Passport to Texas

Event | Birding: A Bird Count for All Download

This is Passport to Texas

The Great Texas Birding Classic – the world’s biggest, longest and wildest bird watching tournament – welcomes birders of all ages and abilities to form teams.

07— We’ve added some really good entry level tournaments, so beginning birders can take part; it’s not just the hard core listers anymore. Anyone can do this.

Shelly Plante is nature tourism manager for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

20— I loved seeing more families involved last year; a family of four could go out and do a sunrise to noon tournament because it’s an all ages tournament. A group of co-workers and their kids might go out and do a Big Sit, because there’s an unlimited number of people that can be on that team – it’s not a three to five person team like some of the others. So, there really is enough variety that you can find something that fits your needs.

The deadline to register a team is April 1. And your team can compete any day from April 15 to May 15.

23— And you don’t pick that ahead of time. Some people have really flexible schedules, and so they don’t tell me until 24 hours out from their tournament day that they’re going to go birding. They wait, look at weather patterns, see when birding is going to be really good. If it’s a really good birding day, and there’s a cold front, and birds are everywhere – they can just pick on the fly: “We’re going to go tomorrow; that’s our day.” And they just shoot me an email. So, it’s really flexible.

Check out all the Great Texas Birding Classic tournaments and register your team by April 1 at birdingclassic.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Event | Birding: Great Texas Birding Classic Download

Calling all twitchers, listers and dudes…The Great Texas Birding Classic invites you to form a team to watch birds.

09— It’s a really great win-win, where people are able to go birding with their friends or family. And then they’re raising money for a really great cause: conservation right here in the state of Texas.

Shelly Plante, nature tourism manager, says teams go into the field and ID bird species from a checklist over the course of a few hours or even a few days. Tournament winners determine which avian habitat conservation projects receive preservation and restoration grants.

05— And the more habitat we’re able to preserve here in the state, the more birding opportunities there are going to be for birders.

Birders of all ages and skill levels that register at birdingclassic.org by the April first deadline may participate in this statewide series of tournaments.

22—Go online. Fill out your registration form. Pay online. And then you’re ready to go. Everything I do is through email: I’m going to email you updates; I’m going to email you how to submit your checklists to be in the running for the prizes; I’m going to let you know who won, where the award ceremonies are. So, it’s all done online to save on costs so as much of this money goes to habitat conservation as possible.

The Great Texas Birding Classic, April 15 through May 15, is for beginners and advanced birders. More on the classic tomorrow.

Funding for our series provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

ShareLunker No. 562 Caught by Darrell Tompkins of Huffman, TX March 7, 2015 in Sam Rayburn, TPWD Photo by Reese Sparrow

Fishing: Sharelunker Program Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you catch a 13 pound or bigger largemouth bass, your first instinct may be to take a photo with it, and then release it. Or…you could donate it to the Toyota ShareLunker program at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center.

04—The ShareLunker Program is probably the reason this facility is here.

Allen Forshage is Director of the Center, which is a state-of-the-art fish-care facility that contains special tanks known as the “Lunker Bunker”.

17—The way this center was built, particularly the extensive hatcheries, improved our ability to do a selective breeding program where we’ve been taking these ShareLunkers and spawning them with males that are also offspring of ShareLunkers in an effort to try to improve the genetics of fish that we put back into public lakes.

Find out how to donate a fish to the program on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. The program will accept donations of live fish through April 30. Every time an angler donates a fish to the program they make bass fishing better for everyone.

13—One of the measures of success for the program is how many column inches are being written about the ShareLunker Program. A lot of the outdoor writers use the ShareLunker Program as a barometer to measure how good fishing is in Texas.

It’s darned good if you believe what you read. And you should. Find details about the Toyota ShareLunker Program on the Texas Parks & Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series and provides funding for the operations and management of the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

White-tailed buck

Research: Using Browse Survey to Manage Deer Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Biologists can estimate deer density by observing what they’ve eaten, or browsed. Browse survey results can help guide managers to maintain healthy herds and habitat.

15— Of course, we could go out and run one of a multitude of deer counts – whether that be spotlight counts, or camera counts. This is one we do fairly regularly in the wintertime on properties to get out there and get a look at deer densities.

Wildlife biologist, Heidi Bailey, says when deer browse less tasty plants like pines, overpopulation may be the cause.

15— For instance, on most properties, if I see five percent use on some of these pines and cedars and things that they really don’t like, that’s when I start getting a red flag and thinking, Hmmm…maybe we need to increase the harvest a little bit on this property.

Increasing harvest rates can help keep habitat in balance. But not all managers remove animals from the landscape.

16—A lot of people turn to planting food plots and putting out protein feed to supplement a deer’s diet. Of course, from the wildlife biologist’s standpoint, [we] always encourage people to manipulate their existing habitat as opposed to supplementing or putting a band aide on a problem.

Find landowner technical assistance information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series and works to restore and manage wildlife for the benefit of
the public.

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

Whitetail deer in snow.

Hunt | Research: Browse Survey Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

An estimated four million whitetail deer roam Texas’ public and private lands; biologists help landowners determine deer density on their property by surveying what the animals eat, including “browse.”

10— Deer have all sorts of different things they’ll eat, browse being one of those items. So, essentially browse is the woody twigs and stems on plants and trees.

Heidi Bailey is a wildlife biologist in Northeast Texas. She says deer prefer some plants more than others, and calls those Blue Bell Ice Cream plants; their least favorites: Brussels sprouts. Everything in between: Meat and potatoes.

19— We go out and we look at these Bluebell plants, and we determine how much they’re eating those. Then, we’ll look at the meat and potatoes plants, and then we’ll get down to the Brussels sprouts and see how heavily the deer are eating those. And if they’re eating the Brussels sprouts plants – they’re eating a bunch of stuff they don’t care anything about – then you know you’ve got issues.

Issues like overpopulation. The browse plants that provide the best clues of this include…

12—Things like cedars, pines, American holly, sweet gum, post oak, and blackjack oak, wax myrtle. There’s lots out there, but boy, it’s not too tasty for them, for sure.

Recommendations biologists make based on browse surveys. That’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series and works to restore and manage wildlife for the benefit of the public.

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