Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The Eleventh Annual Great Backyard Bird Count takes place February 15 through 18. It’s a citizen science project for birders of all ages, and Joshua Rose says it’s great for beginners.

And one of the reasons it was named the Backyard Bird Count is because that’s where most people start paying attention to birds. That’s where I started paying attention to birds—in my own backyard. And the interest grew and developed from there.

Rose is a natural resource specialist at Bentsen Rio Grand Valley State Park. The park is part of the World Birding Center. The four-day, national event creates a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Rose says it’s not unusual for an amateur birder who participates in this event to teach the experts a thing or two. The Audubon’s Oriole is a good example.

The Sibley Guide to Birds, http://www.sibleyguides.com/sibleyguide.htm, shows the Audubon’s Oriole as being restricted mainly to the southern tip of Texas, down here where Bentsen SP is located. This person was well north of that area, and was reporting a number of Audubon’s Orioles, but they sent me photographs of it, and I wound up determining that the range of this oriole is actually much greater, and goes further north than is shown in the field guides. So, I certainly learned something new there, and I guess the folks who write the field guides have some things to learn, too.

With field guide, and bird list in hand, you, too can participate in this event. Participants can upload their findings to a special online database.

Find a link to more information, including the data forms at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Amarillo: Panhandle Bird Club
http://www.wtamu.edu/~rmatlack/panhandlebirdclub

Birds of the Upper Texas Coast
http://www.texasbirding.net/

BirdNet, by the Ornithological Council
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET/index.html

Corpus Christi: The South Texas Birding Forum
http://www.caller2.com/periodic/birdingindex.html

Galveston Island Birding Brochure
http://www.galveston.com/islandbirding/

Llano Estacado Audubon Society (LEAS)
http://www.leas.bizland.com/

Migrating Texas Animals
http://riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Ftbend/texmig.html

Purple Martins in Texas
http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Ftbend/pmartin.html

Refugio County Birding
http://www.refugiocountytx.org/Recreation/birding/

San Antonio, Birds of Texas
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/whbauer/tx_birds.htm

Texas Coast Birding Trail Map
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/wildlife_trails/coastal/upper/

Texas Gulf Coast Birding and Naturalist Web
http://texasnaturalist.net/

Texas Ornithological Society
http://www.texasbirds.org/

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