Passport to Texas

Northern Cardinal

Birds/Wildlife: Attracting Backyard Birds Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

Birding is a year-round activity in Texas that’s growing in popularity among all age groups. The wide variety of species found here keeps it interesting.

08—Texas is Mecca for birders around the world because we are on the migration flyway for the entire Western hemisphere.

Valerie Staats is past Executive Director of the Travis Audubon Society. She says birds have very simple needs.

04—Birds need food, shelter, water, and a place to raise their young.

Ms. Staats offer a few simple ways to entice a wide range of bird life into your neighborhood.

28—In the ideal world if you want to bring birds to your backyard, you’re going to have several feeders offering different types of food. Have water available- if anything, that’s more important than food. The water alone will bring a lot of birds to the backyard. One thing that people often forget is that the birds need a shelter, and by that I don’t mean a home per se, but a way to be protected from their predators while they’re enjoying what you’re offering in the backyard.

Interested in birding? Find birding information on the Texas Parks & Wildlife website.

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

Camping at Inks Lake

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Don’t you love the start of a new year? It‘s totally fresh and filled with possibilities. So, take a few minutes to consider how you’re going to make this year better for you and your family.

One way would be to get outside more, because—as we like to say: life’s better outside.

Spending time in the natural world has a way of resetting the brain and giving you a fresh perspective. Researchers have discovered that children who spend time in nature do better on exams, and are less disruptive in the classroom.

Bring a pair of walking shoes to the office, and during your lunch hour, stroll outdoors in the fresh air. Even if you’re in a city, you can still observe the varied wildlife and plant life you see along the way. It’s amazing how much nature you can actually find in a concrete jungle.

Spend time with friends or family at one of our many state parks. Most folks are within 90 minutes of a state park or natural area; many are much closer. Take a nature hike, ride a bike. Pitch a tent and sleep under the stars, or find a park with cabins and rough it indoors.

Commit to learning something new about Texas history by visiting one of the state’s incredible historic sites.

There’s a world of wonder out there, and once you spend more time outdoors, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

That’s our show…Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Resolve to take a child fishing in 2014

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We’re on the threshold of 2014, a time when a lot of us make resolutions to do better and be better in the New Year. If you’re wondering what to resolve this year—we have a suggestion:

09—Today we have so many things competing for our time, and fishing can be such a wonderful activity…resolve to take a child fishing.

Gary Saul is Director of Inland fisheries. He says while grownups take kids fishing to stir their imaginations—we get just as much satisfaction from the experience.

14—When a child catches a fish…to watch them reel it in…to pick it up and to look at you and then get excited about when are we going fishing again… it’s great fun.

And if you’ve resolved to remain faithful to a budget in 2014, you’ll be glad to know it’s free to fish in state parks. Some locations even have a tackle loaner program. So resolve to take your kids fishing soon—a good time will be had by all.

15–Woo…you’ve got a bass.

Our show is made possible with a grant from the Sport Fish Restoration Program…working to increase fishing, and boating opportunities in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…Cecilia Nasti

Blue Crawdad

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It all starts with the first catch…

08—Kids don’t start with large mouth bass, they start with crawdads. This is what I call a gateway species; it leads to greater nature appreciation in adults.

…but first, you have to go out to get one. Nathan Johnson is coauthor of the field guide, Texas Crawdads. He’s worried kids today spend too much time indoors and are missing out on the fun of nature. A lifetime creek adventurer himself, catching crawdads seems the perfect way to open kids’ doors to the outside.

16—It’s more than just catching crawdads. They’re going out there and their adventuring. It’s discovery. When I was a kid, the geography of my life was defined by which creeks and woods were within bicycling distance of my house. We’d considered those creeks our creeks and our woods and we’d explore.

And taking that sense of ownership a step further; he’s encouraged young folks to contribute to conservation efforts as well.

17—I talk to cub scouts and I tell them: you can make a difference, you can begin to record the crawfish of your state so that you can increase the awareness and the knowledge and the biodiversity. The work you do is just as important as the work that state biologist does with their inventories. All we gotta do is put it in their hands and say go.

Leave a comment with your crawdad catching adventures at passporttotexas.org.

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

Call of the Mild by Lily Raff McCaulou

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When you grow up in a hunting family, you learn to (at least) appreciate the tradition.

06—It was so different from what I grew up with and from anything I knew, that I wanted to know more about it.

Journalist Lily Raff McCaulou moved from NYC to Bend Oregon to write for a small newspaper, many readers of which were anglers and hunters. To connect with them and the food she ate, Lily learned to hunt.

22—You know, the locavore movement was starting to take hold, and I’d been a meat eater my whole life, and was wondering: do I really have what it takes to hunt and kill my own meat. And wanting to know what I could get from that experience — and that closeness to my food. So, it was a combination of all these different factors that made me decide this is something that I want to try.

It took a year from the time she completed hunter education, to participating in a pheasant hunt during a Becoming an Outdoors Woman Workshop. Even so, she wasn’t sure she’d take a shot, but then…

25—All the other women in my group had shot a bird, and I just started feeling like, ‘Hey, I’ve come all this way and it’s been a year in the making, and I want to take a shot, too.’ Eventually, all the stars aligned and the dog that I was with sniffed out a bird and held it on point [and when it flushed], and I got it; I took the shot and the bird fell immediately. Rather than feeling all the guilt and remorse, I felt empowered.

Lily Raff McCaulou writes about her experience in her book Call of the Mild.

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