Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

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.

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

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

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

Ms. Staats offers simple ways to entice a wide range of bird life into your backyard and neighborhood.

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? Of course you are! Find everything you need to start birding on the Texas Parks & Wildlife website.

That’s our show for today…thank you for joining us… our show is engineered by Joel Block at the Production Block Studios in Austin.

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This is Passport to Texas

At a Corpus Christi housing project, the imagination of a young boy takes wing. See his story on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Television series. Writer producer, Ron Kabele.

This is about a 14 year old boy who lives in a housing project, his name is Joe. I heard about Joe from Ken Rice, a coastal biologist, and he said this kid loves to look at birds, and he looks at the birds at the housing project.

One day I was walking and I looked back here and there were just birds flying inside the couch and they’ll go behind it for some shade. And they got some of this wood for their nest…some of this, too…but I think they’ll put this around their nest, inside, makes it softer.

Even though Joe has fished all of his life, he’d never seen the rookery islands. So, one of the things that Ken Rice does is he takes people out on these environmental type classes. And Joe and some of his friends from Glen Moss Village went out.

Whoa. Dude, the birds over there. Look! There’s a pink one.

An exposure like this isn’t enough to turn into wanting to become a biologist, but, when they see a bird, they understand maybe how the bird is a part of nature, and how they are a part of the environment, too.

Thanks Ron.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

Put on your waders—we’re going fishing.

It’s a little different from standing on a pier, but it’s not as complicated as having to have an expensive boat and maintain that.

Alan Fisher is a producer for the Texas parks and Wildlife TV series; this month wade fishing has a place in the programming.

A lot of people really enjoy the peaceful thing in the back bays. It can be very calm and shallow or you can go out and stand in the middle of the surf and get a little wet.

It’s kind of like hunting. You’re actually stalking the fish. You’re in their environment, getting out of your environment.

Fisher says the series also sheds light on night fishing.

From coastal piers to people who take their boats out at night—inland or saltwater fishing—there’s a lot of opportunity. And some people are really into it.

We just come down here fishing at night, because we always catch more fish down here than when we take the boat out.

Fisher adds that he hopes TV segments like the ones on wade fishing and night fishing this month will entice people to get onto the water.

Watching a fishing story is one thing, but hopefully people will see these and want to go out and make their own memories.

That’s our show… we receive support from the Sport Fish Restoration Program…funded by your purchase of fishing equipment and motorboat fuel.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

For an inexpensive, entry-level fishing experience the entire family can enjoy, it doesn’t get much easier than winter rainbow trout fishing in Texas.

In fact that’s one of the fish we use at the Expo each year to allow kids to catch their first fish.

Carl Kittle oversees the TPW trout-stocking program. The agency will distribute up to 275-thousand fish to 120 sites—including additional urban locations—between December and March.

We’re excited about having a number of new ponds online for our neighborhood fishing program. We actually stock slightly larger trout and we stock frequently—every other week—at specific sites that are set up near urban centers to provide opportunities for urban anglers.

If you prefer to get away from the city for your rainbow connection, then state parks provide the perfect escape.

A number of our state park ponds will get stocked with trout. For those ponds and lakes that are located completely within a state park, the license will not be required. The limits will still apply: five fish per day, and there is no size limit on trout.

Anglers fishing in locations other than state parks must have a valid license.

Find the trout-stocking schedule at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with support from the Sport Fish Restoration Program… helping to fund fish hatchery management and operations in Texas.

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

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This is passport to Texas

We’re on the threshold of 2010, 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:

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

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 2010, you’ll be glad to know it’s free to fish 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.

Woo…you’ve got a bass. Whoa…that’s bigger than mine…I think. Did ya get him in? Woo, okay. Get a catfish? No, it’s a bass. Whoa…my dad gonna be happy.

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

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