Better picture of our baby hawk

Jim Healey took this picture the other day of our baby hawk on #18.  It appears there is only 1 unless others are out of sight.  Momma is off to the left minding the store.

Wren nest in water cooler stand

Wildlife use the strangest places from time to time to raise their young.  Case in point our local wren population.

The boys were changing water coolers at the long range one day when they said something was pecking their hand when they were checking the water.  Come to find out a wren had built a nest to the side of the front of the cooler stand and was flying in and out of the opening where you fill your cup with water.  As you might have noticed, we've placed another water stand next to the wren's stand to allow her to fledge her young.  

Wren nest made up of moss, twigs and grass.

Just a few weeks before, a family of four were fledged out of one of our parts bins in our mechanic room.  It was up above eye level and did not realize it was there until baby birds were leaving the nest and trying to get outside. 

Zoysia tee repair

The staff replaced the damaged zoysia sod from the blue tees on holes #6 and #12 yesterday.  The damaged areas were stripped out with and sod cutter and sod was cut from our zoysia sod nursery between hole #16/10.   Assistant Skip, Russ and Tom L. began the job and Assistant Mike, Tom M. and Arian jumped in and helped finish the job before the rain set in at noon.

The left side of the 6th tee.

The view looking back the other direction.

Tom M. is preparing to fill the cracks of the  sod with green sand.  We stripped in a small section on #4 tee as well which had some damage as well.                                                                  

Nick is beginning to fill the cracks in the new sod on #12 blue tee with green sand. The sand helps the turf hold its moisture along the seams and allows the turf to grow through the sand and speeds up the recovery of the turf and helps to make the playing surface smooth.

Sod replacement/bermuda eradication program

I spent the late afternoon/early evening out on the golf course marking some areas for zoysia sod replacement over the next few days/weeks.  Most of the areas were weakened by our bermuda eradication treatments over the past year but some areas were caused by cold weather we experienced this past winter. 

The picture below is along the right side intermediate of Hole #13.

We will be making some spot treatments of our bermuda eradication spray over the next week to reduce some bermuda encroachment of on holes #4, 7, 8 and 13 which are trying to regenerate from earlier applications.  These four holes have been in the program since the fall of 2008.  We will also do some spot treatment on some bermuda zoysia areas that have an abundance of zoysia in the spot so we are not facing large patches of dead and or dying turf going into the middle of summer.

Ty McClellan who is our USGA Mid-Continent agronomist sent out a letter regarding some zoysia decline he was seeing in the St. Louis area.  Most of this was occurring on public facilities that allow winter cart traffic but some of the information discussed also can applied to private clubs like Glen Echo.

Baby Red-tailed Hawks on property

Our Red-tailed hawks on property have a nest between holes #17 and #18.  You can hear the babies and adults screeching for one another on regular basis.  There are at least 2-3 young birds.  Their nest is near the top of a large oak tree that has various limbs that are dead.  It is located at about the 150 yard mark of 17 and as you rise to the flat area of the fairway of #18. It is located in the 2nd line of trees between the two fairways.  The sky was white this evening as I was taking the pictures.

Sorry about the quality of the picture but I believe there are two babies and the mother is in the middle of the picture.  I'll see if I can get some better photos tomorrow and post them.

Dad likes to sit in our Sassafras tree near #2 tee and watch.  He then does a circle around and finds a meal for everyone.  He has just flown into the tree and is perched about 10 feet below the nest.  I think dad has supper in his left claw.

Fertilizing warm season turf

The staff spent the last couple of days fertilizing our warm season grasses.  We have two warm season species at Glen Echo.  Zoysia which is our preferred species and makes up a majority of our fairways, tee surfaces and in some cases is a part of some of our greens surrounds.  We also have Westwood bermuda
which is in the same areas but is not the dominant species.

The fairways were spread by our Toro Workman 4200 pulling a Lely spreader.

Our green surrounds and tees were spread with walking rotary spreader.

The fairway and green surround application was spread and then watered in.  We've only placed water on our fairways a couple of times this season so this gave us a good opportunity to check out our system for proper operation.  As usual, there are a couple of problems that appear when we do this testing work.  Our tee application was made yesterday and the rain overnight watered in the product.
Assistant Mike and Skip working on calibrating the spreader to the proper application rate.

We apply about 1/2 of our season application during the current application and the remaining product is sprayed on our fairways in combination with our plant growth regulator application made every 3 weeks during the summer. 

Needle tining/venting greens

Every 3-4 weeks, we do a needle tining/venting of our greens utilizing a 1/4 tine.  We are a few weeks late with our first venting of the season because of the rain events in the middle of the month.  The venting opens up the surface of the greens to exchange oxygen which is good with carbon dioxide which is bad.  There is some slight compaction relief and the practice will also allow water to penetrate into areas that have localized dry spots which are areas of greens which repel water or do not allow water to penetrate into the surface.  We began our work on Tuesday since the course was closed.  We did not mow the greens that day but we did roll them after the venting to smooth the surface and reduce the chances of grass being scalped the next day when we mowed again.  We completed our last 6 greens Wednesday morning.  The process takes about 30-40 minutes per green depending upon the size of the green.

Russ with our Kubota tractor which pulls the Verti-drain 7316 unit across the green.  You might wonder about the weight of the large tractor rolling across the greens in the summer.  The large  galaxy tires that are on the rear of the tractor cost about twice as much as a standard tractor tire but reduce the psi which can negatively effect fine turf grass such as bentgrass greens. 

There are 6 tine holders on the machine which has 8 tines per holder.  The tines are spaced at 1.5" with two rows per holder which adds greater benefit to the procedure because of the tighter spacing.

The green surface after needle tining.  You can see only the tip of my ink pen will fit into the hole.  The tine penetrates about 4-5" into the green which in most cases will go slightly into the soil push layer of the green.

I just checked out the practice green this morning with no visible sign of the process after 2 days on the surface of the green.