Passport to Texas

An owl waiting for his new home.

Owl Nest Boxes Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What would you call a wooden box intended for owls?

02- It would be called an owl box.

I really need to start making these questions harder. Ornithologist, Cliff Shackelford says man-made owl boxes are a “stand in” for what nature provides.

07-What these owls would do is look for a cavity in a tree–a hollow in a tree–and that’s what this box is replacing.

The Barn Owl and Eastern Screech Owl are two wide-ranging owl species in Texas, with different needs.

15- They use different size boxes. The Barn Owl is much larger than the Eastern Screech Owl. And you can go online on the Parks and Wildlife website; we have blueprints on how to make these boxes for these birds. Or you can just go online [to other sites] and find other blueprints and make them [the nest boxes] to your
liking.

Owls make some people nervous because they are raptors and have strong hooked beaks and sharp talons, but Cliff Shackelford says, fear not.

14-The good thing about owls: they’re good neighbors to have because they eat a lot of rodents. Screech Owls eat a lot of roaches. The wood roaches. The big ones that are outside. So, it’s good to have owls, because they’re keeping these things that we consider pests in check.

Cliff says owl boxes work best in areas where you have good tree cover. I have a link where you can find the measurements for nest boxes and bird houses
appropriate for common species at passporttotexas.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Dimensions for Owl Nest Boxes

Barn Owl

Baby Barn Owls.

Floor – 10 inches by 18 inches
Depth – 15 to 18 inches
Entrance height above floor – 4 inches
Entrance diameter – 6 inches
Recommended height above ground – 12 to 18 feet

Screech Owl

Screech Owl in a nest box.

Floor – 8 inches by 8 inches
Depth – 12 to 15 inches
Entrance height above floor – 9 to 12 inches
Entrance diameter – 3 inches
Recommended height above ground – 10 to 30 feet

Bill Neiman talking to attendees of the Pollinator Pow Wow, Kerrville, Texas, September 2015. Photo: Cecilia Nasti

TPW Magazine: Seeds of Hope Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bill Neiman [NEE-man] started saving native seeds and plants when he realized Texas had been losing its indigenous flora to development.

11- He’s truly a visionary in this area. And there were a few people around the state, and he and his wife Jan-in the mid to late 80s-made it a point to seek out these people.

Camille Wheeler wrote about Neiman for Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine. Neiman, who owned a landscaping business, watched non-native plants die without daily watering, when so-called native “weeds” thrived with nothing.

10-He just immediately made the connection: these non-natives are water hogs. He started looking for other people like him.

He found author and native landscaping expert, Sally Wasowski. They met in 1985 when Neiman attended a native plant conference where she gave the keynote.

18-She was challenging the audience. She said: where can we find native plants, and who can be trusted to grow them? And Bill Neiman–he didn’t even know he was going to do this–he just sprang to his feet and shouted out: I will do it! I have a nursery; I’m in Flower Mound, Texas and I’m converting the whole thing to native plants.

There’s more to this fascinating story, Seeds of Hope, by Camille Wheeler; find it in the October issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

That’s our show for today… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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

Whoopers in flight.

Whoopers Flying into Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A flock of 308 endangered whooping cranes lives in Texas from October through April.

06- We fully expect to see the first of our migrating whoopers come into Texas in mid-to-late October.

The birds migrate from their summer breeding ground in Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada to their winter home at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.
Texas Whooper Watch coordinator, Mark Klym, says the species has rebounded from a low of just 15 cranes in the 1940s to about 600 today worldwide.

21-There are also two other flocks in the US. One that migrates from Wisconsin to Florida, and a reintroduced flock in Louisiana. We really need at least one more flock before we can consider it relatively safe to start considering down-listing them. Or, we need a thousand birds in the Aransas to Wood Buffalo
National Park flock.

While the majority of Texas cranes spend the winter at the refuge, some end up in other parts of the state.

13-In recent years we’ve seen them moving up and down the coast, as well as inland–as far as Wichita Falls for the winter. So, it is possible to see whooping cranes during the winter almost anywhere in the eastern half of the state.

Be on the lookout for whoopers, and if you see them, add your observations to Texas Whooper Watch. Find details in the Texas Nature Tracker section of the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

Texas Outdoor Annual App

Outdoor Annual App--Don't go in the Field Without It Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Texas Outdoor Annual is a handy printed and online guide filled with valuable information for hunters and anglers. And now it’s an app.

08- Smart phones and tablets have become more popular among the general population, and our hunters and anglers are also using those devices.

Tim Peterson-director of creative and interactive services at Texas Parks and Wildlife-says the new app takes the guesswork out of which regulations apply to your location.

28-If an angler’s sitting in a particular water body or lake, or near or water body or lake, they can use the GPS function in the APP, locate the lake that they’re at or near, and they can see bag limits and exceptions for that particular lake. In addition, same goes for hunting. Same goes for hunting. If a hunter is in a blind, they can pull out the APP, and using the GPS functionality of their device, they could see which county they were in, and they would see the bag limits and season dates for that particular county.

The app is free and available for download for apple and android devices. The Outdoor Annual app strives to provide hunters and anglers up-to-the minute information for a successful experience

Find information on where to download the app for free on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Website.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series, and is funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motorboat fuel.

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

Outdoor Annual APP

On the Road with the Outdoor Annual Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

People who buy hunting and fishing licenses rely on a printed booklet called the Texas Outdoor Annual.

04-And inside the printed booklet they’ll find hunting and fishing regulations.

You’ll find those regulations on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website, too.

04-[But] our website is hard to take with you if you’re in the blind and you do not have cell service.

Developing efficient ways to access information is among Tim Peterson’s priorities. He’s director of creative and interactive services at Parks and Wildlife. Making an electronic version of the outdoor annual, with simple, intuitive navigation–accessible in cell-challenged locations–necessitated creation of an app.

22- Well, as you know, smart phones and tablets have become more popular among the general population, but we’ve also noticed that our hunters and anglers are also using those devices. And we are offering it, really, as another way for them to learn about regulations while they’re in the field, and also be able to do
searches based on location.

The FREE Texas Outdoor Annual app is available for download for both apple and android devices wherever you get apps. Tim returns tomorrow to tell us about one
of the many features of the app.

That’s our show for today…Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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