Saturday, August 4, 2012

Houston Chronicle coverage

A lovely little blurb from Gary Clark - I think it's also in the San Antonio Express-News
Fest visitors get a peek at West Texas birds and butterflies
Accompanying photos are by Kathy Adams Clark, who hosted the photography workshop during the festival.

Edit: There's been a little confusion about the "more information" blurb.
More than 200 bird and 70 butterfly species can be found in Marathon.
The 7.5-acre Gage Gardens on First Street includes native plants and trees with interpretive signs, beautiful ponds, a small putting green, a gazebo and a mile-long trail through native grassland with wildflowers. Open to the public during the day.
Post Park, a cottonwood-forested county park on the Pena Colorado River, is full of birds, butterflies and dragonflies.
* 200 species of birds would be for the actual town of Marathon, not Brewster county; you can get about 200 bird species for the county in a year. Our yard list (in Marathon) is 97 species with relatively little effort over the course of 2 years.

* The Gage Gardens is closer to 30 acres - perhaps only 7.5 of it is manicured? The full 30 would include the grassland portion of the property behind the landscaped section.

* Post Park is also known as Fort Pena Colorado, formerly Camp Pena Colorado, also called The Post - it does have water year round due to a spring, but is not on a river.

Also, while there is mention of Cliff Swallows in the first paragraph, this would be a stray sighting for the year. Generally we have about a 50/50 split between Cliff and Cave Swallows, but this year has been 99% Cave and Barn with only a few scouts and stray Cliffs - single digits. Young Barn and Cave Swallows are out in full force, however, and can be a challenge to narrow down.

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