Learn about living organisms on the coastal prairie by participating in two City Nature Challenge events on Houston Prairies:
From a Katy Prairie Conservancy announcement:
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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:
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:
See below for the CNC ID Party at the Houston Arboretum on May 1.
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:
View recorded webinars at https://nctc.fws.gov/topic/online-training/webinars/monarch-conservation.html . Click the desired video title under the “video screen”
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Many of you might remember years ago, the wonderful CD with Larry Allain’s plant database that was no longer useable after Windows XP expired. Now that data and more is on the web! Location https://warcapps.usgs.gov/PlantID/
Although the database is titled “Plants of Louisiana”, it contains many, many of the plants found in Greater Houston, the plants of the coastal prairie habitat. This database is searchable by scientific name or common name or PLANT CHARACTER. This last would be useful to identify a plant.
Below is the type of data given for the plant Indian plantain
Information on individual plants include features that will help identify the plant such as height, leaf shape, leaf margin, bloom time… as well as propagation and cultural information and wildlife usage and so much more.
The only information lacking for us in Texas are the counties where a particular plant occurs. However, that can be found by cross referencing the plant, using preferably the scientific name, on the USDA Plant database (https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/java/ ) or BONAP (http://www.bonap.org/)
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April HNPAT Meeting:
by Pat Merkord, President of NPAT Board
Wednesday, April 24, 2019; 6:30 p.m. social / 7:00 p.m. program starts
Red Cross Building, 2700 Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX 77098
For more information and see prairie dog photo, go to our home page: HoustonPrairie.org
As part of the North American Prairie Conference, the Native Prairies Association of Texas (NPAT) with supported from Shell is sponsoring a Prairie Art Contest for students from grades 6-12. If interested, please contact della_barbato@texasprairie.org. Della is NPAT’s Education Director. 
Exciting news: 25th biennial North American Prairie Conference (NAPC), America’s oldest and most celebrated native grassland gathering, is coming to Texas for only the second time since the conference was founded in 1968 and for the first time in 30 years. This year’s conference whose theme is “Healthy Prairies, Healthy Watershed“ will be held at University of Houston – Clear Lake, June 2-5, 2019.
The conference is already bringing in some of the biggest names in prairie conservation, including Carol Davit (TEDx talk) from the Missouri Prairie Foundation, Drs. Dwayne Estes and Reed Noss of the Southeastern Grassland Initiative, Dr. Chris Helzer (Prairie Ecologist blog) from The Nature Conservancy, and local expert Dr. John Jacobs. The conference aims to bring together ecologists, conservationists, landowners, artists, volunteers – prairie experts and enthusiasts of all backgrounds – from across the nation to learn about the conservation and restoration of North America’s legacy landscape. Also included are field trips to the diverse Texas Coastal Prairie region.
Registration has already started at the website, NorthAmericanPrairie.org.
Please help us in getting the word out about the conference. Click on the image above to download the social media card and click on this link for the press release which includes the agenda. We would appreciate, if you could circulate both to your family, friends, members and colleagues and include in your organization’s newsletter, social media sites, and on your calendar.
Want to make a difference and become a conference sponsor? Please go to https://www.northamericanprairie.org/sponsor to view levels and benefits. Should you have any questions, please contact Lan.shen@txgcmn.org. The Coastal Prairie Partnership, fiscal agent of the conference, as well as the other three co-presenters are 501(c)3 non-profit organizations.
If your organization would like to have an information booth at the conference, please go to this page to register for the booth: www.northamericanprairie.org/register. Please note, registering for an exhibitor booth does not entitle exhibitors to conference attendance.
The call for proposals is on-going. All interested participants are encouraged to respond. For more details, click here. The review process for abstracts has begun, and the last day of submissions has been extended to April 22, 2019.
The 2019 North American Prairie Conference is co-sponsored by the Katy Prairie Conservancy, the Coastal Prairie Partnership, The Native Prairies Association of Texas, the Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Institute of Houston at the University of Houston Clear Lake.
We hope to see you at the conference in June!
For the 5th year, Mark Morgenstern of Morning Star Prairie Plants and Barbara Willy of Monarch Gateway will be offering their free workshop at Brazos Bend State Park (BBSP). Afterwards will be tours to the BBSP pocket prairie, then to Mark Morgenstern’s home prairie garden and nursery, and finally to Nash Prairie, a platinum quality remnant. At Mark’s nursery, there will be an opportunity to purchase prairie plants that he had talked about and to see how he raises these plants from local native seeds.
RSVP required: Click here. Get PDF of flyer here.
Congratulations to Julie d’Ablaing, the first recipient of HNPAT’s 2018 Prairie Volunteer Award! Please join us in celebrating Julie’s achievement at the 2018 Prairie Stampede, Wednesday, 11/28/18, at Houston Zoo Brown Education Building (Gate 8, not main gate). Doors open at 6:00 pm.
It’s not too late to sign up! Register here (scroll down for parking info)
Check out who we are honoring (see flyer below). In the next blog, read about Julie d’Ablaing, recipient of HNPAT’s (Houston Chapter – Native Prairie Association) first annual Greater Houston Area Prairie Volunteer Award. At the Stampede, a presentation will spotlight high level highlights of what each group accomplished for prairies. Powerpoints submitted for presentation by HNPAT, GCMN (Gulf Coast Master Naturalists), and NPSOTH (Native Plant Society of Texas – Houston) are previewed below.
Scroll down for information on these events:
A screening of short, local, environmental films that tell the story of local environmental issues, their champions, and how you can make a difference. More info at CEC website and at CEC facebook page
Rice Media Center, 2030 University Blvd, near Stockton and University.
6:30 PM conversation, networking, and a light meal
7:00 PM film screening.
Free to the public, though donations are kindly appreciated.
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9 am – 12 pm: Ryan Middleton of Katy Prairie Conservancy will be leading this quarterly maintenance of the MD Anderson Prairie: seed, and weed. Jaime Gonzalez will also be there representing The Nature Conservancy. For more information, to RSVP, and to be informed about the parking situation, email LShen@katyprairie.org
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The Houston Zoo has extremely generously donated the use of the Brown Education Center for the annual HNPAT & CPP (Coastal Prairie Partnership) Prairie Stampede – the Awards Potluck – on Wednesday, November 28, ~6:30 p.m. to 8:30p.m. When Cherie Flores Pavilion and Hermann Park Conservancy informed us in January of this year that we would no longer be able to hold collaborative events (events jointly sponsored by HNPAT and another non-profit organization) and that they could cancel our reservation at extremely short notice (once on the day of the event), the Houston Zoo came to the rescue and donated the use of the wonderful Brown Education Center for this event!
More information, including a signup sheet for the potluck, will be coming about this event. Some of the awards to be presented are:
Dick Benoit Upper Texas Coast Prairie Award – This award recognizes someone from the Upper Texas Coast area, oftentimes Greater Houston, who is contributing to coastal prairie conservation, education, etc. This award is for recent work not a career of achievement. This award is voted on by the general public. Send nominations to prairiepartner@gmail.com.
Prairie Excellence Award – This award recognizes career achievement in coastal prairie conservation. This award is selected by the CPP Board. The CPP board will gladly take suggestions for this award. Send suggestions to prairiepartner@gmail.com.
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From the conference planning committee:
From June 2-5, 2019 the Houston prairie community will host the 25th North American Prairie Conference. This marks only the second time that the conference will be held in Texas and the first held in the Lone Star State since the 1980s. The theme of the conference is Healthy Prairies, Healthy Watersheds and is being co-presented by the Nature Conservancy of Texas, Katy Prairie Conservancy, Native Prairies Association of Texas, and the Coastal Prairie Partnership.
We are currently requesting presentation submissions and sponsorships. Please tell folks in your network about this very special event and mark your calendars.
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