- NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure-- it's what we share.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - This boardwalk overlooks freshwater wetlands.

It's a cattail marsh.

There's hundreds of species here.

- Martin Dies, Jr.

State Park is an easy place to have a good time.

It's a wonderful place to get away from the city and reconnect with nature.

- Everybody has a part to play in the recovery of the monarch.

- Oh look, a monarch right here!

Planting flowers in a garden is a great start.

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Texas Parks & Wildlife , a television series for all outdoors.

♪ ♪ - Can y'all see it?

The branch kind of comes over.

He's just moving.

- Oh, I gotcha.

- NARRATOR: It's October in the Rio Grande Valley.

- MAN: Let's check this one.

- NARRATOR: These folks have come from near and far to the Edinburg Wetlands World Birding Center... - MAN: Let's go!

- NARRATOR: ...to appreciate a wealth of flying colors.

[camera shutter] - TOUR LEADER: Right there.

He's teensy.

[bird chirps] They just spotted a second U.S.

record!

- NARRATOR: But these nature tourists aren't here for the birds.

- TOUR LEADER: Never seen it in the U.S.

- NARRATOR: The flying things they're after are butterflies, and this is just one stop on the annual Texas Butterfly Festival.

[playful music] - South Texas is like heaven to birders.

Uh, it's also pretty spectacular for butterflies.

- Here we have a skipper.

- DAVID DAUPHIN: You can see more species of butterflies... - LEADER: White peacock.

- DAVID: ...than anywhere else in the United States.

- Oh yeah!

- It's just another aspect of the wildlife watching that's so fantastic here in the Valley.

- MAN: This is the malachite that we saw earlier.

- It brings attention to nature and is also a great economic support for our community.

[birds chirp] - NARRATOR: The popularity of chasing butterflies is a fairly new phenomenon.

- DAVID: Butterfly field guides didn't really start coming out until the mid-90s, I guess, and like birding, you eventually start checking them off a list and that sort of thing.

- MAN: These tropical ones have been seen at the park.

- DAVID: Butterfliers are really birders that have gone over to the dark side.

It's just a progression.

- Today I've found four or five lifers, butterflies I'd never seen before, and it's a great thrill.

- NARRATOR: Butterfly watching also draws those who just want to relax and enjoy some of nature's small wonders.

- WOMAN: You just can't help but be interested in it.

- MAN: I think they're beautiful.

I just like the colors.

- MAN 2: They're so pretty and they're so fragile and short-lived.

- NARRATOR: Though fragile indeed, one particular butterfly is known for its epic annual migration... - Right up on top.

- TOUR GUIDE: Monarch!

- NARRATOR: ...the monarch.

Each fall, millions of monarchs funnel through Texas from as far north as Canada, en route to their wintering sites in Central Mexico.

Along this Central Flyway, monarchs can be seen in flight or taking rest stops along their way.

- That was a bunch of them!

- NARRATOR: Catching sight of a monarch roost is something that landowners, like Dob and Kay Cunningham, look forward to.

- It's always a big thrill when they start coming in.

This part of Texas is kind of plain.

But there is a beauty in this country that you have to be patient and wait for, and the monarchs are one of those.

- I didn't know they were so unique and complicated.

And it is quite a phenomenon.

- NARRATOR: That these delicate insects can fly up to 3,000 miles, and somehow converge on the same patch of mountains in Mexico, is one of the miracles of nature.... - DOB: One of the most unique migrations that I've ever heard of.

- NARRATOR: ...But the miraculous monarch migration is in trouble.

- We still have masses of them, they're still coming, but not near the numbers.

- KAY: It brings joy to me to see them coming and great distress when I think the numbers have fallen.

- NARRATOR: What Texas ranchers have noticed has been confirmed by surveys.

- The numbers that are returning back to Mexico have declined considerably.

- NARRATOR: Monarch numbers have dropped to a fraction of those recorded when monitoring began in the early 1990s.

While there are concerns about illegal logging and cold snaps impacting wintering monarchs, their biggest challenges may be those they face on their return in the spring and their dependence on a single plant for reproduction.

- During the spring migration, we're not too aware of it, we don't see them in masses the way we see them in the fall, but that's when it's critical, because they're returning from Mexico, they're trying to lay eggs and the only host plant is milkweed or Asclepias.

- MAN: Because it's an international animal, you know Canada, the United States and Mexico, there are so many variables.

Planting flowers in a garden is a great start.

The best we can do is to be thoughtful about how we manage land.

You know, do we need to mow all the milkweed?

Do we cut down all the flowers in the fall in the roadside ditches, or do we leave some things for those butterflies that are coming back through?

And I think the more we understand that, the more we'll be able to do our part.

Look, there's a couple of milkweed bugs on the back side of this.

- NARRATOR: Park Interpreter, Craig Hensley, is certainly doing his part.

Craig oversees volunteers who monitor milkweed, monarchs and other butterflies each spring at Guadalupe River State Park.

- CRAIG: Isn't that a gorgeous butterfly?

Oh look a monarch right here!

Right there!

- Today is one of our butterfly surveys.

- CRAIG: Have you seen any eggs or larvae?

- MAN: No!

- CRAIG: We also monitor a patch of milkweed in the park for the Monarch Larval Monitoring Project.

- Why don't you get that one and I'll get this one.

We count milkweeds, look for monarch eggs.

We're just coming out of a drought and our milkweed has been low so we're really excited because we're seeing more and more stopping here and they are laying eggs.

Here it is.

- PAM: Oh cool!

- A lot of people feel if they follow the monarch, that they get an idea about the health of the whole ecosystem.

- CRAIG: These are arrivals from Mexico.

Yeah.

You know you start looking at the natural world and you see declines in bumblebee populations and other native pollinator populations, you see what's happening with the honey bee and... Alright, let's go out to the patch.

...you realize that you know there's a delicate balance of the natural world... Here's the monarch egg.

...and it's amazing how much of that balance focuses on very very tiny little insects that we are highly dependent upon.

Without them we have potentially a lot less food in our grocery stores and it probably costs a lot more.

So the picture of the monarch is a bigger picture of pollinators in general.

A lot to learn about monarchs in Texas as they pass through, north and south.

Let's keep going!

- NARRATOR: Though focused on the big picture, for Craig, this is also personal.

- CRAIG: I have two grandchildren and I don't want them to grow up without the chance to see a monarch butterfly, and my fear is that possibility exists.

I think the world becomes a lesser place if we watch things like the monarch disappear or become rare.

Golly, look at that.

Right there!

They're gorgeous little animals... Now if we could just see another hundred of them.

...and a great gateway animal, especially for kids getting into nature.

- WOMAN: How many?

- A lot!

- NARRATOR: Back on the border, Carol Cullar also uses monarchs to introduce kids to nature.

- So if you'll put your finger up in the air.

You don't want to?

At first they're a little afraid of having it touch their finger, and by the end of the presentation they all want you to put the butterfly on their finger and they all want to say bye to the monarch and let it go.

- KIDS: Whoa!

- NARRATOR: Carol participates in a citizen science project, tagging monarchs during fall migration.

- CAROL: This little tag then traces where that butterfly came from... what day it was tagged... how many miles that it has flown down to Mexico.

- BOY: There he goes.

Happy trails!

- CAROL: We don't have all the answers.

We don't know every detail of this process.

We do get a lot of data just from that one tag.

- There's a soldier right in front of you there.

- NARRATOR: Meanwhile, just down river, the Texas Butterfly Festival wraps up with a splash of color at Falcon State Park.

- CHARLIE: Oh awesome.

- ANNA MARIE BEST: I've never seen anything like this.

- We've seen well over a hundred species here in this garden over a three day period.

- I've seen more butterflies in one day than I've seen in my whole life put together.

- MAN: A lot of butterflies.

- NARRATOR: Among the bounty of butterflies, and one fancy moth, are also many monarchs, gassing up at the butterfly garden before heading to Mexico.

- When he opens out, looks like a little jet plane.

Our manager wanted to do some landscaping in the park.

I said, why not let's make a butterfly garden.

It grew and grew and grew, 'til now we have about an acre of plants, all native right here to this area.

It's been successful beyond our wildest imaginations.

- NARRATOR: Whether by planting milkweed, or other native flowering plants... - CRAIG: See the white bar on the wings?

- NARRATOR: ...whether by studying butterflies, or just appreciating them... - MAN: Better angle from over here.

- NARRATOR: ...watching out for these colorful insects is something anyone can do.

- CRAIG: Building that awareness will hopefully make a difference.

- NARRATOR: In return, butterflies just might remind us, life is fragile and amazing, with much to admire in the smallest details.

- CRAIG: They're really awesome animals.

[upbeat music] [wind whooshing] [engine revving] - Martin Dies, Jr.

State Park is certainly a special place.

[gentle music] It's on the cusp of the Big Thicket in deep East Texas.

Lots of biodiversity.

A great place to experience nature.

[gentle music] An easy drive from the metropolitan area.

You could be out here in less than two hours and in your campsite, set up and ready to enjoy a weekend.

[fire crackling] [gentle music] This park is really a great place to bring your family and camp for the weekend.

With more than 200 campsites, it's easy to get sites close enough together to where extended families can all have space.

[cheering] Martin Dies, Jr.

State Park is an easy place to have a good time.

[gentle music] [insects chirping] A great reason to come and visit Martin Dies, Jr.

State Park is because of the abundance of activities available.

You can hike the trails.

You can ride your bike along the roads.

You can fish from the bank.

You could birdwatch.

You could stargaze.

It's a wonderful place to get away from the city and reconnect with nature.

[gentle music] These are pretty popular paddling trails.

A lot of people bring their kayaks and canoes.

- MARK: Off we go!

- CHARLES: We rent kayaks and canoes at the park.

- Have a good time.

Have fun.

This is gonna be a great day.

Two and a half hours will be back here, all right?

- CHARLES: This little trail system is about two miles long, it gives them plenty of an opportunity to get out here and recreate.

[upbeat music] - I've been doing this quite a while.

I just enjoy introducing our world here to people that it never seen that before.

This is such a diverse place.

We have open lake environment here, and then we also like a swamp/slough environment here.

It's more intimate when you get in the back water area, you're close to nature.

[alligator hisses] They come here and they're just in awe.

It is just a wonderful place to visit.

- This is just marvelous.

I am enjoying this so much.

[laughs] [water splashing] It is just so peaceful and tranquil out there.

You can just really just relax and enjoy nature.

And there's so much to look at and see.

It's just beautiful.

[frog croaks] - CHARLES: There's always a lot vegetation, and there's always lots of wildlife.

It's easy just to come out here and enjoy nature in a simple way.

[upbeat music] [birds chirping] [water flowing] [water flowing] [gentle piano music] - CARTER: Honey Creek is one of the great crown jewels of the Texas Hill Country.

- It's one of the most fantastic natural areas in the United States.

♪ ♪ - This amazing spring-fed system that feeds the Guadalupe.

You get down into that canyon with these giant cypress trees.

- The Nature Conservancy worked throughout the 1980s to acquire the property, and then transfer it to Texas Parks and Wildlife.

- CARTER: And the result was, the several thousand acres State Natural Area that's known as Honey Creek.

[upbeat music] But that was done in the '80s.

And while at that time, it was certainly logical to kind of declare victory, as time has gone on and development pressures have ensued, we've focused more on watershed scales of protection.

- JEFF: The Honey Creek system doesn't live in a vacuum.

It's within a spring system that is very vulnerable.

It's really incredible this time of year.

I love how clear aquarium-like it is.

And for decades, things went along swimmingly, until the last few years when development pressure became very intense.

- People are moving here in droves because it's the way it is, but the more that come, the quicker it changes.

Trying to make them understand you've gotta preserve what it was that brought them here in the first place.

- DR.

ANDREW: And what really reactivated this project, was a proposed 2,600-lot subdivision adjacent to the Honey Creek State Natural Area, with the runoff from that going right in to Honey Creek.

- Too much development, too close to the waterway, leads to erosion, degradation in water quality, and quantity.

We've all seen it if we grew up here, that a creek, or a spring that we knew about or loved, it's not there anymore.

The pristine waters and wildlife of Honey Creek could not survive that kind of development.

- We had to find a way to save it.

- FEMALE REPORTER: KHOU 11 morning news starts now.

- MALE REPORTER: Next, a big step toward environmental conservation here in Texas.

A 515-acre expansion near San Antonio.

It'll become part of the Honey Creek State Natural Area located in the Hill Country.

- We know that conservation in this state cannot be done without working with private landowners.

- If the subdivision would've happened, it would've been a pretty good source of income, for my kids and my grandkids.

So, we brought them into the equation, and said, "Hey, what do y'all think?"

Because it was a huge financial ask of them also.

And it was wonderful, because they all sat down and said, "Dad, if it could be a park we could drive by and see the rest of our lives, and our grandkids lives, let's make it a park."

- It was a complete surprise that that was even a possibility.

And early on, I think if it would've, if we'd have known that, we'd have probably approached it right away, up front.

- If landowners don't act, in a state like Texas that's 97% private property, all of those things, the open space, the wildlife, the water quality, that brought people here in the first place, could be lost.

- I said, I'm gonna meet with the board of directors.

I sent her a picture and it was all nine of my grandkids standing on a rock at our swimming pool.

And I said, "Here's my board of directors."

They all, "Yay.

We want it to be a park Papa."

[gentle piano music] - Honey Creek's a perfect example of that, where we had a willing family that wanted to conserve this place.

Landowners committed to seeing their property protected as they pass it down to future generations.

[gentle music] - DR.

ANDREW: One of the most wonderful things about Honey Creek was that it was a poster child for what we were trying to tell people to do.

- The Honey Creek Watershed is about 8,000 acres and with agreements we have with private landowners, more than half of that will be permanently conserved.

This isn't to say that the story is complete.

We are working with landowners to maintain as much natural area and buffer around the Honey Creek Spring, and the Honey Creek State Natural Area as possible.

- That's what a true land steward is.

People who not only talk the talk, but they walk the walk.

[gentle music] [birds chirping] [acoustic guitar music] - NARRATOR: It's a soft opening here at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center.

- COLLEEN SIMPSON: So this boardwalk is the first step in a rebuilding of an entire system.

- BIRDER: Well, Magnificent Frigate Bird.

Occasionally on southeast gulf and west coast.

- BIRDER: That's a big, big bird!

- NARRATOR: Colleen Simpson's pretty proud of this unique birding destination.

- This boardwalk overlooks a freshwater wetland, it's a cattail marsh.

We've got American Alligators, Common Gallinule, Great Blue Heron, Roseate Spoonbill, there's hundreds of species here.

- Oh, look right here, look right here.

Right in front of us.

Oh, you are gorgeous!

Oh, beautiful!

[somber music] - NARRATOR: This is the old boardwalk.

[high winds] And it got hammered.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Port Aransas and tore through the birding center.

[somber music] - NARRATOR: Now, work is underway to rebuild.

- COLLEEN: It's 1,280 acres of tidal flats and salt marsh, that's all protected under the umbrella of the nature preserve.

So eventually we'll have a system of three to five miles of trail and boardwalk throughout the entire preserve system.

Hi there, welcome!

Enjoy the walk!

Yeah, we've only been open for about a month, so it's good timing.

Yeah!

Do you see that little white and black bird, that looks like he's wearing a tuxedo?

It's called a Black-necked Stilt.

- STUDENT: Do you know what that is?

The one with the red beak?

- Ya, so this boardwalk definitely opens a door to a perspective that we don't usually see, so you get to really get a closer look to how the animals interact here.

- CLAUDIA: The alligator, look look, look, look, oh my god!

[alligator bellows] Oh my god, - STUDENT: Is that a mating call?

- COLLEEN: So that's their mating display.

- STUDENT: Eeeeeee!

[alligator bellows] Are you getting this on video?

Wait, is it growling at us?

- That's so cool, right now he's shaking, there's bubbles all around him that looks like the ground's moving.

It's exciting to see that!

- CLAUDIA: Look, look, look, oh my god that's so unreal!

- JILL DICUFFA: Ya know, the alligator growls, or the birds chirp, or they see the baby birds with their mom.

It's unbelievable to see because you hear about those kinds of things happening, but you don't get to see them five feet from your face.

It's really, it's very cool!

- CLAUDIA: Oh he's after something.

- STUDENT: He's going fishing!

- CLAUDIA: Wow!

- COLLEEN: Something that's inspiring is the resiliency of our ecosystems here.

It's all coming back and will return to how things were before the storm.

[gentle music] - NARRATOR: Next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - This is a pretty incredible observation I would say.

- What I really love about Caprock Canyons is it's more rugged, more raw in nature.

- I don't think you can find this kind of environment anywhere else in Texas.

[theme music] - NARRATOR: That's next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife.

[wind blowing] [birds singing] [wind blowing] [birds singing] [wind blowing] [birds singing] [birds singing] [birds singing] [birds singing] [birds singing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] - NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure-- it's what we share.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.