NEWSLETTER

ROLLING PLAINS

CHAPTER

Vol. 4, No. 7 July 2012http://txmn.org/rollingplains

LOCALE V E N T S

ROLLING PLAINS CHAPTER — 1 — TEXAS MASTER NATURALIST

Presidents ReportJune has wrapped up and summer has its hot little hands over Texoma. July is just too hot for outdoor events, but we are working on a couple of training sessions for the month. As plans are finalized we will let you know. If you have any ideas for training you would like to see, contact one of the officers. Remember to keep checking the calendar on-line and the facebook page for updates. Many thanks to Tami Davis and Larry Snyder for serving as the administrators. It’s volunteers such as they that help keep the chapter running smoothly. We will be seeking more volunteers as the year wraps up. Come November we will be on the lookout for chapter members to move into leadership positions, so when you are contacted and asked to serve as an officer, please consider it. The chapter can only move forward with YOUR help! And remember to send your news to Paula Savage for inclusion in the newsletter. Paula is doing a great job! The newsletter is excellent and she puts a lot of time and effort into it. You can make her job easier by sending your ideas or stories or book reviews to her. While you are on summer vacation, (or after you get back) how about submitting a small story or photo about the natural places you’ve been and the wonders you’ve seen. Our next major event will be Deer Fest, August 4. The chapter will have a table to promote our organization. Deer Fest will be at the MPEC from 9 am until 7 pm. So let’s use July to regroup and refresh and be ready to kick it back into gear as fall approaches!—Terry

JULY 3: Rolling Plains Chapter monthly meeting is at River Bend Nature Center. Location: 2200 3rd Street, Wichita Falls, Texas. Time: 7:00 p.m. Program: Snakes by Laurie Hall

JULY 14: Adult Angler Education presented by Tad Gose. Learn how to cast, learn about rules and regu-lations. Everything you wanted to know about fish, but were afraid to ask. Location: River Bend Time: 8 a.m. to noon. This is Advanced Training

JULY-DEC: For those of you wanting some online training to help meet the 8 hour certification, check out the website below.Remember to register under the satellite of ROLLING PLAINS INVADERS. Here’s the web page for Texas Invasives: http://www.texasinvasives.org/invaders/

AUGUST 26-27: Stars Over the Wichitas Tour Star viewing.Lawn chairs suggested. Program begins 30 minutes after sunset. Location: Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

Advance Training OpportunitiesAdult Angler EducationRiverBend July 14, 2012

Adult Angler Education presented by Tad Gose. Learn how to cast, learn about rules and regulations.

Everything you wanted to know about fish, but were afraid to ask.July 14, 2012, 8 a.m. to noon at River Bend.

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TPWDE V E N T S

ROLLING PLAINS CHAPTER — 2 — TEXAS MASTER NATURALIST

Don’t Forget!Turn in your hours.

A form for keeping up with your hours is available on the web site. Hours needed for recertification are: 40 hours of public service and 8 hours of advanced train-ing. Advanced training MUST be approved in advance. Fill out the form and submit along with any other information about the class to the Executive Committee at least one week before the event.

July 6-27, 2012— Caprock Can-yons SP and Trailway—Clar-ity Tunnel Bat and Trailway Tours— Clarity Tunnel, an aban-doned railway tunnel on the Cap-rock Canyons Trailway, is home to up to half-a-million Mexican free-tailed bats each summer. Dur-ing these Friday evening guided-vehicle tours along the Trailway, visitors will view the Clarity Tun-nel bat emergence flight and enjoy spectacular views of the rugged and beautiful breaks of the Llano Estacado. Please call (806) 455-1492 for more information, time to meet and to reserve your spot. Please note: Allow 4 hours for the entire tour. Weather permitting.

August 18, 2012— Copper Breaks State Park—StarWalk— In its sixteenth year, the StarWalk of-fers visitors a chance to view the night sky over Copper Breaks State Park, one of the darkest skies in Texas. Programs start at sunset with a naked eye tour of the night sky. Visitors learn the technique of “star hopping” to locate and identify planets and deep space objects. Skyguide volunteers offer closer views through high pow-ered telescopes and binoculars.

Time: 08:30 PM to 10:00 PM Offered once a month April through October. Contact Phone: (940) 839-4331

North Texas AreaLand Managment Workshop

Dallas, TXJuly 27, 2012

Landowners interested in learning methods to conserve or rehabilitate wildlife habitat will want to plan on attending a land management workshop presented by Texas Parks & Wildlife and AgriLife Exten-sion Service, with support from the North Texas Master Naturalist chapter, to be held on Friday, July 27, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Urban Solutions Center, 17360 Coit Road, in north Dal-las. Workshop topics will include maintaining habitat quality for wildlife, pond management and aquatic weed control, prescribed burning, erosion control and drought management, and wildlife tax valuation. The cost for the day-long workshop is $50 and includes lunch. Presenters include Dr. Dale Rol-lins, quail expert and founder of the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch in Roby, who is a wildlife specialist at the AgriLife Extension & Research facility in San Angelo, Texas, and will share his expertise on managing habitat for wildlife. Billy Higginbotham, Professor and Extension wildlife and fish-eries specialist headquartered at the AgriLife Research & Exten-sion Center at Overton, will speak on pond management and weed control. David Sierra of the East Texas Ecological Education Center in Tyler, will cover techniques for prescribed burning, and Michael Brooks of the Natural Resources Conservation Service will speak on drought management and erosion control. Additionally, Brett John-son of Texas Parks & Wildlife will speak about the fundamentals of Wildlife Tax Valuation.

More information and registration are available online at www.ntmn.org/landownerwkshp or by call-ing Fred Burrell, County Exten-sion Agent 214-904-3050 or Brett Johnson, TPWD Urban Biologist 972-293-3841.

Bat SymposiumFort Worth, TX

August 11, 2012 Dottie Hyatt and Kate Rugroden will be your trainers from Bat World Sanctuary. Bat World and its mission has been featured on David Letterman, 20/20, Animal Planet, The Disney Channel, the CBS Morning Show, Nickolodeon and many other TV programs, news shows, radio shows and in feature articles. The volunteer staff mem-bers at BWS are serious bat care specialists. They routinely train vet-erinarians, zoologists and wildlife rescuers in one-week and two-week seminars. But they have condensed some of it into this manageable one-day offering that will enable a broad spectrum of folks to take part in a way that will not require hun-dreds of dollars in costs for a rabies pre-exposure vaccine (live, rescued bats will be an integral part of the instruction throughout the day, but participants will not be handling them for the purposes of this sym-posium). There will be a certificate of completion awarded, as well as a DVD, a book, a magazine, bat in-formation cards and a membership to Bat World Sanctuary. The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) is the proud host and partner for this workshop in their brand new, award-winning “green” facility on the very edge of the Fort Worth Cultural Arts District’s Botanical Garden. BRIT knows the value of bats as pollinators and as keystone species for our plants world-wide- plants that provide us with medicine, food, clothing, and quality of life. BRIT’s research-ers, scientists and botanists are daily at the forefront in educating themselves, other professionals and the public about the world’s flora and the ecosystems that support it. The Institute’s beautiful facil-ity is conveniently located near the museums, the Coliseum and down-town’s Sundance Square for those who wisely choose to attend the symposium and to make a weekend of it in Fort Worth. You may register at BWS https://www.batworld.org/shop/brit-sign-up/ or BRIT http://www.brit.org/.

Contact Carrie McLaughlin, Texas Master Naturalist for more infor-mation: carrie.mclaughlin58@gmail.com or call 682-459-1684

The Texas Bluebird SocietySymposium at the Gainesville,

TX Civic Center August 11, 2012

The Texas Bluebird Society has as its primary goal to help bluebirds and other native cavity-nesting birds through increasing nesting sites while promoting native plants and grasses to increase their food supply (insects and berries in win-ter). To increase the nesting sites, my husband Brian, our good friend Bob and I have made over 9000 nestboxes for TBS, the vast major-ity of them from cedar. TBS is a partner with the Big Country Chap-ter and our group has assembled well over a thousand nestboxes in the last 2 years. TBS will be having their Summer

Symposium at the Civic Center in Gainesville, TX on August 11th. At this seminar, we will educating new and existing bluebirders about bluebirds, other native cavity-nest-ers, NestWatch and gardening with native plants. Carol Clark (TMN) has agreed to give a presentation on using native plants to attact birds and insects and provide food through berries. The symposium runs from 9am to 2:30pm on August 11th. I have at-tached the flyer for the symposium that will show you the topics. The cost of the seminar includes a BBQ lunch. You can also get more information on Texas Bluebird Society at our website (www.texasbluebirdsoci-ety.org ).

4th Annual State of the Prairie Conference in Kingsville, TX

December 6-9, 2012

We are happy to announce that this year Coastal Prairie Partnership and Native Prairies Association of Texas will be teaming up with Texas A&M Kingsville and the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute to present the 4th Annual State of the Prairie Conference in Kingsville, TX from December 6-9, 2012. Each year this conference brings together the brightest and best prai-rie restorationists, educators, and conservationists to deliver high-impact lectures and field experi-ences that connect people from all across Texas and Louisiana to learn the best techniques for restoring, conserving, and teaching about our prairies. This year will be bigger and better than ever, with two days of field trips and lessons about ev-erything from economics of prairie restoration to evaluating which restoration tools to use to building better wildlife corridors.

ROLLING PLAINS CHAPTER — 3 — TEXAS MASTER NATURALIST

Guests had a good time at the Great American Back-yard Campout, June 23, at Lake Arrowhead State Park. Special thanks to Ron and Tim Callaway of “Prai-rie Moon” for providing the musical entertainment. Children and adults enjoyed the nature scavenger hunt. Graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate-- need we say more? JJ and Karen show visitors bug life.

We had a good group show up for the cleanup at Plum Lake June 16. Special thanks to Tad and Jacob Alto-bello and Jonathan Masuoka for helping us. Penny Miller also conducted a Mussel Watch during the cleanup. Jacob shows off the mussel he foundJonathan gets a closer look.

Chapter Activities for June

ROLLING PLAINS CHAPTER — 4 — TEXAS MASTER NATURALIST

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Chapter Contacts:Terry McKee, President 766-4097; Jim Hensley, Vice President 569-4713; Penny Miller, Secretary 867-9761; Larry Snyder, Treasurer Committees Chairperson:Leslie Fernandez, RiverBend Liaison 767-0843; Paula Savage, Newsletter 691-0231; Tami Davis, Website Manager 224-0131; Unfilled, Social Committee; Patsy Petcoff, Grants/Fund-raising 940-923-4478; Dian Hoehne, Communication Chair 692-7234Advisor: Robert Mauk, TPWD Advisor 766-2383

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceLaunches Interactive Website

on Endangered Species

The book guides the exploring naturalist to water’s edge destina-tions throughout North America including Canada and Alaska.

Main sections of the book cover three ocean coastlines--Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific; estuaries and wetlands; lakes, including the Great Lakes; and rivers, from the great Mississippi and Columbia to backyard streams. Identification guides and interesting information on plants, animals, shells, and other curiosities to be found along each water’s edge accompany photographs and illustrations. Useful and inviting sidebars enhance every page:

• Shore Science--Quick hits and fascinat-ing facts of science along the water’s edge

• Stay Safe--Alerts about shoreline dan-gers and how to avoid or respond to them

• Beachcomber’s Guide--Illustrated key to objects found in each beach and shore-line region

• Save the Shore--Notes on how humans can hurt--and help--shoreline ecology

• Best Water’s Edge--Throughout, “Dr. Beach” recommends the top beach or shoreline destinations

The book is profusely illustrated with photographs, maps, and explanatory dia-grams. An introductory section provides a thorough overview of the basic science of shorelines: How water interacts with land to form beaches; how various kinds of shorelines formed; why large waves are needed to form beaches; how floods and fast-moving water alters river shorelines; how the gravitational pull of the moon and sun cause the tides; why the oceans have tides but the Great Lakes don’t; how tides affect rivers far inland; the effects of latitude and climate on the formation of shorelines, including variations in plants and animals. This opening sets up all the science necessary to understand and use the rest of the book.

Field Guide to the Water’s Edgeby Spephen Leathermanand Jack WilliamsPaperback: 288 pagesISBN-978-1-4262-0868-3Cost: $21.95

Tear moths, from Southeast Asia, feed on the tears of large animals, such as cattle and buffaloes. Set-

tling close to the eye, the moth drinks the tears through its long

proboscis. Although they can be annoying, the moths do little

harm.

A male walrus’s tusks can grow to 2 ft 3 in long. Walruses use their tusks to rake shellfish from mud in shallow waters, to pull them-selves out of the water onto ice floes, and to battle other males for control of females.

It is hard to imagine an insect imitating a snake, but this is

how some swallow-tail caterpillars de-

fend themselves. On-their back, they have

two large eyespots, which make them look like a small poisonous snake.

The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Program has launched a new, web-based interactive map with information about endangered species success in every state: stories of species making strides towards recovery, audio interviews and podcasts with Service biologists about on-the-ground endangered species conservation, and videos that highlight the Service’s partners.

The interactive map can be found online at http://www.fws.gov/endan-gered/ and also has links for the Endangered Species Program’s new weekly e-newsletter and ways to connect via social media.

The Endangered Species Act provides a safety net for America’s native fish, wildlife and plants. The Service is actively engaged with conservation partners and the public in the search for improved and innovative ways to conserve and recover imperiled species.