According to the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, parts of Osage county received between 3-5" of snow on top of sleet and winds sustained at 40 mph gusting to 60 mph. We experienced whiteout conditions with visibility of less than 100 feet. The winds built snow drifts at least three feet deep. My Nissan Frontier was no match for the conditions in spite of its 6-cylinder supercharged motor and 4-wheel drive. I was buried in a ditch off State Highway 99 in no time at all. Three full size 4-wheel drive trucks attempted to pull us out and two of them soon became stuck as well. After digging for two hours, the outlook was bleak to say the least. By 9:00 pm it was 18 degrees Fahrenheit with a north wind of gusting up to 50 mph and wind chill indices as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit. After more than two hours of digging and pulling, we had gone nearly 1/4 mile in the ditch. I was soaking wet and experiencing the first signs of hypothermia when our vehicle finally emerged from the 3' snow drift. By this time, parts of HWY 99 south of Pawhuska were beginning to drift shut. We passed numerous abandon vehicles on the return trip to Wynona. By the morning of Sunday, December 27th many roads in town remained virtually impassable. For weather data and statistics from around the state visit the Oklahoma Mesonet web site at http://mesonet.org/

Texas Horned Lizard

Another lizard that is more common than I expected here in Osage County is the Texas Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum. This species, sometimes called a "horney toad" is in decline over much of it's range. Their primary prey is the Red Harvester Ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus. The Horned Lizard prefers open grassland or pasture.

Legless Lizards?

Legless lizards or the Western Slender Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus attenuatus) seem to be fairly common here in Osage County. I have run across several in the past year. I finally did get a reasonably good photo of one this past summer.

A Sand County Almanac

I want to recommend a book for all you who love the outdoors and believe in the ethical treatment of our environment. Aldo Leopold- father of wildlife management and author of A Sand County Almanac 1949. Author of “The Land Ethic” and first appointee to the United Nations Council on the Environment. This is an inspiring read.

Rain Shadow Illustration

Here is a diagram showing the rainshadow effect of mountains such as the Eastern (front range) of the Rock Mountains.