- ANNOUNCER: 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 is provided by Toyota.

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

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks and Wildlife... - I think that the app is a great way to engage with nature.

It's also a way to engage with other people.

Are you Jayda?

Hi, Jayda.

Sam.

- Possum Kingdom offers great fishing, plenty of camping, kayaking, here around the park.

- If it weighs a certain amount, we'll put a radio transmitter on the back, and that will help us observe them as well.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[net whooshes] [net whooshes] - My name is Sam Kieschnick.

Um, as a little kiddo, they called me Sam the Bug Man.

Look at that, isn't that a beautiful spider?

Just beautiful.

I am an urban wildlife biologist, so I work with people.

I work with the people that interact with nature.

We've got a bunch of them, a bunch of different species here.

This one's a really interesting one.

Look at this.

- Oh!

- Yeah, this is one that you gotta get a picture of.

How's your camera skills with your cell phone?

[camera clicks] Sweet, sweet.

- A little bit blurry.

- Sweet, but that's all right.

This is an interesting one.

Whoa, that's actually a really cool catch.

Look at that, the black saddlebags.

[camera clicks] Gonna be perfect in your collection.

I am bonkers about this tool.

I'm a bonkers about iNaturalist.

For me, I get so much personal enjoyment out of it.

I've been using it every time I go outside.

I have over 100,000 observations.

I've been using this tool for a little while.

I've identified about 600,000 observations for other folks around the world.

So I just have so much fun using this tool daily.

It's a database.

It's a social network.

It's kind of a way of life.

I'll see an organism, I'll pop out my phone, I'll get out my camera.

I'll take a picture of that organism, whatever it might be.

And then I'll click on the what did I see?

View suggestions.

And this part is just mind blowing to me.

It compares it to millions of other pictures.

And it gives me a suggestion of the common name, prairie tea, or croton monanthogynus.

I'm gonna select it.

I'll save it and now I'll upload it.

And this is what happens.

Look at science.

Science is happening right now.

[bird chirping] And the beauty of this tool is when I post it, it allows other people to see that picture, see that data point, and they can help me with the identification.

That's one of my favorite things.

I will be at home, you know, sitting in bed in my onesie, looking at the different pictures of bugs from Abilene to Albuquerque, from New Mexico to New Zealand.

All over the world, I will be looking at the various engagements that people are having with nature.

And I think that this one is a dusky grasshopper, encoptolophus costalis.

I don't really know how to say that word, but it's kind of fun to try.

Do you wanna go look for bugs?

There are so many different things all around us.

And once we learn their names, it changes the relationship.

[leaves crunching] And there's the fungus robergea albicedrae, is the name of this.

A fungus that's found just on ash juniper.

Isn't that cool?

[camera clicks] I'll take a picture of it.

Yes, snow on the prairie.

Isn't that big.

Isn't that a whopper?

And this is bombus pensylvanicus, or the American bumblebee.

Once we start seeing nature, we find that it's abundant.

It's all around, all over the place.

I'm flipping over some of these, oh-ho.

There's so many opportunities all around us to be engaged with nature.

[camera clicks] So by using this tool, I learn the names of these critters and I start to see them all over the place.

And I learn my neighbors, my natural neighbors.

So by using the app, it's a teaching tool and it's a learning tool as well.

[playful music] So do you know the tarantula killers?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, exactly.

This is one of the spider wasps.

So it's in that same group Pompilidae.

- Way to go.

Way to, good call.

Sarah, perfect, perfect.

Sarah, that's awesome.

I think that the app is a great way to engage with nature.

It's also a way to engage with other people, other naturalists.

Are you Jayda?

Hi, Jayda.

Sam.

- Hi.

- Nice to meet you, nice to meet you.

On iNaturalist got your thousandth not long ago.

That's great.

And I think it's just that repetition, like it's just the repetition works, repetition works, repetition works.

- Yeah so, I'm in Insight Biology right now.

- SAM: But there are millions of users, millions of users around the planet that are using this tool to engage with nature.

So good.

So the best way that I hold these guys- - JAYDA: Is by the upper wing.

- Yeah, so I'll get just my two little fingers like this.

- Like that?

Like that, like that.

- Oh, nice.

- There you go.

There you go.

You got it.

Look at that, Jayda.

You're a rockstar.

You're a rockstar.

Without even trying, you're a rockstar.

But look at this, the nose of it.

I mean, it's just incredible.

Right there.

There's some concern that technology will keep us away from nature.

It distracts us from nature.

I don't know if the next generation of naturalists will get paper cuts on field guides like we may have.

I think they're gonna be using a tool like this.

So this tool that I use with my phone, rather than being fearful of this device, I use this as a hook.

This can be a hook to get people outside, engaged with nature.

We're using this tool to do that.

[gentle music] [fish splashes] ♪ ♪ - Possum Kingdom State Park is about an hour and a half west of Fort Worth, snuggled in between Graham, Breckenridge and Graford.

[gentle music] - The visitors come to Possum Kingdom because of the lake itself.

You know, it offers great fishing... plenty of space for camping... ski and tube or boat, or kayaking and canoes are very popular here around the park.

- KAYAKER 1: You guys, I'm so excited to go kayaking.

I've always wanted to go.

- KAYAKER 2: Oh, there's a fish jump.

[water ripples] - Such a nice day on the lake.

Not too hot.

- KAYAKER 1: I'm so excited about s'mores.

I feel like I haven't had a s'more in a while.

♪ Life is quite a dream.

♪ [kayakers laughing] [upbeat music] - Well, when you have cliffs at over 92 feet tall, Hells Gate is pretty unique for an area that's so close to the metroplex.

If you do wanna fish Hells Gate, or around it, come early in the morning at dawn.

- Wow, they're jumping out here in the middle.

- KEVIN: Or in the evening, when the striped bass are running.

And it's a very good opportunity to catch striped bass, the sand bass, large mouth bass follow behind it.

So we have all the major basses and catfish.

[gentle music] [crickets chirp] - Looked around the lake here, and said, "I think I like that scene."

[chuckles] Even though it's not the lake, I like the wildflowers, 'cause these lemon horse mints are so prolific.

Had breast cancer in 2001, and survived that.

And, I thought, "Well, if I'm ever gonna do art, I guess I better get busy and do it."

Most of the time, some kind of natural feature at a state park.

I guess that's why it ends up being a, you know, some waterfall or creek or something like that.

[gentle music] [crickets chirp] [bird chirps] [gentle music] - It's peaceful.

It's a nice time to like sit down and just think for a little bit.

Some country fried catfish is a good reward.

[gentle music] - WOMAN: [gasps] Get it, get it.

Okay, just.

- Look, oh!

You got one.

- Woo!

- He's just a little guy.

- You got a catfish.

[boy sighs] - Channel catfish I wanna say.

- I love you.

Thank you.

- Is that your first fish?

- Yes.

- That's your first fish!

[gentle music] - CATHY: Whether you're just a little kid splashing around in the water, fishing for any age, just lounging.

It's a great place to cool off.

[gentle music] - TRAVIS: I would like to think that when people leave here that they had learned something about the park itself, or they just had some good life experiences here on the lake just spending time with family.

[gentle music] [wind blowing] [calming music] - You know, I never wear 'em anymore.

- JULIA: You never wear sunglasses?

- ROXIE: Sitting on this porch is my favorite place in the world.

I can just sit there and look forever and be happy as a lark.

There aren't very many parts of the world that are like this.

- JULIA: Yes.

Well, I got- - It's so beautiful this morning.

My grandfather was the one that came to Texas from Vermont and he was 18 years old and he saw this land and just thought it was wonderful.

And then of course he built the Gage Hotel in Marathon.

He built that in order to have a place to stay.

He never wanted to leave.

He was just so great.

- I know.

Well, that was one place where we used to picnic.

- Brief history is kind of a tough one 'cause it's been, you know, since 1883.

So great-grandfather Gage came from Vermont and had a lot of cattle at one time.

Three quarters of a million acres.

- Yeah, look, he loved that hat.

- ELLIOTT: It's kind of been our job to keep it together.

- GREG: No, I'm excited about this year.

It's been, I don't know, four years since we had enough moisture during the fall and winter to allow us to have some of these green plants start emerging again.

- ELLIOTT: As far as our conservation projects right now, we are doing major brush control, mainly focusing on cedar and black brush.

- Because there's a lot of brush out there in places and we just want, we want our land to be as productive as it can be.

We'd rather nurture the grasses and the good plants and do whatever we can to keep the land open and productive and beautiful.

- ELLIOTT: When my great-grandfather came here, it was all grass.

There was no brush.

- We've revamped over 200 miles of the water line.

It's probably as good a water system as there is on any of these ranches in West Texas.

- It's really, it's nothing short of remarkable what they've done out here.

- The first time I went out to the Catto-Gage was in 1988 and my impression of the ranch was it was so expansive and so incredibly unique and that impression has stuck with me.

I get on ranches every week, every month of the year, and that place is still the most special ranch that I've ever been on.

- ROXIE: Imagine finding these in West Texas.

- JULIA: Smells like horses.

- Like what?

- Like horses.

- That doesn't sound very fragrant.

- If you look at the species richness, the species diversity of what you have here, it would really be nothing short of a Rembrandt or Picasso times 10.

That's how special and how unique this place is.

It's an ecological wonderland.

- You know, there's only so much dirt that is on this earth and we are lucky enough to be stewards of this.

I mean, I feel privileged really.

I get kind of emotional sometimes but... no, I mean, I'm privileged to be a steward.

- Roxie's love for the land, it's pretty incredible.

She's an all-around rancher, private property advocate.

She's all in and always has been.

- She's really taught us how to enjoy and respect this land.

- ROXIE: What's so great is everybody in the family really cares about keeping this up and keeping the heritage going and keeping this ranch together because it's not easy.

I know, just see forever and ever.

- NANCY: I'm very grateful and blessed that I'm part of this heritage.

It makes you want to make sure it's here for generations to come.

- We're determined we're gonna keep this land in the family.

- They celebrated their 140th anniversary of the ranch recently.

The continued legacy of conservation, the commitment to the land, commitment to the communities, and commitment to the natural resources, is really a tribute to I think the forefather of Alfred S. Gage.

- ELLIOTT: A.S. Gage would be very proud.

- JULIA: And just proud that it's remained in the family and that it hasn't been broken up.

- GREG: And as long as we have these private land stewards like Roxie and her family and others like that, I think that tomorrow's generation will have a fighting chance to be able to enjoy those things.

- ROXIE: I know our children just love it so they'll do everything they can to keep it going.

- NARRATOR: Wish you could spend more time with nature?

Well, every month you can have the great outdoors delivered to you.

Since 1942, Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine has been the outdoor magazine of Texas.

Every issue is packed with outstanding photography and writing about the wild things and wild places of this great state.

And now Texas' best outdoor ma gazine is available as an app, it's just that easy.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, your connection to the great outdoors.

- Three, two, one, go.

Just let that hand go.

Yep, you're okay, you're okay.

- I'm okay.

[green jay squawking] - And there he goes.

- WOMAN: He gave you a little goodbye kiss.

- Oooohhhh!

- You did it.

- Thank you Tony!

What an awesome experience!

- Yeah, of course.

- What an awesome experience!

- NARRATOR: Alicia Cavazos has just released a green jay back into the wild.

Just 20 minutes earlier, this bird was captured in her backyard as part of new study taking place in South Texas.

[green jay squawking] - Now that's good.

Means he's feisty, means he's alert.

That's what we want to see.

We're looking at the home range of green jays in urban areas to determine if they're kind of staying in certain backyards, or if they're moving around.

We just don't know a lot about what they're doing in urban areas.

- NARRATOR: The green jay occurs from South America, north to Texas.

In North and Central America, the bird's range extends from Honduras north through Mexico, and into the brushlands of South Texas.

- STUDENT: Look, look, look.

There's like eight of them.

- We don't know a lot about green jays, first of all, so it's important to know what they're doing, if we want to be able to manage for them, and we want to manage for them because we have a lot of birdwatchers that come into the Valley and one of the species that they really want to see are green jays.

- FEMALE STUDENT: Oh yeah, it looks hungry.

- MALE STUDENT: It's just cool.

A lot of them are camouflaged, or blending in, but that one really pops out.

- TONY: The Rio Grande Valley is, I think, the third fastest growing urban area in the country.

It's expanding at a rapid rate.

A lot of urbanization, a lot of habitat change is going on, and so these birds have been able to adapt to a certain extent.

- NARRATOR: In order to understand how green jays are adapting to the rapidly changing environment of The Valley, Tony plans to trap, tag and track up to 10 birds a year.

- DONNA: Well, Tony brought this cage to me about a week and a half ago and had me set it up here under the shade.

- NARRATOR: Donna McCowan's yard in Harlingen is a paradise for birds of all kinds.

- With the cage door open, we were putting corn and peanuts in it, so the birds would get used to it and just assume it's supposed to be there and they had no problem with getting in and out of it.

This morning, we're going close the top of it and watch and wait for the birds to show up.

- Usually, what I find is it takes one bird to be in the trap, and then once that happens all the other birds are like, oh I can just go right in.

- Ah, okay.

There's one.

He's going, "Wait a minute, this is how I got in before."

[laughs] - TONY: We're setting the traps up in areas where we know that green jays occur.

Okay, those peanuts should be pretty irresistible.

So, now we're waiting around for them to figure out, "Okay, this is where the food is and that's how I get to it," and then they should just walk into the trap to get the food.

Almost.

- DONNA: That's where I went a while ago on-- - TONY: Other side.

They are a jay, so they are a smart, intelligent bird.

And inquisitive.

You watch them and they're jumping around, they're looking at different things, they're investigating stuff and they're fun to watch.

- DONNA: Says, "No, not yet."

- TONY: We've got doves, we've got grackles.

We've had a rabbit going in.

So far today, we haven't had a ton of luck.

But, we're hopeful.

Hey Alicia, we're going to head over to your place now okay, so get ready, we're coming.

- NARRATOR: After an hour of waiting without much success, Tony decides it's time to check on another trap he has set up about 15 miles down the road in San Benito.

- The green jays come to my yard all the time, so I offered my house to Parks and Wildlife so they can do this study.

And I'm just so excited, because I love the green jays, as you can see.

I'm wearing my lucky green jay shirt.

[laughs] - TONY: We had some green jays coming in, investigating it, but they didn't go in yet.

A couple of minutes ago, Donna McCowan, whose house we were at earlier, just let me know that she did get a green jay in her trap.

- I finally caught the green jay.

[tires screech] - So, we're going to head over there now and process that bird.

[light, fun music] This is typical urban ecology.

You're bopping between places pretty frequently trying to get to the animals you need to get to as fast as possible.

Alright, so, we got the bird in the trap.

It went in.

And we're just going to reach through the top and grab it.

There you go.

Alright.

So there's our bird.

We'll put a color band on the bird and we'll put a silver band on the bird.

If we see the bird running around, we can at least look at the leg and say, "Okay, it has a color band on it and I know what individual bird that is."

This is on the left leg.

We'll take a wing measurement.

116.

- 116 for wing cord?

- Yeah.

- TONY: A tail measurement, 132.

- SARA: 132.

- If it weighs a certain amount.

That's, 91.

We'll put a radio transmitter on the back, and that will help us observe them as well.

So we're going to put it right about there.

The radio's going to fall off before the radio dies, and that's good.

We get our data that we need, the transmitter falls off, and the bird goes about its life as normal.

So Donna, the way you are going to release it, is you are going to put two fingers over the head like this.

I think initially it thought, "Oh no, this is it, this is how I get eaten."

And, you know, after it doesn't get eaten right away, it probably is just thinking, "How do I escape?"

And we're going to let him go pretty much into this tree right here.

- Okay.

- And I'm sure they'll give you a countdown, oh!

- I'm sorry.

He was ready to go.

I'm sorry.

- He's right here.

He's picking at his bands.

Those are new things so he's trying to figure out what they are, are they going to stay there or do I get rid of them?

[green jay squawking] Got to go back to Alicia's house, she got a bird as we were on our way here, so now we're going to go there and transmitter that bird.

[light, fun music] They are adaptable.

That's one of the reasons why we find them in urban areas, but we don't really know what they are doing to be able to adapt.

Is it their diet?

Are they able to adapt to different kinds of plants that they normally wouldn't use?

The hope of this project, the goal, is to come up with some habitat recommendations that we can go to landowners and say "Listen, green jays are in the area, "we all like green jays.

"They're colorful birds, they're cool birds.

"All you need to do is X, Y and Z and you'll get green jays in your yard."

And that is the ultimate goal, to increase habitat for green jays, because in doing so, we'll also help every other bird species we have in The Valley out.

And that's always a good thing.

[green jay squawking] And there he goes.

[light, fun music] You did it.

- ALICIA: Thank you Tony!

[green jay calling] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] [birds and insects chirping] This 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 is provided by Toyota.

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

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.