Passport to Texas

The stars at night….

Meteor Showers in Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

07—You can see a meteor on any night of the year if you get lucky, but it’s in the showers that you have a much higher chance of seeing something.

Anita Cochran is the assistant director at the McDonald Observatory. Dark skies are necessary to view meteors.

10—The most important thing for watching meteors is to get to dark skies. These things are not super bright. In order to see it, you probably want to be in the second half of the night because the moon will be up for the beginning.

There are more than twelve annual meteor showers, with the Orionids coming up on October 21st – but Cochran believes star gazers should leave city limits to view them.

11—Some cities have regions where you can get away from the light. Many of the larger cities in Texas, there’s really no place you can go to get away from the significant amount of light and so you’d be much better off going out into the country.

Cochran claims you won’t regret the trip.

14—A good meteor shower is something that very much worth going out and seeing because it’s kind of fun to see these things go shooting through the sky. It’s always more fun to go with people and everyone is sitting there “Oh! Look at that one!” “Oh, look at that one!” And so if you get a chance to see a good meteor shower, it’s worth doing.

Want to see more meteors? The Leonids appear the night of November 16, and the Geminids fill the night sky December 12&13.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Landowners restoring quail habitat

Wildlife: Quail & Landowner Cooperatives Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Embracing the “it takes a village model”, Texas landowners are banding together to restore fragmented bobwhite quail habitat in Texas. Think of fragmentation as a puzzle missing many pieces.

09 —Fortunately, we’ve got landowners that are working together with parks and Wildlife that formed landowner cooperatives that have formed specifically to help bobwhite quail.

Robert Perez is the upland game bird program leader at TPW. Quail populations need hundreds and sometimes thousands of acres to prosper. Neighboring landowners work together to manage their properties to support this charismatic game bird –which is primarily a grassland species.

16—Usually dominated by what’s called a bunch grass. And that’s something like little bluestem, Indian grass – grasses that grow in clumps. The growth patterns of these native grasses allow for the passage of adult quail, but more importantly, small, little, tiny chicks that can navigate through these areas.

Why would landowners go through the effort and expense to make their property more welcoming to a small bird?

08—We’re talking to landowners, and they’re not interested in hunting quail. They’re interested in seeing a quail and hearing a quail and having their kids see a wild quail on their farm and on their ranch.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series and receives funding from your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bobwhite Quail

Wildlife: Quail & Fragmentation Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In the rolling plains and south Texas brush land, years of drought has taken its toll on bobwhite quail populations. East of Interstate 35, the problem is fragmentation.

09 —And so it’s more an issue of: how much habitat is left. And the question is: if you build habitat will the birds respond? And I think that they can and they do.

Robert Perez is the upland game bird program leader at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

19—Right now we’re working in three different focus areas of the state, where we are concentrating resources, manpower, habitat funding, working with partners in select counties to do that very thing: to impact enough acreage to reverse the trend of fragmentation and to demonstrate through surveys – through counting birds – a positive response. Because we know it’s possible.

But how much habitat is enough in our modern, highly developed times?

23—In the old textbooks, they talk about a quail living its whole life on 40 acres if it has everything that it needs. While that very well may be the case, you can’t have a viable population on 40 acres in the middle of a shopping mall. So you’ve got to have some area. And there have been researchers that have taken estimates at what that may be. And it ranges anywhere from 800 to 10-thousand acres depending on the quality of the habitat.

How landowners work together to create quail habitat: that’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series and receives funding from your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bobwhite quail.

Wildlife: Quail & Drought in Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A major issue affecting bobwhite quail in southern brush lands and the Rolling Plains regions of Texas is drought.

06 —Long term drought. I’m talking in some areas eight, ten, eleven years now of below average rainfall.

Robert Perez is the upland game bird program leader at TPW. He says the drought is beginning to take its toll on bobwhite.

16—And it’s really caused some declines in the numbers – at least in recent years. So what we hope is things can turn around weather-wise in those areas that are still holding birds, and they will be able to rebound in those areas. And that’s certainly something that we know the species can do.

I asked Robert if there is a threshold at which the birds will not rebound even if we get relief from the drought.

17—I think that you can get there at some point, but in Texas it’s just not very likely to happen any time soon in the Big Country…because the landowner practices and our traditional land uses in some of these areas just lend themselves to quail if mother nature will just cooperate.

Many areas of the state received meaningful rainfall last month. Whether that improves the quail outlook remains to be seen. Meantime, there’s another threat to the well-being of this charismatic game bird.

04—If you’re anywhere eat of I35, then the issue becomes fragmentation.

That’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series and receives funding from your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Fanthorp Inn Stagecoach

History: Fanthorp Inn -- Our past and Progress Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Stagecoaches were vital to the development of Texas. They carried people and the mail – making them important tools for communication and advancement.

11—Without communication, how can people organize to band together to make political and social changes without the knowledge of what’s going on 50 miles away?

Tom Scaggs, a park ranger at Fanthorp Inn SHS in Anderson, says the inn served as a communications and transportation hub for stagecoaches that rolled in with their passengers and post. Today the inn and stagecoach is a reminder of our past and our progress.

25—I think Fanthorp Inn really offers people the opportunity to stop and think about how far we’ve come in terms of travel and communication, and be so grateful for – if nothing else – the fact that those nice rubber tires on our coaches today, carry us at such a rapid speed, and such comfort compared to the stagecoach that they can experience there at the inn.

Visitors to the historic site may have the opportunity to experience 18th Century life and travel.

18—Just as in the 1800s today, we offer a variety of entertainment and hospitality at Fanthorp Inn. On the second Saturday of each month, we fire up the stagecoach and offer rides, taking you around the little town of Anderson, and bringing history to life.

Find more information about Fanthorp Inn at texasstateparks.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.