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Re: Quiet Time

>Greetings from the Lone Star State,
>
>I think I know why it's quiet.  It's August! Unlike mad dogs and
>Englishmen, prairies know how to tell time by the seasons.
>
>Did any of you go to the North American Prairie Conference late July in
>Nebraska? I couldn't, and I'd love to hear your impressions.
>
>Lee Stone
>Austin, TX
>
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Dear Lee,

Here are some of my impressions from the Kearney Conference.  It was well
attended with some 300+ individuals from all over the prairie states and
Canada.

The paper sessions were typical.  Some were excellent others, well,they
helped one to catch a few zzzzeeee's.  There were many more papers on
reconstructions than in past conferences.  Prairie reconstruction is alive
and well all over.  The overall results of reconstructions is much more
successful, than those attempts of even 10 years ago.

A number of papers were simply general observations and some were given by
amatures as opposed to graduate students or academia.  They were excellent
and inspiring.  Dycie Madson (the late John Manson's wife) read poetry, and
another woman gave a great presentation on quilts.

Scientific papers on prairie birds appeared from my perspective to contain
some new information relating to area needed for breeding by specific
species.  It was shown that a row of trees through any prairie effectively
reduces its potential by one half.  This appeared to affect species such as
bobolinks which seem to require larger open areas for nesting, as opposed
to meadowlarks which might nest along the fragmented habitat of a roadside.


The field trips departed in all directions from Kearney.  I went to Cather
(Named after Willa Cather) Prairie just one half mile from the Kansas
border.
It is owned and managed by TNC and the management is early season grazing
by cattle andthe use of fire.  It looked good with lots of diversity, but
compared to the tallgrass prairies here in Iowa and it is short, dry (due
to shallow soils) and (in places) sparce.  I was personally impressed by
the scurf-peas.  There were a number of species and again they had smaller
leaves than the silver-leaved scurf pea here in Iowa and the upper midwest.


The North American Prairie Conference seems to maintain a very dedicated
following, thus we saw many old friends and that is usually the best part,
the chance to visit with others who are really interested in prairies.





Carl Kurtz
515-477-8364
cpkurtz@netins.net 


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