What’s Up? Video: Talking the City Nature Challenge and happy Bird Day at Lick Creek Park

Grace Hallowell:

What’s Up College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and I am joined again with Ms. Laurie Brown from our Gary Halter Nature Center. Hi, Laurie.

Laurie Brown:

Hey, how are y’all?

Grace Hallowell:

We are doing well. We are heading into springtime and we’re flying into Bird Day, or the time of year for birds. We have a lot of exciting things going on at the Nature Center, starting with Bird Day.

Laurie Brown:

Oh yes. Okay. So, our World Bird Day, or as we like to call it Bird Day, is from 10 a.m.-p.m. at the Gary Halter Nature Center. It’s going to be a fun-filled morning of bird activities. We’re going to have crafts, like making bird feeders, obviously some fun stuff like making bird houses, but we’re also going to be having a lot of presentations from our local partners. We have one of our local TaeKwonDo instructors, Jose Aponte, who’s going to be doing TaeKwonDo Bird poses fun.

Grace Hallowell:

Fun.

Laurie Brown:

We’re going to be having presentations and bird walks by our Rio Brazos Audubon Group. We’re going to be having another mini plant sale by our Post Oak Chapter of the Native Plant Society, which are plants that promote birds. We’re also going to be having presentations by our Paws and Claws groups and our Master Naturalist groups. So they’ll be live animals, fun demonstrations and events, and obstacle courses. It should be a great event for the whole family.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes. And I don’t know about you, but I love birds. I love bird watching and bird listening. Whenever I’m on a hike, that’s my favorite thing to do, is listen for all of the different birds and try to identify them. Birds are important to our ecosystem.

Laurie Brown:

They’re very much important to our ecosystem, which is why the city is trying to promote many conservation actions in order to help save birds. One of the most fun that anyone can help do is our Lights Out for Migration program that we’re supporting for National Audubon. It started March 1 for the spring migration. We’re hoping that people will turn out their lights from 11 p.m.-6 a.m. in non-essential areas. If you have a security light that you absolutely need or like a streetlight that you need, keep those on, but any non-essential lights, windows, doors, anything else that’ll save you power as well. That is from March 1-June 15 for the spring, and then again in the fall from August 15-November 30. Most people don’t realize that most migration happens at night, so that’s always a really fun thing.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah. You wouldn’t think birds are active at night because you don’t typically hear them until the morning or in the daytime. So yeah, it’s important. Keep your lights out.

Laurie Brown:

Those lights can attract birds to areas where they wouldn’t have been and make it harder for them to navigate in the dark by the stars and the clouds and other features, so helping people keep their lights out, which is super fun.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah, and we have a lot of great species of birds that are native here to the Brazos Valley. I know there was a bird call that I heard when I first moved here, and I was like what is that? I’ve never heard that before. I think it was a white winged dove.

Laurie Brown:

Oh, yes.

Grace Hallowell:

And I know that those guys migrate here, so yes. What else do we have going on?

Laurie Brown:

We’ve got a lot of events leading up to Bird Day, including Lights Out. We also have the City Nature Challenge, which starts this weekend on April 28- May 1. We’re encouraging everybody to download the iNaturalist app and run around and take pictures of everything you see, so any plants, any nature, any bugs, birds, flowers, blades of grass, all of it.

Grace Hallowell:

Everything.

Laurie Brown:

Everything. The City Nature Challenge is a yearly snapshot of what we have in the city, and it helps scientists and researchers like myself look at areas of conservation importance and kind of doing a presence study of what is active during that time each year. So it’s always that last weekend in April, or the first day of May. It’s a pretty fun event, totally free. We encourage people to download their iNaturalist app and come out to Lick Creek and start snapping some pictures and saving wildlife with your phone.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah. It’s super easy, right to your phone. If anyone has questions about these events or the City Nature Challenge or want more information, where can they go to find that information?

Laurie Brown:

So City Nature Challenge is not only open to College Station, but it’s open to all cities.

Grace Hallowell:

Everyone?

Laurie Brown:

Everyone, any county, any city, any place. It doesn’t have to be just done at your city. It can be done at your house, on your daily walk. And you can find that if you just Google City Nature Challenge., and you can also download that free iNaturalist app and get going, and you can use that anytime as well.

Grace Hallowell:

Perfect.

Laurie Brown:

We also have another event leading up to Bird Day, which is our Birding 101 class, which is going to be May 6. It’s starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Gary Halter Nature Center, so if you’re new to birding it’s a great time to learn. If you just want to hang out and meet other birders, then this is a great group. They’re pretty popular, and we’re excited about that and excited to getting people into birding.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, and we provide you the binoculars, everything you need, field guides. Just make sure you dress for going on a hike.

Laurie Brown:

Absolutely.

Grace Hallowell:

That’s important.

Laurie Brown:

Closed toed shoes, guys.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes.

Laurie Brown:

It’s pretty bright and it’s fun, but super exciting days, that May has been pretty much given to the birds.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah. When you go on these hikes, I always go into them not anticipating to hear anything, and then I’m always surprised by how much I do here or do see or who I spot out there. So yes, very exciting things for bird people.

Laurie Brown:

Absolutely, and we have one more thing that I just wanted to highlight that’s starting at Bird Day, is that we have an educational display that is going to be put up by the Biodiversity Research and Teachings Collection Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology.

Grace Hallowell:

That’s a mouthful.

Laurie Brown:

A good mouthful, yes. There, they’re talking about highlighting why lights out is so important, the impact of birds and window collisions, and migrating at night, and all of those types of things. So that will also be present starting at Bird Day.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, because you don’t really think with your lights on that’s kind of like a lighthouse for a bird and they’re going to fly right towards it.

Laurie Brown:

Absolutely.

Grace Hallowell:

It’s very important to do what we can to encourage conservation, to keep those native species here and migrating and coming back.

Laurie Brown:

Absolutely. So yeah, we want to do what we can to turn the lights out for migrating natives, and just really getting everybody in the world excited about birds, and getting outside. Spring is beautiful. Lick Creek is amazing. There’s so many wildflowers and everything blooming, native plants, and the sundews are out, the little bitty carnivorous plants on the trails which are super stinking cute.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes.

Laurie Brown:

So please come out and see us.

Grace Hallowell:

All right. Well, if anyone has any questions about the Nature Center, check out cstx.gov/lickcreek, or you can stop in, talk to any of… your staff is so wonderful with educating people or answering questions. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us today?

Laurie Brown:

No. We have a great staff and we’re looking forward to it. May rolls into our summer camps, so be on the lookout for those.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Laurie.

Laurie Brown:

Thank you.

Grace Hallowell:

And that’s What’s Up.

What’s Up College Station Archive

Stuff you Don’t Usually See Archive