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Tiger-Lily To Visit Powder Valley Nature Center Starting Jan 23

The famous two-headed western rat snake, Tiger-Lily, will be at Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center in Kirkwood from Jan. 23 through the end of February.

Are two heads really better than one? Visitors to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Powder Valley Nature Center in Kirkwood can soon find out.

Tiger-Lily, a two-headed western rat snake, (Pantherophis obsoletus), will arrive at Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center on Tuesday, Jan. 23. The snake will remain there for visitors to see until the end of February. From there, the two-headed snake will continue her journey around Missouri, staying temporarily at other MDC sites across the state.

Tiger-Lily is on loan from her home at the Shepherd of the Hills Conservation Center near Branson, which is currently closed for construction.

Western rat snakes are non-venomous and native to Missouri. Tiger-Lily is actually a pair of conjoined identical snake twins that were never completely separated. Such snakes are rarely seen in the wild, partly because snakes born this way have a low survival rate.

“Tiger-Lily” is the name given to the two-headed snake by the family who found this unique reptile in Stone County in 2017,” said MDC Interpretive Center Manager Alison Bleich. “The female snake was donated to the Shepherd of the Hills Conservation Center for display purposes. “Tiger-Lily is almost five feet long and has a healthy appetite,” according to Bleich, but she said that feeding time always presents a challenge.

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Posted on January 21, 2024 in Home, Local Events, Outdoor/Nature

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Rock Island Rails To Trails Plan Hits Roadblocks: Update

Photo courtesy Bruce Sassmann.

by Don Corrigan

The Rock Island Trail proposal took a hit this month when Republican gubernatorial candidates Mike Kehoe and Jay Ashcroft announced they have serious doubts about the cross-state project.

This comes less than three weeks after Environmental Echo (EE) noted Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s support of the project as a significant tourism magnet for the state. EE cited the trail as a bright spot in 2024 for state nature lovers.

Kehoe and Ashcroft are running to replace Parson in 2024 as he is retiring. Leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate Crystal Quaid had indicated that she supports the trail as an economic boon to the state.

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Posted on January 20, 2024 in Environment, Home, Outdoor/Nature

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Powder Valley Nature Center presents An Evening with Raptors Jan. 26

Bird buffs, falcon fanciers, and anyone enraptured by raptors is invited to meet the objects of their admiration during this year’s An Evening with Raptors event.

The annual An Evening with Raptors hosted by the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center returns this year on Friday, Jan. 26 from 7-9 p.m. The event is free and is open to all ages.

It’s the ultimate partnership between man and bird. Falconry is an ancient sport, and you can learn all about it at An Evening with Raptors event. Falconry is the art of training raptors—birds of prey like hawks and falcons—to capture wild game, so that bird and trainer essentially become hunting partners. The use of falconry can be traced all the way back to 700 B.C.E., and perhaps even earlier.

“Several area falconers will gather to offer the rare chance to observe and learn about these fascinating feathered hunters,” said MDC Interim Nature Center Manager, Robyn Parker. “They will also explain how viewers can get started in this age-old sport themselves,” she added.

Registration required. See below.

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Posted on January 16, 2024 in Home, Local Events

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Coldwater Creek to finally have warning signs after decades of nuclear contamination

Story by ALLISON KITE – 1/8/24, republished from the Missouri Independent Newspaper

Missouri Independent: An undated photo from the 1980s, of a child swinging from a rope into Coldwater Creek. The photo is from a scrapbook kept by Sandy Delcoure, who lived on Willow Creek in Florissant and donated the scrapbook to the Kay Drey Mallinckrodt Collection (State Historical Society of Missouri, Kay Drey Mallinckrodt Collection, 1943-2006).

More than 70 years after workers first realized barrels of radioactive waste risked contaminating Coldwater Creek, the federal government has started work to put up signs warning residents.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement Monday that it was working with the Environmental Protection Agency to add signs along the creek to help it monitor areas “that may pose a risk if disturbed.”

Coldwater Creek has been contaminated for decades with radioactive waste left over from the World War II-era effort to build an atomic bomb. But though the creek winds through some of St. Louis’ busiest suburbs and past public parks and schools, the federal government had resisted calls to post signs warning visitors of the contamination.

“This is decades of potential exposure that could have been prevented that they drug their feet on,” said Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STL, an organization formed to advocate for communities affected by St. Louis-area radioactive waste.

Despite the delays, Chapman said she’s thankful that the signs are finally going to be installed.

The St. Louis area has long struggled with a radioactive waste problem. Uranium for the Manhattan Project, the name given to the effort to develop the first atomic bomb, was refined in downtown St. Louis.

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Posted on January 13, 2024 in Environment, Home

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Area Gears Up For Rare Solar Eclipse In April 2024

by Don Corrigan

Lots of “iffy” New Year’s predictions are being made for 2024. One sure bet prediction is that the sun will disappear on April 8, 2024. It will be the second solar eclipse for parts of Missouri in less than a decade.

Area astronomy clubs, school science programs and libraries have already got their sights set on a repeat of events that took place on Aug. 21, 2017. A highlight of that event was telescope viewing opportunities in St. Louis.

It’s not too early to start making plans. In fact, it may be too late if you want to get the full eclipse experience available in locales like Cape Girardeau or Carbondale, Illinois. Hotels and campsites are already posting “No Vacancy.”

Many in the St. Louis area will have a front row seat for a partial solar eclipse. There will be some amount of sky darkening, but there will be no corona and no totality, as in August 2017.

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Posted on January 2, 2024 in Home, Local Events

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Missouri Legislation Filed to Halt the Sale of Five Invasive Plants

Sericea lespedeza, a highly invasive plant that can infest grasslands, pastures, rights-of-way, and other areas, is one of five species whose sale would be halted with the passage of Representative Sassmann’s legislation filed on December 1, 2023.

Locally and globally, invasive plants and animals are the second leading cause of native biodiversity decline and also threaten the economic stability of the forest product, livestock, and outdoor industries. In addition, Bradford pear, sericea lespedeza, and other non-native, invasive plants are costly and time-consuming for Missouri landowners and suburban and urban homeowners to control.

Of the state’s 142 invasive plants, as assessed by the Missouri Invasive Plant Council (MoIP), many continue to be sold in Missouri, contributing to their future, unintended spread across the landscape.

On December 1, 2023, Representative Bruce Sassmann (District 061), took action to help protect the state from invasive plants by filing HB 1555 to halt the sale and intentional distribution of five invasive plant species: burning bush (Euonymus alatus), Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana and its cultivars, including Bradford and Chanticleer), climbing euonymus (Euonymus fortunei; also commonly known as wintercreeper); Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), and sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata).

Once passed, the Missouri Department of Agriculture is expected to be the agency tasked with enforcement of the legislation, issuing violations if any of the five plants listed above are found to be sold or intentionally distributed. Because of the investment that nursery owners and other plant sellers must make before many shrubs and trees are large enough to sell, two species on the list of five—burning bush and Callery pear plants—acquired by a licensed Missouri wholesale or retail plant nursery before January 1, 2025, shall be exempt from enforcement until January 1, 2028.

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Posted on January 2, 2024 in Environment, Home, Outdoor/Nature

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Alan Hopefl – “Honeysuckle Slayer” To Be Honored By Kirkwood Park Board

Above: Alan Hopefl clears the invasive honeysuckle bush. Photo courtesy Ursula Ruhl/Webster-Kirkwood Times.

by Don Corrigan

Some people see a bit of Christmas this time of year in the red berries and
fading green leaves of honeysuckle. Alan Hopefl only sees an enemy. He
sees it as an invasive that deserves no quarter.

“I’ve probably done 3,000 hours of honeysuckle cutting just in Emmenegger
Park in the past decade,” said Kirkwood resident Hopefl. “Emmenegger is
close for me. I can get to it walking from my backyard.

“Sometimes when I cut plants down close to a neighborhood, residents will
come out and ask if they can hire me to cut them down in their yard,”
laughed Hopefl. “I am not for hire. I have enough to cut in the park areas.”

Hopefl has been a Kirkwood Park Volunteer since 2010. At that time, he
was involved in all kinds of park work, not just removing honeysuckle. But
since the pandemic, he’s been a one-man team focused on honeysuckle.

“I don’t mind being called ‘the honeysuckle slayer.’ I’m sure I’ve been called
worse things,” said Hopefl. “I have a master naturalist ticket and I’ve
studied the plant enough to know all its bad effects.”

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Posted on December 14, 2023 in Environment, Home, Outdoor/Nature

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Twinkling Thru Jan.6: Garden Glow Adds New Items To Holiday Celebration

Photos courtesy MOBOT.

by Don Corrigan

St. Louis area residents are once again getting into the holiday spirit at Garden Glow at Missouri Botanical Garden. The show runs through New Year’s Eve and beyond.

Two-million lights await visitors, but these are not ordinary twinkling bulbs. Displays are extraordinarily high-tech and environmentally responsible.

According to the Garden’s Elves:

• All displays are LED and use minimal electrical energy.

• Glow is an immersive walking experience, rather than drive-thru.

• As an on-foot exhibit, the walkable displays reduce emissions.

• Food vendors use almost exclusively compostable containers.

• Trees used in displays are used to maximum sustainable advantage.

“Sustainability is at the heart of all we do at the Missouri Botanical Garden,“ said Catherine Martin, senior public information officer for MoBot.
“We continue to adapt Glow each year in sustainable ways

“Energy conservation is among the criteria for selection as we add new displays,” added Martin. “Garden Glow is carefully designed in coordination with our Horticulture staff to protect our living collection of trees and plants.”

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Posted on December 9, 2023 in Environment, Home, Local Events

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LEDs For Rudolph’s Nose: Eco-Friendly Christmas Lights Spread Season’s Cheer

By Don Corrigan

The bright lights and colors of Christmas were once a sure way to spread good cheer. Concerns about light pollution may have dimmed the holiday happiness a bit, but those concerns can be addressed.

There are plenty of ways to have a bright, eco-friendly Christmas, and it can start by replacing Rudolph’s red-hot, glowing nose with more energy efficient LED lights.

Santa Claus would approve! That’s because Santa swore off spreading light pollution on his annual sleigh ride journeys years ago. He’s sworn off naughty incandescent lights, and travels now with the nicer LED lamps.

Researchers find that in many major U.S. cities, nighttime lights shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during Christmas and New Year’s when compared to light output during the rest of the year. Energy consumption also increases.

LED Christmas lights are the best substitutes for regular Christmas lighting. They require 90 percent less energy than that needed for regular Christmas bulbs on trees and the exteriors of homes.

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Posted on November 27, 2023 in Environment, Home

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To Debut At Winery Nov. 25: Christmas Flatulence Basket Heads To Blumenhof

Buy a signed book from Don Corrigan’s pop culture trilogy and receive a raffle ticket for the amazing Christmas Flatulence Basket packed with gassy goodies. (pictured above)

Flatulence scholar Don Corrigan will unveil the Christmas Festival Flatulence Basket in the Washington, Missouri area on Nov. 25. The one-of-a-kind yuletide basket is destined to become a holiday favorite.

Festive and flatulence-festooned baskets will be available for viewing at the Blumenhof Winery Christmas Boutique in Dutzow on Saturday, Nov. 25, from noon – 5 p.m. Many vendors of holiday cheer also will present at the boutique.

Author Corrigan will have a book signing for his pop culture series of books, including his most recent: Flatulence in Popular Culture. Book buyers can get a signed book and a raffle ticket for a flatulence basket, the perfect holiday “white elephant” gift for dad.

McFarland Publishing recently announced that Corrigan’s pop culture trilogy is completed with three books: Nuts About Squirrels, American Roadkill, and Flatulence in Popular Culture. His flatulence book is headlined: “I fart in your general direction,” per the Holy Grail movies of Monty Python.

Shoppers can come to Blumenhof; buy a signed book from the pop culture trilogy; and, receive a raffle ticket for the amazing Christmas Flatulence Basket packed with gassy goodies. Signed books – with accompanying raffle ticket – can be purchased thru Dec. 18. Winner of the prize holiday basket will be drawn and announced on the first day of winter, Dec. 21.