Passport to Texas

Great Texas Birding Classic Goes on for Some Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Great Texas Birding Classic—a yearly week-long birding competition on the Texas coast is taking 2012 off to reevaluate, says Shelly Plante, nature tourism coordinator for Parks and Wildlife.

06—With this down economy, and some of the cutbacks we’ve had at parks and wildlife, this year was a tough year.

The 15 year old competition attracted dedicated birders from around the globe, who donated more than three-quarters of a million dollars to habitat projects. And some of those birders aren’t about to let the fact the classic is on hold keep them from their yearly tradition.

37— This is true. We sent out letters in January letting past participants and supporters know that 2012 was the year that we were taking off on the birding classic to really plan for 2013. And, so far we’ve heard from a few teams out there who are just going to do the classic anyway. This is their passion, this is what they do every April with their families and their friends, and they really are passionate about bird watching and Texas habitat conservation. They said they are going to do their own teams; they’re going to go out informally and keep checklists. And they’re going to donate money to habitat projects on behalf of the birding classic even though formally we’re not existing.

Shelly says the agency will support the birders via the birding classic website and Facebook page.

11—Teams are going to be able to talk about what they’re seeing, post photos, post their species totals for their count days, and really have a forum for their bragging rights of what they’ve done out on the Texas coast.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series. For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.