Passport to Texas

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.

Biking the trails at Brazos Bend State Park.

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This is Passport to Texas

The thing that makes Brazos Bend State Park special is its diversity. About an hour from Houston, visitors to the park experience Texas as it used to be.

And within this 5,000-acre park, we’ve got swamps to marshes to lakes, coastal tall grass prairie, and we’ve also got some pristine bottomland hardwood forests here.

David Heinicke is with Brazos Bend State Park.

There’s so many things to see here, but one of the biggest draws here are the alligators. On a good day it’s not unusual to be able to walk the trails, and see thirty or forty big alligators out basking either on the edge of the trails or out on the islands. And I’m happy to say that no one has ever been injured by an alligator here at Brazos Bend.

With three picnic areas, 30 miles of hiking and biking trails and plentiful wildlife viewing, Brazos Bend SP is a day trip waiting to happen. And after the sun sets…

The George Observatory is located here in the park. It’s actually owned and operated by the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. But, it has a 36-inch research telescope in a dome, and then two 18-inch telescopes in domes. You can come out any Saturday afternoon and evening and buy tickets to view through the big scopes, and there’s always a lot of astronomer club members that are willing to show you whatever they’re looking at that night.

Explore Brazos Bend State Park without leaving your living room. Tune into the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS the week of July 22. Check your local listings.

Our show receives support from RAM Trucks; Built to Serve.

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.

Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame 2017 Honoree: Gulf States Toyota.

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This is Passport to Texas

The Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame honors individuals and organizations for their contributions to the sport. Gulf States Toyota is one such inductee.

Gulf States Toyota joined with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in a private-public partnership to create the Toyota Texas Bass Classic, and also with the Toyota ShareLunker program.

Dave Terre, Texas Parks and Wildlife chief of fish management and research, says Gulf States Toyota, has been a boon to bass fishing…and not just in Texas.

The Toyota Texas bass Classic has been huge for Texas Parks and Wildlife. It’s provided us an opportunity to engage millions of people into fishing—all across Texas, and really across the United States of America.

The Guld State’s support helped double the neighborhood fishin’ lakes in Texas, thus making fishing accessible to more families in the urban core. And its long-term involvement in the ShareLunker program, is legend.

Gulf States Toyota supported the Sharelunker program since 2009. It’s really putting us on a path to create cutting edge science. It’s allowed us to be able to track these fish through DNA.

Gulf States Toyota is in the spotlight next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

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

Dr. Bobby Gene Whiteside

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This is Passport to Texas

Dr. Bobby Gene Whiteside taught at Texas State University for 33 years; for 18 years he directed the aquatic biology program there. He calls himself an outdoor oriented country boy.

My family, and then my teaching and then bass fishing was sort of the order of things.

Dr. Whiteside is the first academic inducted into the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center Hall of Fame, which honors individuals and organizations for their contributions to freshwater fishing in Texas. A longtime member of the Canyon Bass Club, fellow club member, Carl Adkins, says to know Whiteside is to learn from him.

He basically teaches fishing and how to fish just like he taught species and all the other things when he was actually teaching in the University. Anybody that meets him or is around him very long picks up knowledge from him.

Roy Klein-laster, a retired aquatic biologist from Texas Parks and Wildlife, gives this professor high marks.

Educators can really be judged by the network they create. He has had students go into academia, he’s had them work for different conservation agencies, water quality agencies, Parks and Wildlife, EPA.

Dr. Bobby Gene Whiteside is in the spotlight next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlifeseries on PBS. Check your local listings.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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