Our new, monthly Mess Makers classes for kids ages 3 to 7 and our monthly Interactive Nature Table program were featured in this morning’s Houston Chonicle. Check out the article by Chron.com Correspondent Allison Bagley here and learn more about these programs by following these links:
Mess Makers – 1st Mondays from 10:30 – 11:45 am
Interactive Nature Table – 2nd Sundays from 1 – 3 pm
As you head into the New Year, pursue your passion with us!
Pick one…
Nature Play • Mindfulness • Gardening • Nature Art • Science and Nature Classes • Birding • Camping • Nature Hikes • Volunteer Service
These meaningful pursuits would not be possible without the support of our local community and donors like you! With your generous donation, you will help others pursue a passion for nature that will influence our city for years to come.
Wishing you health, happiness, and nature pursuits in 2020!
Sincerely,
Bethany Foshée
Executive Director
Does your company match donations? If so, please email us at mail@naturediscoverycenter.org so we can help facilitate the match.
Or Pay via PayPal
Over the next month or so, staff at the Nature Discovery Center will be making mission driven changes to our Discovery Rooms that will take the rooms back to the Center’s roots as a place of exploration and discovery. Visitors will notice a shift in focus from indoor nature play to hands-on learning at activity and observation stations designed to ignite curiosity, understanding, and respect for nature. While we still want to encourage nature based imaginative exploration upstairs, we want to move away from indoor play for play’s sake and hopefully discourage the misuse of specimens and Discovery Room tools that have too often been incorporated into the play-based experience our visitors have had in recent years.
We are excited by these changes, and we can’t wait to see our visitors make new discoveries as they interact with natural objects, explore with kid friendly tools of the trade, “research” areas of interest in resource books, create simple nature crafts, and engage with volunteers and naturalists at themed demo and activity tables. We know there will be a period of adjustment as our visitors acclimate to our new Discovery Room philosophy, but we also know that the changes will be rewarding and worth it! Connecting kids with nature and igniting their curiosity through hands-on discovery is our passion!
What can you expect:
By Eric Duran, Staff Naturalist
On Tuesday, May 7, 2019 during a light rain, I went out flipping logs to add a couple of species to the previous day’s bio-blitz, and found quite a surprise… a Brahminy Blindsnake (Indotyphlops brahminensis).
These non-native (introduced) snakes are not only extremely rare in Texas, but are only recently known from a few records in Harris County. It was an exciting find! Also known as the “Flowerpot snake,” it is believed that they spread around the tropical and semi-tropical areas of the world through in the loose soil of flowerpots. They are originally from somewhere around the coastal areas of East Africa and South and SE Asia, along the Indian Ocean.
Every wild specimen that has ever been collected or observed has been found to be female. They seem to reproduce asexually through a process called parthenogenesis, in which they lay eggs (or give birth, we’re not actually sure) to identical copies of the mother, each baby a clone of a clone. They live in leaf litter, loose soil, and under rocks and logs. Their diet consists mainly of ants, ant eggs and larvae, and termites.
Blindsnakes are very thin and small, and have barely functioning eyes housed under translucent or even opaque eye scales (eyes are not generally important, if you spend most of your time under cover or underground). They have a depressed lower jaw that helps it keep dirt out of its mouth while it’s burrowing. As with other species of burrowing snake, they do not have wide belly scales for moving across the ground efficiently.
Upon finding this snake for the first time at the Nature Center, we had to make sure that it wasn’t one of the native species. In Texas, we have 3 native species of blindsnake, the Texas blindsnake being the closest native species to Harris County (occurring here only sporadically). Our closest native blind snake can be pinkish-brown to dark brown, and the Brahminy can be dark black to dark brown… so we couldn’t just use coloration to determine the species of our little friend. A couple of us got to do some real herpetology, and dig into the Texas snake books. The Brahminy has up to 20 rows of mid-dorsal scales, while the native species has only up to 14. Also, the vent (back opening) and the tail tip are whitish on the Brahminy. A little macro-photography helped us to zoom in on these characteristics, and determine confidently that we had what we thought we had.
This was an exiting find for the naturalists on staff, and added another species to our park snake list; along with Rough Earth Snake, Gulf Coast Ribbon Snake, Eastern Hognose Snake, Texas Ratsnake, Diamondback Watersnake, Broad-banded Watersnake, and Yellowbelly Watersnake (which we only recently found living near the Cypress Pond at the South end of the park).
Let us know if you photograph any snakes in our park, or if you have seen any cool snakes in your own yard!
This past April 13th, during our Spring Fling Festival, an unwelcome discovery was made. One of our volunteers was dip-netting in the pond with kids, as part of a pond study, and discovered a live Apple Snail in the Cypress Pond (along with a few bright pink egg masses).
Apple Snails are a non-native invasive species of freshwater snail from South America. They are very common in the pet/aquarium trade as a display species. When some people want to break down their aquaria, they dump unwanted pets into local water bodies, like bayous, creeks, lakes, and ponds. Because of this, Apple Snails have become a part of aquatic eco-systems across the South, especially in Houston and Florida. They can be rather harmful to eco-systems where they have been introduced, eating up much of the native water plants.
We immediately sprung into action, and have been attempting to physically remove them from the Cypress Pond, as well as hunting down their egg masses and destroying them. Apple Snails lay their eggs in clusters above the water line, on emergent vegetation, so they are fairly easy to find (also they are a very bright pink). So far, we have removed 3 live snails from the pond, and destroyed around 12 egg masses. The snails now live comfortably in a volunteer’s aquarium.
We continue to check back at the pond every day. Thankfully, it’s a small pond, and easy to manage. In other larger eco-systems where they are released, they are very difficult to manage for. We’ll keep you updated on our efforts to remove this invasive species from our park.
Eric Duran
Staff Naturalist
We’re pleased to announce a new “Mindfulness in Nature” class series being offered by Heather Sullivan at the Nature Discovery Center this spring. Practicing mindfulness in nature allows you to focus your awareness on the present moment, your thoughts and feelings, and your environment, and can help you reduce the stress that comes from leading a hectic life.
Heather, a trained Mindfulness Educator, is passionate about teaching kids and adults the tools to cope with stress and develop a more mindful approach to life in order to nurture a positive state of mind. She currently teaches a mindfulness class at Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary and is working with schools in Spring Branch ISD to teach mindfulness to teachers.
Heather’s Mindfulness in Nature series here in Russ Pitman Park will start on Friday, April 26 and will run for 4 weeks as a pilot program. Classes will start at 12:30 pm and will last for about an hour. You are welcome to sign up for individual dates or for the whole series.
Duran, E. (3/2019) Look! Up in the sky! Our spring bird migration has begun. Essentials, p. 15
Wired to Nature is the Nature Discovery Center’s regular column in Essentials, a monthly magazine published by InstantNewsNetwork that covers the Bellaire and West University communities. Essentials may be read online at https://current.essentialsmagazines.com/
We’re super excited to announce a new addition to our menagerie of live animals at the Center, a super adorable male Lesser Hedgehog Tenrec. Our little guy doesn’t have a name yet and we are open to suggestions! You can leave a comment here or look out for a Facebook Live video later this week and add your name ideas to the comments then. Note that he isn’t quite ready for visitors, but we’ll be sure to tell you when he is! 🙂
Lesser Hedgehog Tenrec (Echinops telfairi)
Tenrecs are found on the island of Madagascar. Though they look and act very much like hedgehogs, they are actually not closely related to them. They are nocturnal, wandering the night in search of insects, worms, and other small invertebrates. If bothered, they will roll into a ball, exposing only their pointy spines. Tenrecs are good climbers, and will make their dens in tree cavities, as well as in and under logs. They mark their territories and communicate by scent marking objects.
Many thanks to Charity Tutt (https://www.facebook.com/charity.tutt) for placing this sweet rescue animal with us!
NDC staff are pleased to welcome a new team member to the Center. Ranger has joined us to help with the day to day management of Russ Pitman Park, our nature park and outdoor classroom, as Park Steward Apprentice. Ranger will be working closely in this role with Mary Ann Beauchemin, our Park Steward and Senior Naturalist. In addition to her work with park maintenance, Ranger will also draw on her experience in environmental education to assist with programs at the Center from time to time. In fact, Ranger just taught our Wild Weather Spring Break Camp last Friday.
Her whole life, Ranger hoped to work at a nature center. She grew up on the outskirts of Kalamazoo, Michigan, next door to corn fields and sheep pasture, making frequent trips to the local nature center. Ranger studied biology (BA) and entomology (MS) as well as animal behavior (PhD work) and Library and Information Science (MLIS), so as a naturalist she is always ready to research and learn more about plants and animals. She worked as the birthday party naturalist and camp teacher at the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary for six years and has many more years of experience teaching, both in the classroom and in outdoor settings. She is excited to continue her study of native plants and to add to her knowledge of Houston insects and other fauna. Ranger has a fondness for wasps and all creatures buzzy and slithery. She enjoys running, walking her dogs, gardening, reading, and playing board games.
Please join us in welcoming Ranger to the Center!
Wildlife Wednesday: Screech Owls – Predators in Your Backyard
Wh
en we lead people through the park at night, the star of the show is usually the diminutive and active Eastern Screech Owl. Many visitors are enraptured, and tell us that it’s the first time they’ve seen an owl in the wild. In fact, most people don’t even know that we had owls here in Bellaire… that they had owls right in their own backyards.
I felt the same way, when I was starting my career as a naturalist. I didn’t realize that owls were living their lives, nesting, hunting, and raising their young right in the midst of where I was living and working. In fact, Screech Owls are very common urban/suburban owls, making a living wherever trees and small prey are available.
The Eastern Screech Owl is the smallest owl species you’ll see in the Houston area, and the most common. As you’d expect with owls, they’re nocturnal and predatory. These owls feed on a wide variety of small prey; such as lizards, snakes, small birds, and large insects (including large flying cockroaches). Much of this small prey is surprisingly abundant in urban areas, and so are Screech Owls.
They nest in tree cavities; usually abandoned woodpecker nests or holes formed from broken branches. Screech owls also take well to nest boxes, placed in trees by helpful humans. They’re territorial birds, establishing a zone around their nests from which they’ll attempt to exclude other screech owls. The mothers stay in the nest during the day, while the father finds a secluded roost in a tree nearby. At night, both parents hunt for prey to feed the chicks. In some parts of the screech owl’s range, the parents may add a live blind snake to the nest, to help control ants and other small insects.
Here in our 4 acre park, we usually get 3 breeding pairs. They begin nesting as early as January, and may care of their young as late as the Summer, though the young usually fledge from the nest around May.
We more often hear Screech Owls, than we see them. Though we may think of owls hooting, many species of owl don’t hoot at all. Screech Owls make long soft trills, ghostly whinnies, and piercing screeches. Once I learned their calls, I realized that I had heard them calling from the trees near my apartment for years. And that’s the way it is with a lot of urban wildlife… We may encounter them in one way or another all the time, but may be totally unaware of sharing our environment with them.
If you want to encounter screech owls, you can go out at night in your neighborhood and listen for them. Perhaps you’ll even see one sitting on a tree branch, looking for prey. Have a look at these YouTube Videos, with common Eastern Screech Owl calls:
You can also join us here at the Nature Discovery Center for a guided night hike, looking for owls and other nocturnal animals in the park: a Family Night Hike on May 4th and an Adult Night Hike on May 19th.
For more info about Screech Owls or our programs and hikes, give us a call at 713-667-6550.
Eric Duran
Staff Naturalist
Nature Discovery Center
Photographs by Don Verser and Eric Duran
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