Passport to Texas

Eastern Bluebird raising a family in a nest box.

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This is Passport to Texas

Henry David Thoreau once wrote that “the bluebird is the bird with the sky on his back.”

While they carry the blue sky on their backs, their chests and under their chin are reddish orange, while their bellies are a beautiful soft white.

The Eastern Bluebird is among three species of bluebirds found in Texas. During the past few decades, the Eastern bluebird’s populations have been declining in some areas, due in part to an alteration of habitat. Habitat alteration isn’t the only threat to the bluebird of happiness: the prevalence of European Starlings and house sparrows also play a part in its decline.

The non-native starling and sparrow were introduced to North America in the 19th Century. Like the Eastern bluebird, they are both cavity nesters. Unlike the bluebird, they are bullies. They’ll takeover a cavity already inhabited by a bluebird (or other cavity nesters)… and take no prisoners.

Something you can do is to build a bluebird nest box and put it up in your yard. You will need to monitor it, though, to ensure that neither a European Starling nor house sparrow take up residence.

Find a link to plans for making your own bluebird nest box at passporttotexas.org.
For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

You never know who will show up at your backyard birdbath.

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This is Passport to Texas

Attracting birds to your backyard is as simple as adding water…to a birdbath.

They’ll use that birdbath year-round. They’ll use it for drinking. They’ll use it for bathing…

Cliff Shackelford is a non-game ornithologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. Decorative ceramic birdbaths often make better art than they do watering stations for birds.

The simpler the better. What I found, is the basin needs to be a little rough and not smooth. It needs to have a gradual dip to it.

Dripping water is something birds will appreciate, too, says Cliff Shackelford.

Bird drips are really good; you can hang a milk jug up with a little pin prick hole in it. Just the sound of the water dripping could be attractive to birds. And also, they may like to get under that drip a little bit.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says a good birdbath mimics shallow puddles, which are nature’s birdbaths. They suggest digging a shallow hole in the ground, lining it with plastic to make it watertight, and then putting sand in the bottom so birds can get their footing. Place a few plants around the perimeter, and you have a bird spa.

Find more birding information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

Curved Bill Thrasher at Christmas Mountains Oasis

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This is Passport to Texas

In a region best known for its rugged terrain and dry desert ecology, avid birders, Carolyn Ohl-Johnson and her late husband Sherwood, created something magical in the Christmas Mountains of West Texas.

It’s a refuge for birds, butterflies.

Started in the 1990s, the couple developed ways to capture water that fell or flowed on their property.

And I told him how we could put in some diversion dams, and he just hopped right on that without greasing his equipment the same day! And so we started out with one tank that wasn’t nearly big enough.

So began a lifelong passion to establish an oasis in the middle of the desert to draw birds to her West Texas home. The Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS features Carolyn’s oasis on this week’s show.

I can be sitting here, just looking at the same old stuff, and bet money that nothing interesting’s gonna come along. And there, all of a sudden, oh my gosh, there’s a lifer! But it won’t happen if I’m not sitting here looking, so what do you do! You sure don’t get much work done, that’s for sure.

Tune into the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS through August fourth to see not only Carolyn’s oasis, but another lush wetland project in West Texas. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Roseate Spoonbill on Texas coast.

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This is Passport to Texas

Legendary Birder, Victor Emanuel, views birding as a gateway to nature appreciation.

Well, it’s the best way for people to get connected to nature, because birds are the most obvious part of nature visible to us. A lot of the mammals are active at night. But birds are here; they’re all around us.

Emanuel says it’s the fact that they are so visible that makes them interesting.

Birds are some of the most visible creatures around us. You have the song of birds, you have the motion of birds, the fact they can fly. A cardinal, a blue jay, a duck on a pond… they’re large enough and so they attract our attention in a way that smaller creatures don’t.

Victor Emanuel has spent a lifetime watching birds around the world. And while all birds are watchable, he says that doesn’t mean he likes them all.

I actually have a prejudice against introduced birds that are a problem, like starlings. They’re a beautiful bird, actually, with the colors on them in the sunlight. But they take over the nest of native birds, and throw out the young and eggs, so they don’t get to raise their young and eggs. But, yeah, they’re all watchable.

Find birding information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

Rookery. Photo by Grady Allen from TPW Magazine.

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This is Passport to Texas

When it’s nesting time for birds along the Gulf Coast, it’s time for humans to keep their distance and to be careful not to disturb them.

If you see a group of birds on an island, anywhere between say March and August, and they’re acting kind of conspicuously, they’re probably nesting. And if all of a sudden you see a whole bunch of birds getting up and flying off then you’ve already gotten a little bit too close.

David Newstead is an Environmental Biologist with Coastal Bend…Bays and Estuaries. He’s on next week’s Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Nesting is a critical period in the life cycle of the birds. Without a safe place to nest the overall population of coastal water birds will decline.

When people get a little bit too close to nesting birds that can have a pretty catastrophic effect on the nesting success of the birds. Getting too close can actually cause a panic reaction and scatter birds. When they move from the nest they are actually leaving those eggs and chicks completely exposed. And birds and chicks, they can’t thermo regulate very well at all so they rapidly overheat. And the eggs of course can’t thermo regulate at all. In this hot Texas heat, in the middle of nesting season, getting birds off of nests and chicks for just a couple of minutes can result in death or cooking of the eggs. They say you can cook an egg on the sidewalk, you’re basically cooking eggs on the island.

Check out the segment Guarding the Nest the week of July 8 on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program support our Series.

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