Category: Field Notes

  • Connecting People with Nature

    Dirt, water and gravity.  Backslope, outslope, brushing, grade reversals, and tread.  McLeods, picks and Pulaskis.  When you are hiking a trail, how much attention do you pay to the actual trail?  If a trail is well built, the engineering of the trail likely never crosses your mind.  As it should be. The purpose of a trail […]

  • Urban Birding at Stormwater Ponds in Austin

    As part of the Central Flyway, Texas will be the wintering home for over 90% of the ducks that use the this flyway1.  While a majority of the waterfowl, including the endangered Whooping Crane, will head for the Gulf Coast Wetlands, several species will make Austin their winter home.  Hornsby Bend is the most popular […]

  • White Christmas in Austin, Texas

    Christmas in Austin came wrapped in fog this year.  Except for a trace of snow in 1939, weather records going back to the 1890s show Austin has never had a White Christmas.  So the combination of humid air, warm daytime temperatures and cool nights that shrouded the city in a gauzy whiteness is the closest […]

  • Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count

    A popular Christmas Day tradition in the late 1800’s was the competitive “Side Hunt.”  The “side” of sport hunters that amassed the largest pile of dead birds at the end of the day won.  The conservation movement was young then but early conservationists and scientists were becoming concerned by the decline in bird populations as […]

  • Caprock Mesas and Desert Canyons

    The CAMN Field Trip to Twistflower Ranch At the end of August, ten Master Naturalists from the Capital Area and Hill Country (Kerrville) Chapters fled the oppressive central Texas humidity and sought refuge and advanced training on the caprock mesas and in the desert canyons of Twistflower Ranch.  The ranch covers nearly six thousand acres on the […]

  • Taking the Pulse of the Colorado River

    At 8:00 a.m. on the first Saturday of every month, naturalists, birders, citizen scientists and river-lovers meet at the Hornsby Bend CER. From there, the group caravans to the set-in and take-out points of a selected portion of the 60-mile stretch of the Colorado River between Austin and Bastrop. For thirteen years this group of regular, occasional […]

  • Master Naturalists Abroad

    Master Naturalists Abroad

    (Or at least outside Austin!) On April 22 (Earth Day, a super-holiday for conservationists), I had the chance to travel east to the Caddo Lakes region of Texas – nearly Louisiana – and meet up with some of the Texas Master Naturalists in the Cypress Basin Chapter. Their event – the 5th Annual Flotilla held in Uncertain, […]

  • Lake Fail

    Welcome to great big puddle under the overpass linking 183 and MoPac. Lake Fail is truly a place for the birds.

  • Enhancing Rainwater for Native Plants on an Austin Preserve

    Some people think I, as president, do nothing in CAMN but send emails and run some meetings. Today I offer a spot of proof to prove otherwise. I was photographed in the wild at a work session on Austin Water/Wildland Conservation Division’s Vireo Preserve at the completion of one of the last steps of finishing our […]

  • Honey Bee Swarms, and Other Stinging Insects

    The European honey bee (Apis mellifera) may not be a species endemic to Central Texas, but there is no disputing the powerhouse role they play in pollinating our native flora and our agricultural crops. It’s no wonder seeing them in action is quite fascinating to many naturalists, be they curious adults or schoolchildren. As such, the Austin Nature and […]