Passport to Texas

Christmas Bird Count participants. Photo: Camilla Cerea/Audubon

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This is Passport to Texas

For Texas birders it is sheer delight now that the annual Christmas Bird Count is nearly in sight.

The Christmas Bird Count is a fantastic way for people to get involved in what we call citizen science. You can be a participant and help count birds during the Christmas season.

Cliff Shackelford is a state ornithologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

There’s a three week window that straddles Christmas where teams go out at specific times for 24 hours in a specific 15 mile radius circle and count birds.

The Christmas Bird Count officially started in 1900. Even though it took a while for counts to get established in Texas, some bird counting circles in the state have been in existence for 60 years.

So how can you participate?

The first thing to do is find out if you live in or near a Christmas Count circle. The next step is to find the count compiler, that person who’s in charge of coordinating that circle and making sure that people are spread out and have a little piece of the pie and don’t double up on certain sites.

Find your nearest Christmas count circle at Audubon.org

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

Whooping crane pair at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

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This is Passport to Texas

The majestic Whooping Crane is the tallest bird in North America and has a wingspan of seven and a half feet. But even with its impressive size, the Whooping Crane nearly became extinct, and in 1970 the bird was listed as an endangered species.

They are still federally listed as endangered. The population will be classified as such until they get around a thousand.

Trey Barron is a Wildlife Diversity Biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Once we get to that thousand population number the US Fish and Wildlife Service will readdress the status of the bird and potentially delist it. And that’s the ultimate goal is protect enough habitat and have enough birds that we can keep them off the list.

That habitat is the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. Due to massive conservation efforts over several years, the Whooping Crane population once in the teens, now number the hundreds.

The outlook for the Whooping Crane is very positive. Just through years of successful reproduction, good wintering habitat down here, they’re on their way to total recovery.

That’s good news, and validation that conversation and management of Whooping Cranes will ensure survival of the species.

Whooping cranes began their fall migration south to Texas in mid-September.

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

Nesting chimney swift.

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This is Passport to Texas

Chaetura [KAY-tura] Canyon… is a chimney swift sanctuary of sorts, found in the growing city of Lakeway…just west of Austin.

Their numbers are declining dramatically, they’re down by probably fifty, sixty percent since the sixties here in the United States. And [in] Canada they are on the threatened and endangered list; they’ve lost ninety percent of their chimney swift population.

Paul and Georgeann Kyle, who oversee KAY-tura, say chimney swifts are unable to perch or stand upright, and so they rely on a type of habitat that’s been disappearing.

Historically they roosted in large hollow trees, and those are not allowed to stand anymore. They then moved into the brick chimney’s, but now most of those are aging and many are being capped or torn down.

In an upcoming segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series we meet the Kyles, and learn how they’re helping to save these small, endearing black birds by building them towers for roosting and raising young.

The perfect home for Chimney swifts, it’s a nice rough surface, little grooves for them to hold on to, attach their nest. Ya basically anybody that can use a few power tools and read a tape measure can build one of these chimney swift towers and just one structure can make a real big difference in the breeding success of the birds.

Learn more about the Kyle’s work with chimney swifts the week of September 29 on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

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

Male Black-capped vireo.

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This is Passport to Texas

Not long ago the tiny masked bird known as the Black-capped Vireo nearly became extinct. The US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the species as endangered in 1987. But rigorous habitat recovery efforts have finally changed that listing.

Good news for the Black-capped Vireo is that it was recently delisted.

Cliff Shackelford is a state ornithologist at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Now we’re in a phase of what we call the post-delisting monitoring. So Parks and Wildlife is involved in continuing the count of Black-capped vireos to make sure that the numbers are still steady and increasing but not decreasing.

Cliff believes we’ve become better at understanding what makes a healthy Hill Country ecosystem.

I think the one thing our agency has learned is better deer management. We’ve relayed that to a lot of our landowners that we work with, and you can drive around the Hill Country and see who’s doin’ it right. But I think that’s the big thing is finding that balance of where you can have your agriculture, your deer, and your Black-capped Vireos and everybody lives in harmony, and we’ve found that sweet spot and it’s really working.

Now it’s up to us to hand down our lessons learned to the next generation so that the Black-capped Vireo is never endangered again.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Pileated woodpecker with young.

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This is Passport to Texas

Cliff Shackelford—the nongame ornithologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife—is one of our favorite guests on Passport to Texas. He’s always upbeat and ready to share interesting birding facts. Plus, the guy’s super passionate about his subject matter.

And in the August/September issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine—on newsstands now—he tells us about a species that’s held his fascination since he was a youngster, in an article called: Knock on Wood: Why I Love the Woodpeckers of Texas.

In the article Cliff writes: My fascination with woodpeckers has become somewhat of a life’s journey. In graduate school, I wrote a thesis on woodpeckers…I’ve published numerous papers on woodpeckers…I’ve traveled to other countries specifically to observe woodpeckers…Thus, I’ve long considered myself a qualified fan of woodpeckers.

Yeah, I’d have to agree with his self-assessment. In addition, he lets us know about the 16 species of woodpeckers and allies in Texas, which go by a variety of other names including sapsuckers and flickers—but they’re all in the woodpecker family.

He even shares a list of 15 regularly occurring woodpecker species here in Texas, complete with photos.

Get to know Cliff Shackelford and his beloved woodpeckers in the August/September issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine. On Newsstands now.

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