Ken Lassman has been keeping this almanac for over a decade, He invites you to share your observations and photos in the comments section. You can find his book Wild Douglas County at The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence.
Deer Mating Moon – October
The Osage called this time Deer Mating Moon to commemoratee the very noticeable ree-appearance of the bucks, who are beginning to “rut,” which they literally do with their hooves. They find a prominent place and scrape the groundcover clear of vegetation as part of their mating ritual.
Hackberry, ash, box elder and elm trees are the first to turn yellow this month, providing nice contrast to the reds of sumac, poison ivy and Virginia creeper as their green chlorophyll plays out leaving either the yellow or red chlorophylls to collect the shorter day’s sunlight. Mid-late month spells the end of the growing cycle for annuals with the first killing frosts coming then most years. Mid-month is a great time to find native prairie patches, looking for the coppery colored grasses that distinguish them from the greens of cool season grasses such as brome, fescue and, of course, wheat.
Bird migration is building all month, with seagulls that breed in Canada passing through the area, along with pelicans, geese, and various ducks. A trip to Clinton or any other area reservoir, or the Wakarusa Wetlands is almost always a rewarding outing, whether it be for the migrating fowl around sunrise or sunset, or the changing colors of fall. This is the favorite time of year for many folks who like to be outdoors–what are you waiting for?
Deer Hiding Moon: September
The local Osage tribes called it “Deer Hiding Moon,” a time when bucks in this area are very reclusive while they finish growing antlers for the upcoming mating season. Even though they are hard to find, it is worth trying to spot a buck through binoculars this time of year to witness the softness of their antlers before they scrape off the felt to prepare for mating season.
September is the month of the autumnal equinox, mirroring March as the time of greatest daily change in the length of the day and the fastest movement of the point of sunset and sunrise on the horizon. Because of this, the word “equinox,” or equal day and night is somewhat of a misnomer because of the rapid daily changes that happen more quickly than any other time of year. Gardener/naturalist Sara Stein calls the fall the great planting time for nature. The seeds developed by the summer rains are themselves raining directly down on to the ground or coming into contact indirectly through the intestines of animals who have consumed their fruity coatings, giving them a ride and then depositing them along with some rich fertilizer for spring. Now is also the perfect time to visit some CRP native grass plantings or ungrazed native prairie to see how it is really taller than you are and how easy it would be to get lost in it.
Seeing the huge diamond of the square of Pegasus constellation rising in the east is a sure sign of fall and one of my favorite things about this time of year. The crisp, clear autumn weather is perfect for finding the northern corner of Pegasus where the constellation of Andromeda is located and seeing if you can see the Andromeda galaxy with your naked eye. The light from the Andromeda galaxy is the oldest light your eye can see without a telescope, having left the millions of stars in that galaxy over 2.2 million years ago.
I counted at least eight vultures just beyond the Kaw River Bridge for several days, then none yesterday. Maybe they were all away at a road kill party. Or as is often the case with natural things, I don’t really know vulture ways that well.
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Many if not most vulture flocks are intergenerational and their social behavior greatly contributes to their survival and thrival skills.They are one of the few birds who have a well developed sense of smell, odd as that sounds to our olfactory sensibilities. Of course when you watch the kinds of attention a dog gives to sensing the olfactory landscape, it should not be too surprising that smells quite repugnant to our noses create a very different reaction to the vulture.
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As many as four were back today. With a strong south wind deflecting upward from the levee, this could be an appealing location for the vultures. How much can they see from that elevation (other soaring birds as well)? What does it mean that they continue to circle in the same area rather than ranging farther abroad?
In other reading, I learned that dogs register certain odors ten to the sixth power more faint than humans can detect. I’m suspecting that scent molecules carried on the wind might reach the high soaring vulture.
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According to the research below, vulture olfaction does indeed draw the vulture, who works its way upwind until its superb eyesight kicks in: http://smithsonianscience.org/2013/11/study-shows-turkey-vulture-doubly-blessed-with-acute-vision-and-sense-of-smell/
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Thanks for the great link.
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Ken…do you have a link to the position on the horizon the sun and moon rises on any given day? If you do, will you please share it here? More and more I find myself wanting to photograph a specific sun or moon rise along with a specific landscape, not knowing for sure if the sun or moon will be positioned in the sky for the image I have in mind when I arrive at the location. “Northeast,” “East,” and “Southeast” can mean many miles of difference within each category, especially when I would like to capture the sun or moon rising exactly at some point between two buildings…ugh…ah well, the predilections of a perfectionist photographer lol. Anyway, thanks for your help and especially the Almanac…a wonderment indeed…
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There are any number of “ephemeris” websites where you can look up this information–one easy one can be found here: http://www.timeanddate.com/moon/usa/lawrence This website also has sun settings, but I just gave you the moon rise and set page. If you look, for instance at the July 26 2014 rise and set times for the moon for Lawrence (you can look up any city on this website), you’ll see that the rise time (6:10am) is followed by a number (70 degrees) as is the moonset time (8:14pm/288 degrees). The degrees refers to the moon’s “azimuth” coordinates, which is an imaginary 360 degree circle at the horizon, with 0 degrees being due north, 90 degrees being due east, 180 degrees south, and 270 being due west. So the moon on July 26 rises 20 degrees north of due east (90 degrees minus 20 = 70) and sets 18 degrees north of due west (270 + 18 = 288). Some compasses have 360 degree settings on their face, so you can figure out where 20 degrees north of east direction is, and there are probably apps out there that do the same thing.
Similarly, most planetarium/astronomical observation software programs will generate this information for you as well as giving you exact sun and moon coordinates for any given time of any day, and there are no doubt apps that will do this (I’m one of the few who don’t carry a smart phone so others may be better resources for you here). For instance I have a freeware program called Skychart/Cartes du Ciel where I can punch in any date and time to locate where in the sky the sun and moon are after punching the “ephemeris” button. The coordinate system used to describe the local position of the sun/moon is called “altazimuth” or altitude-azimuth. I’ve already described the azimuth being where on the 360 circle the sun/moon is located; besides that you need to know how far above the horizon it is. So, for instance, if the moon’s azimuth is 120 degrees and the altitude is 60 degrees, that means that you would look 30 degrees south of due east (or southeast) and up 60 degrees from the horizon, or around 2/3 of the way up to being straight overhead.
Hope this helps! Good luck in your photographic endeavors–feel free to share/upload a link to any successes you have!
Ken
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Ken…thank you so VERY much! You are a wonderment of helpful information! Please forgive for my not having responded sooner. Will for sure share any successes. Along those lines, are we only able to post links to where we might store images or are we able to upload images from our own puters? If we can upload from our puters, how do we do that? Again, thank you…
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If you just send links/attach photos to an email to seasonsandcycles@yahoo.com I’ll be happy to post any relevant photos on this website. If you have a picasa or snapfish or flikr account, you can just share a link to your uploaded pics, like I have on the right column of this website (see “more photos” link). Alternatively, you can post your link in the reply to this comment.
Thanks in advance for sharing!
Ken
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Thank you, Ken…hopefully I’ll be able to send along images worth posting. Mike
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I might add the obvious: a photograph of a setting sun or moon looks just exactly like a rising sun or moon and is easier to pinpoint its location in order to align it for interesting configurations. I particularly like to watch the setting moon during the several mornings that follow the full moon–west horizons are frequently clear in the morning. The same goes with the sun at sunset, with the added bonus of looking for the “green flash” that can occur on the horizon as the orb of the sun slips below the horizon. This phenomenon is observed most commonly over the ocean on the clearest of days, but I know one person who observed it in the Flint Hills.
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Thank you, Ken, obvious perhaps, but well worth the reminder. How often does the obvious escape us? I hope sometime I can catch that “green flash” in the Flint Hills, but just being in the Flint Hills is always enough.
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