The Fall Lineup -

Here in NE Iowa we are fortunate to live beside the Mississippi River migration corridor it is one of the best places to watch migrating birds. Visit us at The Natural Gait and enjoy the beautiful fall colors and all the birds along with other wildlife.

This Article appeared in eNature

The arrival of fall means different things to different people. For some, the beautiful autumn colors make it a favorite season, while for others it's the mild temperatures, the World Series, or heading back to school. But for birders and their friends who like to watch butterflies, dragonflies, and other animals, the arrival of fall means only one thing: migrations.

The best natural migration corridors occur in mountain ridges, river valleys, and along coastlines. Yet it's possible to see migrating animals just about anywhere. Here are some tips for enjoying the passing hordes.

Birds — Early morning often provides great looks at birds just finished with all-night flights. As the sun starts to rise, some birds that find themselves out over ocean waters or above the Great Lakes will suddenly head for the nearest land. Hundreds of birds can come pouring inland at these times, among them thrushes, warblers, vireos, and tanagers.

During daylight hours, the skies can be filled with everything from White Pelicans to Bobolinks. Expect lots of shorebirds, cormorants, terns, and gulls at the seaside and hawks, swifts, flickers, jays, swallows, and robins overhead almost everywhere.

Butterflies — Most people have heard about Monarchs and their fall migrations to the mountains of southern Mexico, but lots of other butterflies travel in autumn. Some even head north!

Watch in the same places that bird migrants concentrate for American Ladies, Question Marks, Red Admirals, and the more abundant Monarchs — all moving southward. By contrast, Cloudless Sulphurs may be headed north in fall, as their southern populations expand, and Painted Ladies and Common Buckeyes can be watched for flying north or south.

Dragonflies — Dragonfly watching is fast coming into its own on the North American nature scene. Partly that's because several excellent books have appeared to help folks tell these handsome creatures apart.

A small number of dragonfly species migrate in substantial numbers during the fall. Look for the monster Green Darner in particular and the world's most cosmopolitan dragonfly, the Wandering Glider. Others include the Black Saddlebag and the Carolina Saddlebag.

Mammals — Mammal watching is not nearly as easy as bird or insect watching. After all, the mammals first must be found, which usually involves some trekking, and they're not terribly cooperative subjects. Still, the rewards can be considerable.

Among the migratory mammals worth watching are some species of bats (Hoary, Silver-haired, and Red) that can occasionally be seen flying south during daylight hours along shorelines or even over bodies of water. Marine mammals, of course, can be observed from boats or coastal promontories. The large baleen whales occur in good numbers on their southward migrations and delight people even from a distance.

Conservation Project Nabs $1M Grant to Protect Land

Thom Gabrukiewicz • tgabrukiew@argusleader.com • September 23, 2009

A new conservation project concentrated in Deuel, Grant and Roberts counties received a $1 million grant to help protect unbroken tracts of prairie across the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Prairies Without Borders seeks to protect sections of the Prairie Coteau region, which encompasses more than 1 million acres of native northern tallgrass. The money will go toward buying U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grassland and wetland easements, with an emphasis on getting easements on large contiguous tracts of native grassland.
The venture seeks to protect 3,106 acres within the three-county focus area.
"South Dakota has the largest concentration of tallgrass prairie, and we're working on protecting what's out there," said Pat Anderson, executive director of the Northern Prairies Land Trust. "This allows us to protect animal and plant life, too, so it can continue to grow and populate the area."
The Prairie Coteau is a 200-mile-long, 100-mile-wide swath of lake-dappled prairie that covers parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota. It is the largest remaining tallgrass prairie in the U.S.
Yet since 2002, more than 240,000 acres of eastern South Dakota native prairie have been converted into cropland.
"These easements allow the landowners to retain a working landscape, but also maintain the tallgrass prairie by preventing native and restored prairies from being plowed up," said Tom Tornow, with the Fish and Wildlife Service's Madison Wetland Management District.
While focused on the three eastern South Dakota counties, the project area stretches across 23 counties in South Dakota, nine counties in North Dakota and 50 counties in Minnesota.
"This project is unique in that it recognizes the need to protect grasslands in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota," said Pete Bauman, area manager for The Nature Conservancy, which helped organize the project.
Other project partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks; and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Reach Thom Gabrukiewicz at 331-2320.

Eavesdrop on Richard Branson and Dr. Stephen Covey

My friends, Alex Mandossian and Greg Habstritt, are holding an incredible series of training calls starting Wednesday. They will be featuring interviews with not just Richard Branson and Dr. Stephen Covey, but 10 other world experts and authorities!

You’ll hear directly from people like Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, who just sold for over $900 million to Amazon .. it’s obvious that there ARE people doing well even when the media is reporting gloom and doom!

In all, you’ll learn from 12 of the greatest minds in the world today. Best-selling authors, incredible business visionaries, and some of the most insightful experts are going to share their secrets with you. People like Bill Phillips (Body-for-LIFE), Janet Attwood (The Passion Test), Bill Harris (star of ‘The Secret’), Marci Shimoff (Happy For No Reason), and the list goes on!

And if you can’t make the live call each time, you’ll ALSO be able to access the replays of the calls – all at no cost!

You’ll get access to this exclusive program, both the live calls and it won’t cost you anything.

To get all the details, go to this link right now:
http://www.engagetoday2009.com/cmd.php?af=1049778

The 9 Timless Secrets to Being Happy

An awesome video

Pet Tales: Attracting Fireflies, Warding Off Mosquitoes.

Saturday, August 08, 2009
By Linda Wilson Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mosquitoes thrive when wet weather leaves pools of water where they can lay eggs.

Where have all the lightning bugs gone?

Growing up in the 1950s, I saw hundreds of them on warm summer nights. Now I see few, if any. The kids in my Bethel Park neighborhood had contests to see who could catch the most fireflies. We scooped them into jars and punched holes in the screw-on lids. We oh-so-helpfully put blades of grass in the jars to give the bugs something to eat.

The bugs always died in their jars while we slept. Some animal lovers we were.

The lightning bugs' disappearance isn't my imagination, says David Mizejewski, naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation. They've been driven away by "light pollution" and the overuse of pesticides, he says. They lose habitat when fields, woods and wetlands are destroyed to make way for houses and shopping centers.

While Pittsburghers call them lightning bugs, Mr. Mizejewski calls them fireflies, although he says they're neither bugs nor flies. They're beetles. He has tips for attracting them to your yard, and he's not even judgmental about the jars.

"The best way to enjoy fireflies it to turn off the TV, put away video games and go outside," Mr. Mizejewski said.

The federation has launched a "Be Out There" campaign "to get families across the United States to open the door and get outside." The organization hopes to see healthier kids with a lifelong appreciation of wildlife and nature.

Here's my favorite fun tip from Mr. Mizejewski: "Use a flashlight to mimic firefly flashes. When you flash, the fireflies will respond."

Everyone can attract fireflies, songbirds and other animals by creating "wildlife friendly" yards.

Don't use pesticides. Plant native wildflowers and greenery that provide shelter for fireflies. The grass in your lawn holds no attraction for wildlife, especially if you used chemicals to kill weeds and insects. For more tips, go to www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife.

"It's OK to catch a few fireflies and keep them in a jar with holes poked in the lid for a few hours," Mr. Mizejewski says. "Just make sure to release them back into nature."

Don't bother putting grass in the jar because that's not what fireflies eat. Adults eat nectar and larvae eat slugs, worms and other soft-bodied invertebrates around streams and ponds.

If you do go outdoors, you'll have to deal with another type of bug -- mosquitoes. Mr. Mizejewski has tips for dealing with them, too.

Mosquitoes are a stretch for a topic in a pet column, but they can carry heartworms that can harm dogs and can carry rare but deadly diseases, like Eastern equine encephalitis, that kill horses.

DEET-based repellents are effective for people but Mr. Mizejewski says don't apply them to dogs or cats because DEET is not approved for pets. Chemical-free solutions include "aromatic herbal repellents," like lemon eucalyptus, which "work if applied frequently."

Here's my favorite skeeter tip:

"Mosquitoes are not strong fliers, and the breeze created by a fan is often all you need to keep a patio or deck mosquito-free so you can enjoy the outdoors."

Fans won't get to the root of the problem, however.

The most important thing is to get rid of standing water that collects in clogged gutters, flower-pot drainage dishes, children's toys and tarps that cover stacks of firewood.

Birdbaths attract birds to your yard, and some birds eat mosquitoes. But empty and refill birdbaths every few days because "it takes a minimum of a week for the metamorphosis from egg to larva to pupa to winged adult," Mr. Mizejewski says.

Another way to deal with mosquitoes is to attract their predators. In ponds and water gardens, "fish feed on mosquito larvae. Just don't release goldfish or other exotic species into natural areas. ... Add plants that attract frogs, salamanders and dragonflies," he says.

Don't put insecticides or oil on the surface of bodies of water because that will kill "beneficial insects" and mosquito predators.

And here's something I've never heard:

"Bug zappers aren't effective against mosquitoes" but they "do kill thousands of beneficial insects each night."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09220/989411-62.stm#ixzz0NnKO9EI8

Invasion in the Badlands

On vacation in the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota, I witnessed another invasion of beautiful ecosystems. Angry for several days and feeling helpless to do anything about the Yellow Sweet Clover marching over the landscape, I told my wife, Donna that I had to do something to alert people to this takeover of these beautiful landscapes. After several nights, I thought about how over the past 60 years I have been aware of invasive species and have seen the list grow and grow and grow.
What is our place on this planet? Does our labeling of plants as negative aliens and as invaders invite more negative thoughts? What good has become of our waging war on these alien species? Shouting and preaching that this just isn’t right nor nature’s way and getting all fired up and angry at one of God’s creations just didn’t seem to fit well with me anymore. I’m tired of generating negative feelings inside of me. This thought made me start to question the overall picture of man and nature and our relationship to plants, each other and our interaction with all species of our world.

Here are some of my questions that I ponder often:
· Were any species created out of negative thoughts?
· Were any plants or animals meant to remain in one area? If so, why do they do so well when introduced into different areas?
· What is the long-term succession of these so-called invasives or alien species? I mean over thousands of years?
· Can we live with these aliens and make peace or will we always wage war on them?
· Does the attack on the “invasive species” ultimately do any good?
· Are we supposed to sit back and do nothing?
· Can we make any peace with this rapidly changing world of the intermingling of species?
· Is this really a natural event and man truly is a part of nature but thinks that he isn’t because of his ability to choose and reason?
· Is it logical to think that man isn’t a part of nature or is this just another arrogant thought that puts us as the ultimate animal separated from all nature and we stand alone still fighting and compartmentalizing all species.
· Is there a kinder, more positive and cooperative way of dealing with what we perceive as invasive species?
· Does prejudice produce more prejudice?
·
If we are just holographic pieces of the “Great Spirit”, then we are included in this great magnificent process that created the universe and all within it. Are we not programmed to keep creating something different?
·
Does any one thing deserve to be eradicated or is that part of the plan?
·
Are the invasives just signals to us that we need to change our ways and they are just messengers sacrificing their lives for a cause yet unknown to us?
Some of the species that I have come into contact with and waged war over the years are:
· Japanese Honey Suckle
· Kudzu
· Multi-flora Rose
· Crown Vetch
· Yellow Sweet Clover
· Garlic Mustard
These are just a minute number of species that I have allowed to cause stress and negative energy in me. I think that now after decades of fighting, I am ready to accept that these aliens are just part of the cosmic progression to a different place on earth and the universe that is neither good nor bad.
What do you think?

Tired of struggling over this issue,
Howard Bright President Ion Exchange, Inc.
www.ionXchange.com

Munching on Garlic Mustard

A New Weevil in the Works

  Garlic and mustard are common ingredients that can be found in American households. But garlic mustard? Well, that’s a different story.

Garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata, is considered one of the most problematic invaders of temperate forests in North America. According to legend, it was brought here from Europe in the 1860s as a culinary herb, but unfortunately, it doesn’t taste very good. Since then, garlic mustard has spread to 34 U.S. states and 4 Canadian provinces.

“Garlic mustard is an invasive plant that gets a lot of attention,” says ecologist Adam Davis, who has been studying the weed for years. “It’s very noticeable and hard to eradicate because of its seed bank.”

The term “seed bank” refers to seeds in the soil that are dormant but capable of germinating. Garlic mustard seeds can remain viable for more than 10 years. A single plant can produce hundreds of seeds, which scatter as far as several meters from the parent.

“You can spend a lot of time and money pulling garlic mustard up or spraying it with pesticides, but it’ll just come back the next year,” says Davis. “That’s why it’s such a problem. It’s very resilient.”

   <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/jul09/d1496-1.htm>
 Flowers of garlic mustard produce up to several thousand seeds per plant, making it difficult to control.
(D1496-1)  

A member of the mustard family Brassicaceae, garlic mustard got its name because its leaves, when crushed, smell like garlic. Garlic mustard is a biennial plant, meaning it takes 2 years to complete its life cycle. During its first year, the plant is in the form of a rosette with kidney-shaped leaves that remain green throughout the winter. In its second year, the plant matures and produces small, white flowers, each with four petals in the shape of a cross. The mature plants either self-pollinate or are pollinated by insects, producing seeds that fall to the ground and enter the soil.

Garlic mustard is cold hardy and shade tolerant, enabling it to grow early in spring when most plants are not able to grow. It also secretes allelochemicals into the soil. Allelochemicals are chemical compounds a plant introduces into the growing environment to suppress growth of another plant. “It’s kind of like chemical warfare against the native plants,” says Davis.

The insects and fungi that feed on garlic mustard in its native habitat are not present in North America, increasing the weed’s seed productivity and allowing it to outcompete native plants.

   <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/jul09/d1495-1.htm>
 In Urbana, Illinois, ecologist Adam Davis records the position of garlic mustard rosettes (clusters of green leaves low to the ground) on a sheet of transparent mylar. The locations are recorded in June and October of the first year and in June the following year to estimate rosette survival rates.  Once garlic mustard rosette locations are recorded, they are then converted into digital coordinates in a GIS (geographical information system) program, permitting spatial analysis of rosette survival.
 (D1495-1)  

A Model Solution

To better understand garlic mustard and find a suitable biocontrol, Davis—in collaboration with colleagues at Michigan State University, Cornell University, the University of Illinois, and the Centre for Agricultural Biosciences International (CABI) in Switzerland—created a computer model that simulates the weed’s life cycle.

“In part, we wanted to answer ecologists’ criticisms that biocontrol can potentially cause as many problems as it solves because of unintended consequences,” says Davis. “We were looking for a way to choose agents that are most likely to succeed while reducing their potential for harm to native plants and environments. Ideally, we want to try to release only one organism, if possible.”

Through this model, Davis was able to predict the type and severity of damage that would be needed to reduce garlic mustard’s population growth rates. Davis performed an analysis using computer code that enabled him to change one variable at a time while keeping all the others constant, allowing him to probe the life cycle for the plant’s weak point. He found that in order to make an impact, a biocontrol agent has to reduce garlic mustard’s survival in the rosette stage and its ability to reproduce in the adult stage.

Well before Davis created the life-cycle model, CABI scientists began looking for and testing potential biocontrol agents to tackle garlic mustard. They collected data on the amount of damage each insect could inflict on the garlic mustard population. From a list of more than 70 natural enemies found to be feeding on garlic mustard in Europe, four Ceutorhynchus weevils were selected as the most promising control agents.

Combining the feeding information collected by CABI scientists and the demographic information of garlic mustard in North America, Davis used the computerized life-cycle model to assess each weevil’s ability to inflict damage on the weed and inhibit its growth. One weevil, C. scrobicollis, came out on top.

High Hopes for Little Insect

The tiny C. scrobicollis has a life cycle of 1 year and produces one batch of offspring per lifetime. Itlays its eggs on garlic mustard’s leaf stems in the fall. When the eggs hatch in the spring, the larvae feed on the weed’s root crown, the area from which the rosette’s leaves grow and where nutrients are stored.

By feeding on the root crown, C. scrobicollis stops the flow of nutrients and water from the roots to the rest of the plant. It also damages the meristem, the area of the plant where new growth takes place. As a result, garlic mustard produces fewer seeds or, in areas with high weevil populations, dies prematurely in early spring without producing any seeds.

C. scrobicollis also appears to be monophagous, meaning it eats just one thing: garlic mustard. That means scientists won’t have to worry about any unintended consequences when using this insect as a biocontrol agent.

During preliminary testing, CABI scientists believed C. scrobicollis was the best candidate to control garlic mustard. Putting the weevil’s feeding data through Davis’s life-cycle model confirmed their beliefs and created a stronger case for the permit process.

“The model gave teeth to the permit application to release this weevil in the United States,” says Davis. “It provided a peek into the future as to the impact the weevil could have on the garlic mustard population here.”

C. scrobicollis is currently in quarantine at the University of Minnesota. If all goes well, this beneficial weevil may soon be roaming North America to find a nice garlic mustard meal.—By Stephanie Yao, <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/contacts.htm#Stephanie> Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.

This research is part of Crop Protection and Quarantine, an ARS national program (#304) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars.usda.gov <http://www.nps.ars.usda.gov/> .

Adam Davis <mailto:adam.davis@ars.usda.gov>  is in the USDA-ARS Invasive Weed Management Research Unit <http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/site_main.htm?modecode=36-11-25-00> , 1102 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801-4730; phone (217) 333-9654, fax (217) 333-5251.

"Munching on Garlic Mustard: A New Weevil in the Works" was published in the July 2009 <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jul09/>  issue of Agricultural Research magazine.