Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Master Naturalists and bloggers record West Texas biodiversity
September 24, 2008

Thanks to the Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists, the Sibley Nature Center is opening its doors on Saturdays this fall. The members of the 2008 class have to perform 50 hours of community service as part of their requirements for graduation. To remain a member of the group, the class members of 2007 also have to volunteer 50 hours each year, so the Saturday work force is drawn from both classes. The volunteers take calls, help you select an item from our store (we have credit card ability now), talk about Sibley and its goals, and try to identify creatures and plants brought in for identification. (If they are unable to, they will leave a note for the Sibley staff to do so and to call you.) They will also talk about the local chapter of the group and sign you up for the 2009 class.

This year’s class meets once a month, and each month focuses on one of the eight major habitats of the Llano Estacado. Most of the members own a digital camera, so this year the group has intensively photographed the West Texas landscape. The class members visit each habitat before the class period on that particular habitat, then during the class period hear about three hours of lecture and then tour the habitat with the instructor. Finally photoessays are created from the hundreds of photographs generated by the class members.

It is simply amazing how much more 10 to 15 sets of eyes can see, compared to just one set. Visit the Habitats section of this website, and then click on each habitat in turn, scrolling down to the photoessays and take a look. West Texas is an incredibly diverse place – you will be “blown away by” everything the group has found. The photoessays are for everyone, but especially for school children preparing to visit Sibley. We believe that every child (and adult) should know the 50 most common species of birds, wildflowers, insects, and the 10 most common species of reptiles and amphibians. Learning about the eight major habitats gives a visitor to the website a way to understand the landscape of West Texas. Each habitat has unique organisms especially adapted to that habitat.

The Sibley Nature Center website has become recognized as one of the best “bioregional” websites in the nation. In October, Sibley staff will be speaking at 3 different state environmental education associations annual meetings with the goal of other groups creating similar websites for other bioregions beyond the Llano Estacado.

Please let us know if you would like to join the 2009 class. Call me at 684-6827 or email me at Bwilliams@sibleynaturecenter.org and give me your name and email address so we can send you registration forms. Orientation for the 2009 class will be on January 10th. The cost is $75, which includes the state curriculum notebook, and a Sibley Nature Center membership.

Among the projects you can be involved in for volunteer hours is collecting horny toad DNA, collecting seeds for the Millennium Seed Project, doing Christmas Bird Counts, July 4th Butterfly Counts. The Sibley Nature Center membership also entitles you to be part of the Outdoor Club, which canoes, rappels, caves, backpacks, or bikes somewhere in West Texas or Eastern New Mexico once a month. You also become a member of the Sibley Plant Buyer Club and its drought adapted and native plant sales in April and May at the Sibley greenhouse. Members receive a discount at the plant sales, and get to pre-order exactly what they want.

On September 13th, Debbie Pelham and Leslie Harmon manned the building. Ms. Harmon walked along the trail and gardens of the center and took photographs for the September Virtual Trail on the Sibley website. The early morning was very foggy, but the day became cool and clear. For the previous week, rain clouds had slowly released almost four inches of rain. Everything was washed clean, seedlings of next year’s wildflowers were germinating by the million, mushrooms were bursting out of the ground, and the butterflies were drinking so deeply from flowers they ignored Ms. Harmon and her camera. The fall wildflowers responded to the rain by beginning to bloom. Grass that had been brown, desiccated, and wilted, had bright new green centers of growth. Take a look at her virtual trail (with a few extra pictures by Sibley staff.)

Debi Cates of Odessa and Donna Chafin of Lubbock often get together to go daytripping with their digital cameras. Both have blogs to show off their pictures (Debi Cates Photo A Day and Photos by Donna). Debi’s brother Casey has now joined them and his blog is Living In Focus.) Debi recently wrote the following in her blog;

“Wildflowers and buzzing are everywhere. Donna and I came up with the idea for a little friendly competition. The challenge would be to see who could photograph the most living species in a given area in a given time. The timing of our new game works in perfectly with the unexpected flurry of life right now.

I found a spot off of Interstate 20 in an industrial area. The advantage is it's near to me and doesn't have much human activity on the weekend or evenings. It's about an acre of open field that was just bursting with nodding yellow flower heads that I could see easily from the highway. We gave ourselves one hour to photograph as many species of flowers, plants, bugs, or any living thing. We had a blast and have decided we like this game. Although it's not always conducive to good photography, it does make you appreciate things you've seen a hundred times (they add to your count), and make you look harder for things you haven't cared to look for before.”

Other folks are also photographing the Llano Estacado landscape. Another one of our favorites is Eric Breden of Andrews, a superb bird photographer. Check out otterside.com to see his work. He is also a member of the Midland Naturalists, a local naturalist group that goes on field trips to local ranches and parks every Saturday of the year. We hope to discover more folks that love to explore the region and post their findings on the Internet. When the countryside is as green and lush as it is now, there is no excuse for you to be a couch potato and say “There is nothing to do!” Get out and explore!