Shell created this video about their support of Deer Park Prairie and Prairie Education.

In the May, 2019, Texas Wildlife is an article by Keith Pawelek, Associate Director of Texas Naive Seeds Program titled “Land Disturbance, Problem or Opportunity”. The article gives tips on how to use land disturbance as an opportunity to improve the wildlife habitat of a property and can be found at this link: https://issuu.com/texaswildlifeassociation/docs/2019-05-proof5/44. The emphasis is on seeding with native plants.

Thanks to Alyssa Conn for pointing out this article.

For a size to actually read it, hover the cursor on the page and click the full screen icon that appears (on the lower right). Aside: I hate issuu, however, that is the only format where I found the article. How long the link will be active is unknown, so if you want to save the article, take screen shots and save that way.

Learn about living organisms on the coastal prairie by participating in two City Nature Challenge events on Houston Prairies:

• On Saturday, April 27 at Deer Park Prairie in east Harris County. More information here.
• On Sunday, April 28 at Katy Prairie Conservancy Preserve in far west Harris County. See below.

From a Katy Prairie Conservancy announcement:

Help Houston Win the City Nature Challenge (citynaturechallenge.org), April 26 – April 29!

“Cities around the world will be competing to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people in the 2019 City Nature Challenge.”

To participate is quite easy:

• Open a free account on iNaturalist
• Take photos or record sound (e.g. birds, frogs) of living organisms; record location of this observation. Observations must be made and posted between April 26 – April 29.
• Post your observations on iNaturalist. Either take the photo with location feature on or enter the location manually later on the computer.
• You do not need to ID your observations.

Photo from citynaturechallenge.org

For your observation to count for Houston, it must be within the area on the map here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019-houston (scroll down).

Organized events for CNC in greater Houston are listed at this link. Learn more about living organisms on the prairie at these two prairie CNC events:

• Deer Park Prairie’s Spring Wildflower Day on Saturday, April 27. More information at this blog: https://houstonprairie.org/2019/04/24/5yr-dpp-cnc/
• Katy Prairie Conservancy’s CNC event at Matt Cook Viewing Platform & Rockhollow Creek on Sunday, April 28. More information here.

See below for the CNC ID Party at the Houston Arboretum on May 1.

City Nature Challenge ID Party

The USFWS has partnered with the Monarch Joint Venture to develop a series of webinars on monarch biology, monitoring, and conservation: monarchjointventure.org/resources/monarch-conservation-webinar-series. Use this link to register for upcoming webinars or for links to recorded webinars, if you are like me and forget or do not have time to participate in a live webinar.

Webinars to date for 2019:

• The first webinar of the 2019 Monarch Conservation Series Webinar Title: Western Monarch Population down by 99%: How you can help. Date/Time: Tuesday, February 26^th at 2PM ET (1pm Central, 12pm Mountain, 11am Pacific
• Monarch Butterfly Population Modeling. Date/Time: Tuesday, March 19^th at 2PM EDT (1pm Central, 12pm Mountain, 11am Pacific)
• Monarchs in a Web of Life: Predators, Parasites, and Disease.  Date/Time: Tuesday, March 26th at 2PM EDT (1pm Central, 12pm Mountain, 11am Pacific)

View recorded webinars at  https://nctc.fws.gov/topic/online-training/webinars/monarch-conservation.html . Click the desired video title under the “video screen”