Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Today’s children spend precious little time outdoors involved in unsupervised play, something nature educators and others view as a serious problem.

It’s a solvable problem, but this problem is growing, and we need to act now on it.

Nancy Herron coordinates outdoor learning programs for Parks and Wildlife. She says the book Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, struck a chord, galvanizing a broad spectrum of concerned individuals and groups to address the issue.

From doctors and teachers and nurses and urban planners, ranchers, the people who’ve traditionally been in nature education, have all come together with the single combined vision of reconnecting children to nature.

You might wonder what affects this alienation from nature has on children.

Children who are confined indoors all the time, or confined with technology and not those nature and natural experiences, what happens is their world becomes very small. They have more trouble with attention. They have more trouble with stress.

They have more trouble, says Herron, coping with life.

Tomorrow, we examine ways to reintroduce children to nature, http://www.cnaturenet.org/.

That’s our show for today…remember: life’s better outside… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Children & Nature, Part 1 of 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Today’s children spend precious little time outdoors involved in unsupervised play, something nature educators and others view as a serious problem.

It’s a solvable problem, but this problem is growing, and we need to act now on it.

Nancy Herron coordinates outdoor learning programs for Parks and Wildlife. She says the book Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, struck a chord, galvanizing a broad spectrum of concerned individuals and groups to address the issue.

From doctors and teachers and nurses and urban planners, ranchers, the people who’ve traditionally been in nature education, have all come together with the single combined vision of reconnecting children to nature.

You might wonder what affects this alienation from nature has on children.

Children who are confined indoors all the time, or confined with technology and not those nature and natural experiences, what happens is their world becomes very small. They have more trouble with attention. They have more trouble with stress.

They have more trouble, says Herron, coping with life.

Tomorrow, we examine ways to reintroduce children to nature, http://www.cnaturenet.org/.

That’s our show for today…remember: life’s better outside… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Children & Nature, Part 1 of 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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/

Great Backyard Bird Count, Part 2 of 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Valentine’s Day can be a let down for singles. However, if you’re an outdoor enthusiast, when you do connect with a kindred spirit…what happens after that…is up to nature.

There is a certain bond with people who appreciate a bird…or a fish… or a tree…or a flower…or the sky…or a river… or the mountains or the oceans that bring deepness to relationships.

Kathleen Menke, founder of the Outdoor Singles Network, http://www.akmk.com/osn/, says nature creates a powerful bond between two people.

It’s probably one of the strongest bonds I know of that bring people together and hold people together over a lifetime. If there is that common love and common shared activity, then that really helps to hold things together.

The Outdoors Singles Network is one of many organizations that serve as an online community where outdoor singles can find one another.

Nature feeds our souls. It is what we are made of, it’s what we’re connected to, and it brings to relationships a broader outlook… a strength and a sensitivity and a kind of tenderness and love that you might not find anywhere else.

For more links to outdoors organizations visit passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Alanna Jones… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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While the following websites are not strictly for singles, you are more likely to find a kindred spirit here than at your typical singles site:

Connecting With Outdoor Singles Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Calling all bird lovers. On February 15 through 18, you have a chance to participate in The Eleventh Annual Great Backyard Bird Count.

The Great Backyard bird count is a nationwide event coordinated by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Joshua Rose is a natural resource specialist at Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park. The park is part of the World Birding Center.

The Backyard Bird Count started as a count where people just count on their own property, in their own backyard. But over the years they’ve gradually expanded it, and encouraged people to count birds not just in their backyards, but also to count in, say, local city parks and around their neighborhoods, and wherever they happen to spend time that weekend.

The Great Backyard Bird Count, says Rose, is one of the first steps many people take when first getting involved birding. All you need is a field guide and an internet connection.

The whole count works through an online data entry. The data is entered through a website, and so when a person reports bird sightings to the Great Backyard Bird Count, the website has blanks to fill in for where and when they counted the birds and for how long.

Find a link for the data forms at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Great Backyard Bird Count, Part 1 of 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download