Making Up For Lost Time

When it comes to weather conditions, Mother Nature always seems to balance herself out over time; this week is no exception. We have made up our entire July precipitation deficit in the past 36 hours with a total of 2.50" of rain. Fortunately, we are getting the steady "soaker" rainfall variety which is much better than the flooding monsoon type, but either way the golf course is completely saturated.

#2 green saturated to the point that water has replaced all the available pore space in the soil - causing air and gases to surface. Poking holes in these "bubbles" releases the air and returns the turf to normal.

We are closely monitoring conditions, but at this point (9:30 am) the golf course is not playable. As soon as the rain subsides, we must let the water drain to a point where traffic (whether foot or mechanical) poses no harm to the turf. Then we can continue with our course preparations and play can resume.

Rough Status

If you've played in the past week or so, you may have noticed that the rough is rather... well, let's just say it's nice and healthy!

During the dry spell from Derby to about a week ago, we were able to irrigate most of the rough and keep it from going completely dormant. This combined with the recent rainfalls has contributed to the rough literally exploding out of the ground. Actually, we are seeing a surge of growth throughout all areas of the golf course.

An example of our healthy rough!

We have benefited from the recent growth spurt in regards to the Western Amateur preparations. At this point, we are able to identify weak or thin areas that need additional TLC. We plan to overseed these areas and apply fertilizers to help achieve a uniform, dense sward of rough to help defend the course from the big hitters next year.

We hope today's rain soaks in quickly so we can get the mowers back in action. Until then, we recommend hitting it long and straight!

Moisture Deficit, Irrigation Status, & Fairy Rings.

Moisture Deficit:
After record rainfall earlier in the year, the past 6 weeks have been quite dry. July’s total rainfall was only about 1”. Average rainfall for July, is approx. 3.7”, so the deficit was 2.7”. The first 2 weeks in August were also very dry with only about 0.33”. This week we have had some welcomed rains, but until now, we were experiencing a fairly large moisture deficit.

The lack of moisture is evident below. This picture also shows the negative impact trees have on turf, as this tree is winning the battle for water. The healthier green rough 'outside' of the rectangular shape benefited from root pruning - a benefit from the installed irrigation pipe.

Irrigation Status:
In a warmer year, this deficit would have been more noticeable on fairways and especially bunker faces. However, our new irrigation system has performed quite well, as we’ve been able to irrigate easily and with more selectivity. We’ve been fine tuning the system lately; adjusting arc’s, spray trajectories, run times, flow rates, and developing irrigation programs for all areas. We still have much to do, but we’re making good progress. We’re already watering much more uniformly and accurately than ever before, but this “fine tuning” will allow us to be as efficient as possible with irrigation inputs.

One thing hasn’t changed - even the best irrigation system doesn’t seem to have the same benefit as rainfall. Rain infiltrates better, doesn’t miss many places, and is free, but in its absence, our irrigation system provides us options that rainfall cannot. Of course the main option is placing water where we want, and when we want. This past Derby was a prime example.

The flexibility of the system gives us options we've never had before.

In the 2 weeks prior to Derby we watered fairways, approaches, and greens very seldom, since our new system would provide rapid re-hydration in these areas when needed. In the meantime, we maintained regular watering of tees, green banks, roughs, and high traffic areas. This was something we couldn’t do in the past and allowed us to provide firm and fast conditions and new challenges from those in the past. Many of you commented favorably about the ground and turf conditions.

The ball roll, the opportunity to play bump and run shots, the need to think more about club selection, conserving water, reducing electrical costs and equipment wear to pump it, and more, are all nice benefits to firmer, drier conditions. Aside from the “less green or more brown” color (which may appear to some as unhealthy when in fact it’s not, it’s just slightly dormant), one issue I’d like to discuss that is more prevalent when dry is a disease called Fairy Ring.

Fairy Ring:
I’ve written about this disease in the past as it’s been active on many of our greens and fairways over the last several years, but with it becoming more noticeable recently, I thought it would be an apropos blog topic.

In 2006, Fairy Ring became a big problem on many greens. Below is Type I (brown to dead rings) Fairy Ring, which causes hydrophobic conditions in the soil leading to severe wilt stress.

Fairy Ring is the common name given to this little understood and highly complex (more than 50 different fungi have been isolated) turf disease that expresses itself in three different ways; green rings, green rings with multiple stunted mushrooms, and brown to dead rings. We’ve had all three here in the past. The green ring phase is not deadly to turf but it does cause the soil to become hydrophobic or water repellent and the rings often become depressed leading to an uneven surface with high and low spots. This can affect your stance and shot making ability.

Other, less injurious Fairy Ring examples.
Practice Green
#18 Fairway

Complete control of Fairy Ring, with a given cultural or chemical treatment, has not been realized so a multiple faceted approach is needed to manage this disease and keep its deleterious results to a minimum. Our approach utilizes several processes including; aeration, needle tine ventilation, wetting agents, judicious handwatering, nutrient application, and fungicide treatments both prior to symptoms in early spring and after any occurrences in mid-summer.

Aeration provides holes to help water infiltrate into hydrophobic areas of the soil.

All of these management tools and techniques are employed for the greens, but the size of the fairways adds costs to an already tight budget. Our early spring fungicide applications on greens have shown very good results (better than post occurrence treatments) in minimizing the development of the “brown to dead ring” phase that we’ve often seen when we didn’t preventively treat. With fungicide treatment the less damaging “green ring” phase is most common on the putting greens, and we can often mask this cosmetic appearance with macro and micronutrient applications.

With the general rainfall deficit and our intentional “drier, firmer, faster” conditioning, the drier fairways have shown an increased amount of “green ring” fairy ring and the associated depressed areas, but also a few locations where the “brown to dead ring” phase has begun. We have recently aerated and applied wetting agents to help offset the hydrophobic soil conditions on a few fairways and we will continue to monitor all others and perform similar operations as needed to minimize any playability issues and/or turf damage. The one management item we did not perform this year (due to cost saving measures), is an early preventive fungicide treatment on fairways which may have helped reduce the amount of fairy ring. Perhaps next year, with the Western Amateur Championship taking place here at about the same time of year that Fairy Ring typically becomes most prevalent, a prudent decision would be to apply at least one early season preventive fungicide treatment.

2009 Derby

It seems hard to believe, but the 59th Run for the Rose’s is now in the history books. The record wet weather earlier this year thankfully gave way to nice, dry conditions these past few weeks and remained very pleasant for our main event.

Sunshine & dry was our "gift" of the week...
...helping provide the theme of the week - firm and fast conditions, as the photo below might suggest.

We always look forward to this tournament, as it is one of few times during the year when we pull out all the stops and try our very best to bring you the best and most memorable play conditions of the year. We heard many favorable comments regarding the condition of the course, and we believe we met our goal. It could not have happened without the dedication, commitment, and plain hard work of Scott, Steve, Jacob, Shaun, Gus, Ed, and the entire Grounds & Greens Staff. They all deserve thanks for their many long days in preparation for the Derby.

Our "Maintenance Shotgun" heading out for Friday night's course preparations once the south end of the course was free of players.

The mild and dry weather prior to and during this year’s Derby was a real treat compared to the warm and wet conditions of the last few years. This, as well as our ability to now control irrigation more precisely, provided us the opportunity to mow more frequently, roll everyday, and limit irrigation inputs, such that very firm and fast conditions were possible.

Everyone would probably agree that the green speeds were plenty fast (12.5+), smooth and true, and the hole locations made things interesting and very challenging. We didn’t take any readings of the fairway speeds, but we saw many shots bouncing and rolling good distances. In some cases players ended up in places they hadn’t been before. Good shots were rewarded with less club needed to hit the green, whereas wayward shots often ended up in bunkers or in the longer, now irrigated, rough.

Scott frequently recorded stimpmeter readings to ensure speeds were Derby worthy.

Jacob methodically checked angles, undulations, and positions to provide as fair and challenging hole locations as possible.

We tested a few new strategies this year with next year’s Western Amateur Championship in mind. Mowing heights, frequency, and patterns in all turf areas, greens rolling, and even fairway rolling, were a few such items. Additionally, the prior week’s (and several weeks earlier) topdressing, nutrient levels, pest management, growth regulation, and irrigation, were all manipulated to “peak” just in time for the Derby. We learned much and we will use these same strategies and others again next year for both the Derby and the Western Amateur Tournament.

14 straight days of greens rolling was a key factor to achieving fast speeds, smooth surfaces, and most importantly, true ball roll.

Though not a common practice, rolling fairways brings new dynamics to the game - more interesting ball bounce, longer distances, and the introduction of more hazards to stray shots.

Congratulations are certainly in order for this year’s Derby Champions, Jaime Pfaff and Rob Schoder. The course was very challenging and the fine play (and low scores) from the Women’s Member-Member Champions, Carrie Coquillette and Linda Campbell, may have had a little something to do with the difficulty of the hole locations each day!

2009 Men's Derby Champions Jaime Pfaff and Rob Schoder, with Derby Chairman Richard Knier

Thinking ahead to next year’s Derby, now may be an appropriate time to mention that with the Western Amateur to be held only a week after, and our desire to sufficiently challenge these accomplished players, we're guessing the rough will likely be a bit more dense and longer than this year. Growing rough in the middle of summer mainly requires fertilizer, water, reduced mowing and traffic control, but also a few weeks time. Derby participants will be able to witness, first hand, some of this “sufficiently challenging” rough. Do we hear “Single Digit Derby Winners”? Perhaps 2010 is the year!

Good luck next year!

Goodbye Whiskers... Hello New Yardage Markers

They are here!! The new sprinkler caps have arrived and are being installed as this post is being written. By day's end, we will have all 18 holes completed (nearly 600 caps) assuming the looming precipitation doesn't turn for the worst and run us off the course.

The new caps are similar to the previous ones, with bright white numbering. One difference being the new numbers are slightly smaller due to the smaller size of the new sprinkler heads.

Here is a brief overview of how the yardage markers are positioned on the golf course.

• All fairways have 3 rows of yardage markers; 1 up the center and 1 on each side of the fairway. There is only a few exceptions to this due to varying fairway widths where there may only be 2 markers across (e.g. narrow section in the middle of 11) or as many as 4 (the wide section on 3 by the 150 yard mark).
  
• The side row markers will be located on the head closest to the center of the fairway; which may occur directly on the fairway, or in many cases, at the fairway/rough interface.
• Par 3's - Around tees and from the beginning of each fairway to the last approach heads before the greens. (NOTE: A few tees (e.g. 2 forward tee) have different sprinkler head models and require specialized caps. These will be installed in the near future.)
  
• Par 4's - Roughly 250 yards to the last approach heads before the greens.
• Par 5's - Roughly 300 yards to the last approach heads before the greens.

An example where the head closest to the center of the fairway was given the yardage marker.

As we mentioned in an earlier post this spring, the GPS data equipment ($30k+) used to map out yardages is accurate to the sub-millimeter. Rest assured, if you are standing on a sprinkler head marked 100 yards - it is exactly 100 yards to the center of the green. The GPS data not only gets distances precise, but it can map the center of any area, including our irregular greens, to a pin point.

The new sprinkler head spacing is now closer than the old layout which has increased the total number of heads on the fairways. Because of this, there are an additional 250+ (about 14 more per hole) yardage markers in the fairways which should make things easier for you.

Now go out there and dial in those approach shots!!

June Recap

The month could be summed up in just a few words - cold, cloudy, wet, warm... then cold again. It started out with temperatures colder than average, then flooded us in the middle (19th) which was then followed by warmer than average temperatures. The entire month was cloudier than average (cloudiest June in 4 decades), and then back to colder than average at the end. And, so far in July the cool spell continues with nearly a record low temperature on July 1. We can at least say that the weather surely makes things interesting!

Clouds, water, sun... all we're missing here is a 'feel' for the temperature and humidity (which was on a roller coaster ride on this day - Friday of Kiltie Days).

June snow??? Yet almost believable this year, this is actually cottonwood seeds littered across the 4th fairway. They were nearly 3 weeks later than usual this year!

I know it’s been a while since we added new posts and hopefully you’ve been out on a good day or two to see what’s happening on the course but here is a quick glimpse in case you haven’t

The picture at the top shows the early morning passing of storm #1 out of 3 on that dreadful Friday. The day's total topped 3 inches, caused significant flooding, and as you know, put a real damper on Kiltie Days.

The newly sodded repair area at #17 drainage path was quickly rearranged!

Head Explosion on No. 17 Tee – A sprinkler head defect erupted causing soil and sod to be redistributed on back portion of west side tee. With over 1800 heads, I suppose a defect or two is not out of the question. Hopefully any future ones are not this extreme.


We realize everyone is anxious to see the yardages on the sprinkler heads, and we anticipate the new caps arriving early next week. We are also close to finishing the removal of old irrigation equipment including heads, valves, valve boxes, and satellite controllers.

Although we haven’t had to actually use the New Irrigation System very much, is has been very helpful and effective at times for watering-in nutrients, wetting agents, certain disease and insect control materials, and other plant protectants. The selectivity options of where we want to irrigate, (fairways only, rough only, banks only, greens only & more) the precise timing, the radio control and so many more features is truly outstanding. One of these days we just might have to actually irrigate to alleviate dry soils!

Watering plant protectants using many heads on multiple programs simultaneously.

Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes... and yeah, more Mosquitoes.
To no surprise, these lovely friends of ours are enjoying their smorgasbord of golfers and employees at the club this year. The high mosture levels and regional flooding has created the ideal breeding ground and we are all feeling the effects.

This might be a nice addition to the 1st tee this year!

As we all do our best to battle the mosquitoes, we do want to give everyone an important reminder. Deep Woods Off, Cutter, and other bug repellents will kill grass, flowers, and other plants. Please apply your repellent of choice away from grassed areas, particularly greens, tees, and fairways. We recommend applying your spray/lotion at the clubhouse or proshop, and when on the golf course, please spray while on the cart paths.

The green footprints are a "dead" give away to insect repellent sprayed while standing on this particular tee.
AKA: "Size 8 Periphery Blight"

Many more posts to come as time and course work allows. We’ll let you know when new postsare added (so you don’t have to keep checking) if you use the Sign Up feature to the right.

Happy Summer!

The Mysterious Footprints

A few members have recently asked questions about the odd yellow to brown footprints noticeable on a few greens. They were very good questions indeed, and to be completely honest, they are a bit of a mystery to us. We’ve considered various possible reasons and analyzed the conditions leading up to these blemishes, but there are still several unexplainable facts.

Footprints on #2 approach and green (photo was digitally enhanced for visibility).

Here’s how the “mystery footprints” story goes:

In our ongoing quest to provide you with high quality putting surfaces, we apply plant protectants to the greens on a weekly basis. As mentioned in an earlier 'Pest Management' blog (available here), plant protectants include many items such as nutrients, micronutrients, fungicides, plant growth regulators, and biostimulants, to name a few. These weekly applications are usually made on Friday’s so that if high stress conditions, (high heat & humidity - which can induce certain fungal activity leading to disease and turf loss) were to occur on a busy weekend, we would not interfere with play by conducting emergency spray applications.

Two weeks ago we made a routine plant protectant application which included nutrients, biostimulants (sea-weed extract, plant hormones, vitamins), and plant growth regulators. We’ve used all of these products in the past, but this time we added half rates of two different plant growth regulators instead of the full rate of just one. This is the only difference from past applications. We’ve applied this mixture many times before on fairways but not on the greens. However, these same products and mixtures have been, and continue to be, used at other courses in our area and even at much higher rates than we typically use. We wanted to be very cautious and use very low rates initially, as these are very active compounds (1 ounce per acre). In time, we would then increase rates to normal recommended levels.

You may ask, “Why do we need a mixture of growth regulators”? I could write a multi-page blog on this topic alone, but basically, the varying types are used to provide two modes of action and two different responses. One type slows the vertical growth causing the turf plants to grow more compact (more consistent green speed by slowing the growth from morning into the evening), while the other type helps lateral growth, aiding in recovery from ball marks and wear.

Close up of footprints

The application went well with no problems encountered during the procedure, and there were no unusual environmental conditions that day. The putting surfaces were finally starting to dry out a bit, with several days of windy conditions preceding this treatment, but nothing at all stressful to the turf.

Two days later we noticed these peculiar, off-colored footprints appearing and upon a thorough inspection of all greens, it appeared as though 7 greens had these mysterious footprints. We of course, became concerned and began to speculate. Was it happening that day? Was it something from a previous day? Was it caused by a golfer (it looked like the prints were going to and from a previous hole location)? Was it something that we recently sprayed and then walked over to replace the flagstick after making the application? The questions really started to flow.

Perhaps it was this “new to the greens” growth regulator mixture that was a little phytotoxic (damaging to plants) when traffic was present immediately after application? However, the same mixture was used on all greens, so why was it not more wide spread and only on 7 greens? Four tank mixtures are needed to treat all the greens. As we reviewed our records and recalled the process, there was no clear indication that any one tank mixture was the problem. Footprints occurred on greens from 3 different tank mixtures, but not all of the greens treated with these tanks were affected. Very puzzling indeed!

We contacted suppliers of products and reviewed our tank mixtures and were reassured that these problems had not occurred with our same tank mix recipe at anywhere in the past. And, as I mentioned before we have applied these same products to fairways and in fact, the same week applied 4 times the rate (still well below maximum rates) of these same products to our fairways, with no signs of traffic or mystery footprint damage!

We thought about other possibilities as to the cause and considered that perhaps it was something on the applicators shoes, maybe a spill in the mix area that picked up on his shoes and he unknowingly tracked it onto the greens. This would explain multiple tanks being involved but why not all the tanks, and also, there was no obvious spill during the mixing process! And, if something were perhaps, on the floor board (carried by the shoes of the applicator) of the sprayer, why then would there be 2 sets of footprints on one of the greens, coming from persons from 2 different vehicles. Any CSI’s out there?

It’s usually at about this point in a mystery story where a clue finally surfaces that allows the mystery to become unraveled and solved. Problem is… we think we have thought through all possible scenarios, and we don’t have any other clues!

So, as we continue to scratch our heads and ponder the cause of these mysterious footprints, fortunately we can take a little comfort knowing that, at least, the damaged areas were limited and they do appear to be recovering.

Course Update - New Turf Establishment

Now that the irrigation installation is finished and many other early season projects are concluding, more time will be available to bring you new blog posts on a more consistent basis. For today's post, we'd like to give you an update on the progress of several of the new establishing turf areas (ie., winter damaged greens, expansions, and over-seeded rough areas).

Winter damage #3 and #11 greens
Recovery on both greens has been quite good despite such a cool and wet spring. We have seeded the areas twice to this point, and new plant growth has filled in 90% of the areas. Sod was only needed on the small spot on the back left of #11. With more topdressing, watering, and care, we believe the remaining thin spots will be completely filled very soon.

#11 damage shown shortly after the green covers were removed.

Recovery shown below - picture taken June 6, from the same location.

Winter damage #8 fairway:
Similar to #3 and #11 greens, the right side of #8 fairway is recovering nicely from the winter damage. This was seeded a few weeks later than the greens, but the seedlings are thriving well now.

Damaged turf in #8 fairway - mid-April.

New seedling growth.

#4 approach expansion:
The new expansion on #4 approach is filling in very well and beginning to really take shape. The process began last November and involved sod cutting out the new area, followed by the planting of aeration cores (we will elaborate on this process in a future post). Some of the areas did not over-winter that well, requiring supplemental planting and seeding early this spring.

This particular expansion will make for more interesting and optional approach shots into the green and greatly enhance the "reward" for clearing the bunkers... as intended by the original design.

Before and after pictures of the new expansion.

Rough overseeding:
Each spring, we have a fair amount of over-seeding to do in the rough. High traffic areas and rough around and beneath trees require the bulk of this work. Most of these areas are aerated, seeded, and finally topdressed with a soil/sand mix material. It generally takes 3 to 4 weeks for the areas to fully mature, at which point we are able to take the protective rope lines down. Sod is also used in the worst of these areas, which you may have already seen on the course.

An example of thinned out rough in a high traffic, tree competitive area.
New seedling establishment in a similarly worn rough area.

Irrigation Project Finished

It was just about a year ago when loads of pipe, wire, valves, fittings, controllers, sprinkler heads, storage trailers, installation equipment, and Leibold Irrigation crew members arrived, beginning the new irrigation system project. Today, I’m pleased to report, all of the materials are installed, the storage trailers and most equipment are gone, and Leibold’s crew has moved on to other projects.

The last 2 projects of the entire installation: clubhouse irrigation (above) and the Sahara bunker face irrigation (below).

There are several other items that I’m pleased to report at this time, and I think you will be too.

• In spite of one of the wettest spring periods on record, the installation was completed within the planned completion date of May 31. I can’t say enough good things about Leibold Irrigation; they were great to work with, accommodating at every step along the way, provided superb attention to workmanship and detail, and worked like warriors in battle during some very unpleasant working conditions last fall (floods) and again during this spring’s miserable cold, windy, and rainy weather.

• With 21 miles of pipe, 340 miles of wire, 400 valves, and nearly 2000 sprinkler heads, there has been only a couple minor leaks, a few defective sprinkler heads, and one defective quick coupler valve. There may be a leak here or a malfunction there, but we can be certain that Leibold Irrigation will stand behind their work for years to come.

• The new system has several control options which will provide nearly unlimited flexibility and upgradability well into the future:

1. Central Control from office (the primary means of operation)
2. Radio Control (for supplemental watering during day)
3. Palm Pilot Control (similar to radio but allows any desired field changes to be made on the course and then synced to central)
4. Field Satellite Control (operate stand alone if a malfunction were to occur with central computer, or supplemental watering during day)
5. Manual Control (heads can be turned on with a special key)
   

• These features will provide the ultimate in flexibility and at this point the computer has been programmed, all satellites are communicating, the radio communication equipment is installed and all systems are functional. The Palm Pilot Control will be available after we receive all GPS mapping data and the system design is downloaded and programmed to the central computer and palm pilot.

• Water management and application with this new system will be state of the art and will ultimately allow us to be very precise with where, when, and how much water we want to apply. This system also could eventually save us as much as 25% in our water use. I’m told that with the efficiency of water distribution with these new heads, compared to what we replaced, we could see savings of 30%. I don’t think we should “bank” on this just yet. We are now able to place water in more areas than we did in the past, but we can control that which we do apply, so much better. I’m thinking (ok I’m hoping) that we will balance out and use approximately the same amount of water as we used in the past, but we’ll be applying it more uniformly and where we want it. We’re at the infancy stage with our new system, heads are in new places compared to the old system, and we need to learn what run times are now appropriate. We’ll make mistakes I’m sure, but we’ll learn from them and in time we’ll have things “dialed in”. There is still so much to do and learn, from fine tuning arc adjustments and nozzle trajectories to determining and recording spray pattern adjustments and imputing these into the computer so that we can ultimately be very precise with setting run times and frequencies.

These part circle heads will cut run times in half on fairway perimeters.

• In the final analysis, and in time when we’ve “fine-tuned” everything, what our new irrigation system will ultimately provide for us is improved playability. Our goal is firmer playing surfaces while still providing a durable, dense, and healthy turfgrass.

• Finally, The last item I think you will all be very pleased for me to report is, this equipment rich, highly technical, and labor intensive project will come in right on budget! All parties involved worked well together (EC Design, Liebold, and SCC) in both the planning and implementation phases, and we will all do so again now in the operational phase. EC Design, our irrigation design/consultant firm, planned and designed what we wanted, Leibold Irrigation installed it as we wanted it with minimal inconvenience, and our SCC Grounds Operations Staff performed (or is currently in the process of) old equipment removal (heads, controllers, valves), spoil material processing (shaping and grassing excess soil generated from project), restoration (haul roads and wear areas), and general assistance throughout entire project.

Old irrigation equipment removal will continue over the next several weeks.

An old irrigation head being removed from the 3rd fairway.

I’ve been involved in many projects over the nearly two decades that I’ve been here at Skokie. and I’m happy to say that they have all went very well and have all been on budget. A few stand out as being exceptional however (in terms of working together with contractors) and I’d have to say that this one ranks right up there, at or near the top!

The Annual SCC Bird Walk

I think it was about 1996, or thereabout, when we had the first Bird Walk. At the time, I had been monitoring several nest boxes throughout the course that I had installed in earlier years in attempt to attract Eastern Bluebirds. My attempts proved very successful and the result was well beyond my expectations.

Our favorite red, white, and blue bird... the Eastern Bluebird.

The year before the first bird walk (1995) we had 9 nesting pair of bluebirds and a fledgling count of 52! (Incidentally, since first placing the nest boxes we’ve had a total of nearly 250 bluebird fledglings!) This success excited me and many members as well, but one member in particular was especially thrilled. He unfortunately is no long with us, but his passion for birds has led to our Annual SCC Bird Walk. The person I refer to is Dick ‘Judge’ Merrick.

‘Judge’ kept tabs with me nearly every day on our bluebird count, asking me what kind of birds I was seeing on the course and informing me of any unusual species he had sighted. I learned many things about birds and their behavior from the ‘Judge’, and he largely is responsible for my interest and enjoyment that I experience to this day.

So, in 1995, with our bluebird population rising, and many other interesting species inhabiting the course (or at least foraging throughout), the ‘Judge’ thought that other bird enthusiasts (as well as some potential recruits) might enjoy these birds, and suggested we have a Bird Walk. The following spring, the first Bird Walk was held, and the Monday event was preceded by a very interesting and informative Sunday afternoon slide show, of birds we would likely see, by ‘Judge’ Merrick’s wife, Margot Merrick.

That’s a little history of how the Bird Walk came to fruition and a bit of information about our efforts to help perpetuate Eastern Bluebirds.

I’ll write more about this beautiful species and other resident species in future blogs, but for now this year’s event recap follows.

About 20 people attended Margot’s slide show and the first Bird Walk. That number has steadily increased to what I believe was our largest attendance last Monday, of 42. It was actually the first time we had more participants than we had bird species counted. In past years, we’ve had species counts in the mid 50’s to 60 plus range, but this year our count was surprisingly low at only 41.

Perhaps it was the cool, cloudy day that accounted for the low species total. In spite of this we saw some very colorful species, and the group was once again treated to the very knowledgeable and educational birders, Lynne Carpenter and Barbara Brown. These two ladies can easily identify all of the species we’re likely to see, as well as recognize them by just hearing their chirps or song! We are indeed fortunate to have them here every year, as well as members, Roger Miller and Char Delaney, whom organize the annual event.

This year's species list on Monday, May 11th was:

A few of the more strikingly colorful species are shown here in this post, but if you look carefully as you play the course you’ll possibly see these and many more. When you’re out on the course playing toward the 7th green and walking off the 8th tee, be sure to check out the Red-tailed Hawks nest in the large elm tree on the right , just before beginning of 8th fairway. It appears as though eggs are being incubated and it shouldn’t be long before we see nestlings. This has been a very popular nest over the past few years. Two years ago there were Great–horned Owls nesting in February, followed by Red-tailed Hawks in the spring. And now this year we have Red-tailed Hawks again. Should be fun to watch the fledgling(s) this summer!

Blackburnian Wabler

Yellow Warbler

Black Capped Chickadee

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-tailed Hawk