Front entrance to the Fort Worth Prairie Park south of East Dutch Branch Creek prior to start of prairie restoration work.
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]]>The week at a glance: Sunday, May 29: Bird the Portland, ME area. Monday, May 30: Bird our way up to Whiting, where we will check in to our lodge at the Cobscook Institute. The lodge has modern conveniences. Each room has an en suite bathroom. The lodge has a living room and a kitchen for our use. While at the lodge our meals will be catered. Tuesday, May 31: Guided birding of the area. Wednesday, June 1: go on our Pelagic tour. We will bird local areas afterwards that afternoon. Thursday, June 2: guided birding of Moosehorn national wildlife refuge. Friday, June 3: Bird locally. Saturday, June 4: Check out of the lodge and Bird our way back to Portland with a stop in Acadia National Park. Sunday, June 5: Head back to TX after a great week of birding.
The cost of the trip is $950pp for a double and $1075pp for a single. This cost includes all transportation, guides, lodging and food while at the lodge. This cost does not include airfare to Maine, meals or lodging prior to or after our time at the lodge.
If you would like to reserve a spot on the trip please email Debbie Simek at dksimek@gmail.com. There will only be 10 participants on the trip. Reservations will be taken on a first come first serve basis, with paid FWAS members getting priority. Once you make reservations you will have 2 weeks to send in your $400 down payment.
Because we will be in vans and won’t be able to social distance you will be required to show proof of vaccination for COVID or have negative tests results within 3 days of the start of our trip.
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]]>Earlier this year, the Fort Worth Audubon Society announced three $1,000 grant recipients. One of those recipients, the Great Plains Restoration Council, has already put the money to good use and sent us a wonderful report full of great pictures. Their project was grassland nesting bird habitat restoration through diversity and inclusion community engagement. They cut and cleared tree and brush on the Ft. Worth Prairie Park south of East Dutch Branch Creek. The grant money not only helped help fund tree cutting but provided some community work payments for young people working on the Prairie.
Jarid Manos, project manager for the Great Plains Restoration Council sent the following report to FWAS:
Great Plains Resoration Council update for Grassland Nesting Bird Habitat Restorartion
Check out the difference in the trailhead! The front entrance to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Richardson Tract for the Fort Worth Prairie Park partnership was overgrown with trees and brush. The overgrowth completely shaded the native prairie.
In the historic absence of bison and fire, mechanical management helps keep the grassland open and alive.
Two crews mobilized. The chainsaw crew led by Jumbo Property Management a community-engaged Fort Worth Black-owned business. A second crew, consisting of 7 formerly incarcerated youth from Tarrant County Advocate Program (TCAP) followed. This crew removed downed limbs and cleared other brush. The Youth earn $10 per hour. The crews received introductory Ecological Health training.
The work week concluded with reseeding from carefully-sourced native Fort Worth Prairie ecosystem seed, and yoga on the prairie.
We have a lot more to work do, a couple years’ worth, but America’s 10,000-year-old native Fort Worth Prairie ecosystem is now one of the rarest ecosystems in North America.
While endeavoring to protect as much vulnerable wild prairie as we can add on to the Fort Worth Prairie Park preservation complex, we concurrently work to restore to 1800s ecological conditions what is already under protection.
The work in the field helps people and wildlife, costs about $1,000 a day, and increases prairie acreage.
We thank you as always for your financial donations and community engagement support! Preservation and restoration saves much of the vital Fort Worth Prairie as possible.
Also thank you to Congressman Marc Veasey, a thoughtful ecological leader, who came out to the Fort Worth Prairie to talk with and hike with our youth.
A conservation project photo journal – 2021 Restoration of the Fort Worth Prairie Park at East Dutch Branch Creek
Place your pointer on each photo for description. To advance to next photo, place pointer on photo and drag toward left of page.
Front entrance as of Aug. 2019
Removing removing overgrowth
Removing overgrowth of woody increaser vegetation like cedar elms and hackberries on the prairie.
Starting brush piles.
After photo
Ms. Marty Leonard, local philanthropist, business and community leader, conservationist and bird watcher, visits some of our youth and the prairie. With Nicholas, Dylan, and Carlos at the project site after brush clearing
Team members
Youth lunch discussion with adult advocates Vincent and Jarid (not pictured—he’s taking the pic.) From left, Dylan, Vincent, Brandon, Carlos, Nicholas, and Keaundre.
Restoration team joined by U.S. Congressman Marc Veasey
U.S. Congressman Marc Veasey speaking with some of the youth on a hike at a site where swale prairie merges up onto a prairie barrens shortgrass prairie ecosystem component of the endangered Fort Worth Prairie. Thank you Congressman Veasey for your caring about our Earth and young people’s future
Discovery of a Texas spiny lizard
Discovery of a Texas spiny lizard with his head stuck inside a shotgun shell. On land or at sea, plastic trash is a lethal danger to native wildlife and human health.
Texas spiny lizard rescued
He survived! Rescue of Texas spiny lizard from being trapped in the shotgun shell, via surgical removal with a manicure clippers that Johnny Muhammad from TCAP (Texas Coalition of Animal Protection) went and bought at Walmart.
Saved and released
Release of Texas spiny lizard back into the prairie
Work continues
Preparing to cut, separate and stack some more downed cedar elms and hackberries that had choked out the prairie.
Another wood pile needed.
Deciding on the 2nd pile location.
Managing the new wood pile
Youth planned the consolidation and compression of stacked tree limbs and branches, with Carlos (in photo gesturing) serving as Pile Manager to continually collapse the large volume into much less space.
Allelopathy on the prairie is where the native plant communities are killed out by tree and brush overgrowth.
Between these two piles is the main front swath that was cleared of trees, brush and plastics, and raked and prepared for seeding with custom-curated Fort Worth Prairie seed mix, courtesy of Native American Seed, Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge, and Suzanne Tuttle and Michelle Villafranca.
Pausing for a photo before seeding.
A total of 7 formerly incarcerated youth, from our partner Tarrant County Advocate Program, worked on the site. They were paid $10 an hour, and taught the introductory lessons of Tier 1 of Ecological Health practices and principles, for which there is a certification. Notice we are using non-plastic bags, even for trash cleanup near the road. If we think about it, there is always a healthier, greener option these days.
A special seed
We purchased $600 worth of custom-curated, Texas-sourced native Fort Worth Prairie seed mix, plus received a donation of local collected Fort Worth Prairie seeds from the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge.
Pocket wetlands
A daylighted tiny prairie creek at the front. There are also a couple pocket wetlands on this trailhead swath that we cleaned up.
Ecological Health practices and principles
Yoga stretching on the Fort Worth Prairie: Stretching and releasing muscle tension at the end of a week of good, hard work. Ecological Health practices and principles teach physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being as part of hands-on ecological restoration and preservation.
Becoming part of something bigger:
Meditating on the prairie and learning tactical diaphragmatic breathing. Both meditation and diaphragmatic breathing can be used in any area of life, particularly during stress and/or consternation.
Supporting our youth and the prairie
Alice Barrientez (Apache/Comanche) from the American Indian Youth Council, who previously served as a "GPRC Mom" for participating youth in an earlier program years ago, came out to visit and re-engage
Bonus photo:
East Dutch Branch Creek — Fort Worth Prairie blue sky, sun, wind, grass and clean water. (And fish who don’t yet want their pics taken. ) We are grteful to Jarid Manos Founder Great Plains Restoration Council Thank you for the report and photos,
by Michael K. Francis and Jarid Manos
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We hope this bird and tagline will have broad appeal to many birding, nature, and conservation enthusiasts across the great state of Texas. Funds raised from the sale of the plates will go to strictly to bird conservation efforts. We also most certainly hope this will spread awareness about the importance of protecting birds and habitat to all Texans.
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Dr. Archibald is known and admired around the world and we are honored to host him in Dallas in celebration of our Whooping Crane Center of Texas.
Tickets are going quickly and we want a full house. Reserve your free tickets here: https://my.dallaszoo.com/0/31139
The future of many crane species was once as fragile as the delicate and graceful birds themselves. George Archibald’s visionary leadership in international conservation efforts over the past 40 years has given flight to crane conservation worldwide. In 1973, when cranes were in a perilous situation and many were on the brink of extinction, Archibald, along with Cornell University colleague, Ronald Sauey, Ph.D., established the International Crane Foundation (ICF) in Baraboo, Wisconsin as the world center for the study and preservation of cranes. Today, ICF has over 50 employees and supports conservation projects in 45 countries. Archibald is a true conservation ambassador who uses his unique brand of crane diplomacy to work in sensitive places. He leverages the charisma of cranes to unite people from diverse cultures and countries to work together to preserve the landscapes necessary for the survival of both cranes and people.
Born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada, Archibald received his undergraduate degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1968, and completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1977. In recognition of his many accomplishments, Archibald has received four honorary doctorates and many awards including the Gold Medal from the World Wildlife Fund, a Fellows Award from the MacArthur Foundation, The Wildlife Conservation Medal from the Zoological Society of San Diego, the Lilly Medal presented by the Indianapolis Zoo, and the Douglas H. Pimlott Award from Nature Canada. In 2013, Archibald was awarded the Order of Canada on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, and received the inaugural Dan W. Lufkin Prize for Environmental Leadership from the National Audubon Society. He and his wife, Kyoko, live in the Baraboo countryside where they enjoy gardening and aviculture. (ICF website)
Jim Jones
Bedford, TX
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]]>The Borderlands Research Institute (BRI) is launching a new series of outreach activities connecting people with birds through its Bird Conservation Program. The Institute is part of Sul Ross State University. BRI kicked off birding field trips in late October to Alamito Creek Preserve. This is a Dixon Water Foundation property in Presidio County, south of Marfa. There were 40 slots available for a series of birding tours that will focus on riparian birds. The BRI website indicates another set of field trips Nov. 15th and 16th. Click here for more information.
Four groups of ten people participate in each birding trip tour. BRI is observing COVID protocols to ensure the safety of those participating. The tours will be led by experienced birders from the Borderlands Research Institute and partner organizations. The Borderlands Research Institute is limiting tours to 40 people. Organizers anticipate slots will fill quickly. Participants must register on their website. All birding levels, from beginners to experts enjoy these field trips.
Jim Jones
Bedford, TX
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