The March Hare: Summer '04
Issue 41

It's not the heat... * The Ecovillage at 1 Jaunty Weasel Lane * AgriCulture: Musings on Roots * Member Bio: Sara * Growing with the garden * Nature Corner: An Academic Approach *

Come see our past issues for lots of Dancing Rabbit information.

Nature Corner: An Academic Approach

by Rachel Katz

This summer my relationship with nature has taken a more structured turn. I am pursuing a Master's Degree in Biology from local Truman State University and am lucky enough to be doing my research right here on Dancing Rabbit's and neighbors' land.

Much of the land around here (including 200 of our 280 acres) is enrolled in a government program called the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). It started in the eighties as a way to preserve soil by taking highly erodable land out of agricultural production. Pretty quickly it became clear that it was good for wildlife too, and the program has increasingly been geared towards habitat improvement. I'm studying the effect of burning compared to mowing of CRP fields on grassland birds and their food chain dynamics.

The season started with three 20-25 acre burns, run by the local volunteer fire department. One of those was on Dancing Rabbit property, within sight of the village. After a burn, you can really see the lay of the land, and any woody plants really stand out because they are about the only things that survive. We were so inspired by those burns that we pulled off a last minute burning of one of our prairie restorations a few days later without a hitch.

Since then a small crew of field assistants and I have managed to stake transects, assess vegetation, count birds, search for nests and put out artificial nests. Grassland birds have notoriously difficult to find nests. They are often right on the ground, hidden by a dome of vegetation. We don't find enough to be statistically useful, so we put down artificial nests (with real eggs) that we can check regularly and get an indirect measure of predation pressure.

In addition, two undergraduates who are doing their research in my fields add another dimension to my work. Jerod is collecting insects, which gives me an idea of food abundance. Jeff is trapping (and releasing) rodents, which tells me something about the abundance of one of the birds' main predators.

I spend a lot of time out in those fields making little marks on sheets of paper. But while I have to keep one eye on the science, I try to keep one eye open for the wonder. Some things I'm actively looking for. Watching eggs turn into baby birds and then watching them grow up is amazing. While it's terribly unscientific, I can't help but ooh and ahh over how cute nestlings are when they open their mouths at me, mistaking me for a parent bringing food. The sad part is sometimes I return to check on them and all I find are feathers.

Other things I just stumble upon. After the burn, there was no vegetation and we found bones of all sorts. Those pre-dawn mornings I went out to search for nests and count birds, I got glimpses of our nocturnal residents, like a red fox. And the sunrises have been unbelievable. I highly recommend wandering outside around dawn: the world is fresh and you can witness the changing of the guard between the nocturnal and diurnal.