Everybody Likes Chicken

Once again a bit of a recap. First a short bit on our last workday of the week, Thursday. Then the weekend doings—a trip to the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge.

Thursday was supposed to be a day in the field with Sarah, the intern, looking for Chinese Tallow, another invasive tree. We'd been out once before to check on the results of last year's removal attempts, but since the trees hadn't started to leaf out, we couldn't tell if the ones that had been sprayed were actually dead. Spring has sprung, so it was time for another attempt.

But it didn't happen. Before we arrived in the morning, Sarah had been called out to Port O'Connor to the oil spill command center to work there through the weekend at least. This left us to our own devices. We decided to continue the April fire extinguisher inspections and took a ride out to the boat dock to check the dock and boat equipment. When we got there, Greg, the maintenance manager was there waiting to take some people out to Matagorda. Unfortunately, we weren't quick enough to think of waiting to see if there was any room, using the rationale of checking equipment out there. We left before they arrived. I don't know if it would have worked, but it might have been worth a try. We spent the rest of the day on the never-ending paper cataloging project.

Friday, we were off to the Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR to attend their annual Prairie Chicken Festival.  Our first stop, however, was for lunch in Eagle Lake at Austin's Bar-B-Q and Catering. It scored high on our Texas BBQ list, not as high as Two Bros, but #2 so far.



The Attwater's Prairie Chicken is a sub-species of the Greater Prairie Chicken and is even more endangered than the Whooping Crane, with less than 200 in the wild. This number is only supported by a captive breeding program. The refuge has less than 100. All North American prairie chicken and grouse species are in decline due to habitat loss and are in danger. Not only do the prairie chickens have virtually no prairie left to range on, they are also low on the food chain and have many predators, coyotes, fox, hawks and owls, not to mention snakes. Everybody likes chicken.

Another problem here is the fire ants, an exotic species. There is low chick survival due to the effects of fire ants. It was originally though that they preyed directly on the chicks, but it was recently determined that the chicks were starving to death. They are not fed by the hen, but depend on foraging for insects and insect bits during the first few weeks of life. The fire ants have been so efficient at wiping out the other insects and cleaning up the detritus, that the chicks have been unable to find enough food.

We were able to arrange to stay on the refuge, dry camping in Speedy, in return for driving a van they had borrowed back to Aransas. This was quite a boon as the nearest campground was 25 miles away and Prairie Chickens get up early. We were parked between their maintenance buildings, partly because it was somewhat out of the wind (and it was quite windy on the prairie) and partly to keep us out of sight of other visitors (they had no space in the volunteer area). It did give us access to electricity, which was useful as it was 90° on Friday and the air conditioner in Speedy was welcome.

At this time of the year, the males gather in an open spot called a Lek, sometimes a "Booming Ground" to try to attract the hens. They puff themselves up and jump up and down, sometimes challenging one another, hoping that a female will come along and pick the best puffer and jumper as a mate (a very temporary one, the males take no further interest afterward). This all takes place between morning twilight and, at best, 10 am.

For the festival, the refuge shuttled people out to the most active booming ground to watch the performance on Saturday and Sunday morning. It is in a non-public area of the refuge, so this is really the only chance for most people to even see an Attwater's Prairie Chicken. The refuge ran a continuous van shuttle starting at 7AM. People started arriving around 6:15 AM. It is still dark at that time and we had a view of the entrance road from Speedy's campsite and could see the headlights streaming in. By the time we walked over at about 6:45, they had already filled three vans.

The vans took us out to a platform set up about 300 yards from the lek where we had a good view—at least if one had a spotting scope (and we did). It was worth the trip as there were five males spread across the booming ground performing on both mornings. We only saw one female though.

There were other events for the festival. We attended an interesting talk on prairie ecology and grassland birds on Saturday and took the van tour of the refuge where they go through the restricted areas of the refuge and explained the work they do to maintain it as native prairie. Like here at Aransas, it is a constant fight to keep down invasive species. They use a lot of prescribed burning to mimic the effects of natural burning and the burning done by early native americans.

It turns out that the prairie wasn't all-natural. The prairie tribes used fire to remove trees and brush and create and preserve prairie grasses. The grasslands were conducive, not only to birds like the prairie chicken, but also large browsing animals like the bison. Even today, the refuge does low-intensity cattle grazing in the refuge to simulate the similar usage by bison.

We also took the bird walk on Sunday morning after we returned from the booming ground. We didn't see many species, but the leader, from the Texas Park & Wildlife Department, talked about the kinds of birds that occur on the grasslands and also about some of the plants and wildflowers. We saw lots of wildflowers during our stay as it is wildflower season in Texas. With the wind, our eyes and noses reacted to the heavy wildflower and grass pollen as well. By the end of the walk, we were ready to pick up the Aransas van and come back to the coast.



Ellen drove the van most of the way and I drove Speedy. We swapped for a bit after stopping for lunch but there was a strong crosswind and Speedy is pretty twitchy, so she went back to driving the Aransas van which had its own problem, a bit of front-end wobble at highway speeds. In any case, we made it back to the refuge by mid-afternoon.

Monday is our last day off. We did a bit of a bird walk around the visitor center, Rail trail and residence area, but it was very quiet. The most notable bird was a Solitary Sandpiper. The other notable sight was two dead alligators. Evidently two of the 'gators they rescued last week didn't survive. One was very large and was estimated to be over 50 years old.

On Monday there is also the weekly volunteer meeting with Felipe, the manager in charge of Visitor Services. It was the last meeting for four of the volunteers and they received recognition certificates, volunteer passes and various pins. They will all be leaving after next weekend, leaving only us and Norm, the remaining Maintenance volunteer, through the end of the month. Felipe has been actively recruiting for the summer and has found at least three volunteers for the summer (quite a feat given the hot weather here) and already has several for next winter.

We were also updated on the oil spill mitigation (going well) and some new oil and gas development about to start on the refuge (for some reason, the government did not acquire mineral rights when it acquired the refuge land and there are wells and active exploration on both the Blackjack Peninsula and Matagorda Island). Felipe is also in charge of monitoring oil and gas operations on the refuge and would really like to find a volunteer with some experience in that area to help him out. The final bit of news is the appointment of a permanent refuge Project Manager. The Project Manager is the title of the refuge head and Aransas has only had an acting manager for a couple of years now.

It should be interesting to see how things turn out, but we probably won't be around to see any of it since we leave in about three weeks.

Well, a cold front blew in this afternoon, the temperature has dropped 20 degrees and we have a north wind. Maybe we'll see some migrant birds this week. We are still looking for those migrating warblers.