Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

[ticking clock] Hear that? That’s time running out to register your team in the thirteenth annual great Texas Birding Classic. Shelly Plante.

The Birding lasts for an entire week. And we have events for all ages and all different kind of groups of people.

Plante oversees nature tourism for Texas Parks and Wildlife. If you don’t mind paying a late fee, you may register your team up until the day of the tournament, which is April 24. The event is open to birders of all skills and abilities.

With birding, everyone is equal. If you’re blind or visually impaired you can do birding by ear. And we actually have a tournament category for that in the birding classic—the Outta Sight Song Birder Tournament. We have ADA accessible trails throughout the Texas coast, so, anyone with mobility impairments can get out there and bird. It really is an equal opportunity activity.

It’s easy to register your team in this tournament.

To find out about registration for this year’s event, go to birdingclassic.org online.

Registration deadline is March 22. The event is April 24 through May 2, and concludes with an awards ceremony.

Winning teams decide which proposed avian habitat conservation projects receive funding this year.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Birders of a feather will flock together next month for the fourteenth annual Great Texas Birding Classic. During this weeklong event, birders from around the globe converge on the Texas coast for fun, and friendly team birding.

The area for The Great Texas Birding Classic goes from the Louisiana Border, all the way down to the Mexican border—in a forty-one county area of the Texas coast. So, it’s a very large swath of land, with a lot of different habitat types and a lot of different bird species you can see.

Shelly Plante oversees nature tourism for Texas Parks and Wildlife. The Birding Classic donates tens of thousands of dollars each year to avian conservation projects.

The top [winning] teams are the ones that get to pick what projects receive all this money. So, we give over fifty-thousand dollars to projects every year, and those winning teams are the ones that get that opportunity.

Three different flyways intersect the Texas coast, making that habitat essential to birds as they make their spring and fall migrations.

We hold this event to raise some money for that habitat for restoration projects, acquisition projects so that we can ensure that Texas remains a wonderful place for birds to visit year after year.

Registration deadline is March 22. The event is April 24 through May 2. Find a link to registration information at passporttotexas.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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For more information about how you, your business or community can be involved in this year’s event, please contact the Birding Classic Staff, call: ( 9 7 9 ) 4 8 0 – 0 9 9 9, or send an email to
Carol Jones, cjones@gcbo.org

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This is Passport to Texas

Before we had grocery stores, we had nature.

Whenever the edible wild plants were domesticated, tamed and cultivated, that’s when human culture could grow.

Human culture evolved, says Joe Roach, because people no longer spent their days searching for food in the wild. Roach, a park interpreter, occasionally takes visitors on wild food hikes in Tyler State Park.

The program is to have park visitors recognize and gain and appreciation of how edible wild plant support our human culture. We do that by taking a very moderate one half mile hike. We point out the various the various things that the Caddo Indians used [and others] when they were here. And we investigate how the human culture rose on the foundation of edible wild plants.

Roach warns never to eat any wild plant unless you are 100% certain it is safe, as some edible wild plants are similar in appearance to poisonous wild plants. One ubiquitous edible plant is the juniper tree, more commonly referred to as cedar.

You can make a tea out of them, or chew on the leaves. Some people have reported that it helps control various gum diseases. In survival training some people say you can chew on the juniper to freshen the breath.

And juniper berries are a classic seasoning for wild game dishes. There’s a Wild Food Hike at Tyler SP March 20; it’s accessible for the mobility impaired. Find details on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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March 20, 2010 — Tyler SP — Wild Food Hike — Explore the edible wildscape during a moderate, half-mile hike. Learn to identify and prepare some of the common edible wild plants and other benefits they have to offer. Accessible for the mobility impaired. 11 a.m.-noon (903) 597-5338.

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This is Passport to Texas

When satellite global positioning was the domain of the US military, GPS signals were scrambled, limiting their usefulness to civilians. On May 1, 2000, scrambling was turned off, and within days geocaching was born.

I think we’re number two in state parks for having the most number of caches.

That park is San Angelo SP in the Concho Valley, and Kurt Kemp is the superintendent there. Geocaching is an outdoor activity where participants use a GPS to locate hidden caches. And March 12 through 14, the West Texas Geocaching Association hosts their annual Texas Challenge at the park.

Registration starts Friday the 12th; the event actually starts off about nine o’clock on Saturday the 13th. They’re going to have several events—some for the kids. We’re also going to be running a tour to the bison and longhorn herd that morning. And they’re going to have the Dash for Cache that afternoon, in which you try to find as many caches as you can as quickly as possible. And that’ll all end up about five o’clock. It’s about two hours. They’ve got just all kinds of events planned to keep the weekend fun. And then they’re going to en up helping pick up trash and clean up the park on Sunday.

Kemp says he’s expecting four to five hundred people to show up. And as the park is 77-hundred acres—there’s room for everyone and their caches.

Find more information about this and other events at the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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March 12–14, 2010 — San Angelo SP — Texas Challenge Weekend 2010 — The West Texas Geocaching Association will host their annual Texas Challenge geocaching event at the park. Approximately 300 plus statewide participants will compete using hand held GPS devices to discover hidden geocaches. Participants will enter through the South Shore Gatehouse.
2-9:30 PM Friday, 8:30 AM-9:30 PM Saturday and 8:30 AM-12:30 PM Sunday (325) 949-4757

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This is Passport to Texas

The Texas Outdoor Family Program is in full swing for 2010.

We’ve got a really aggressive schedule this spring through the end of May, where we’ve actually got thirty workshops all over the state of Texas for people to come and learn about camping and learn about what you can do at a Texas state park.

Chris Holmes is the outdoor education coordinator for Texas state parks. The Outdoor Family program teaches families skills to make tent camping at state parks successful and enjoyable.

We’ve got one special program we’re really looking forward to—it’s over spring break—and its at our biggest State park: Big Bend ranch. And we realize it’s an awful lot of driving for folks to go out there for 12 hours. So, it’s actually a three day program. The families will get to canoe down the Rio Grande, and then go into the interior of the park and do some really fund, adventurous stuff out there.

The Big bend Ranch Outdoor Family event is March 25 through 28, and at the time Chris and I spoke, there were still openings available. This workshop costs $140 for the 3-day weekend, and is limited to 12 families of up to six people…however you define family.

We really don’t have a definition of family. It’s very rarely mom, dad and the two kids.

Find information at the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

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