At our July 20th meeting, we

unanimously elected the follow-

ing new officers:

President—Kaitlyn Rodriguez

Vice President—Gloria Sutton

Secretary—Cheryl Grayden

Treasurer—Jose Rivera

Congratulations! Let’s all com-

mit to supporting these offic-

ers !

From our New President:

I am excited to take on the role

of president this coming year,

and I look forward to providing

all that I can for our members.

The Texas Master Naturalist

program is what you make

it. Our chapter in particular

has a lot of potential to grow

into something unique.

This year, I hope to add to

its history by fostering our

support to continue making

a difference in the commu-

nity and in the environ-

ment.

If there is one thing I know

for certain, it is that people

pursue what they are pas-

sionate about. I could not

be prouder to be a part of

such a passionate group of

individuals. My promise to

you is to share my passion for

Congratulations to our New Officers!

From our Outgoing President

This is my

final letter

to you as

president.

The last

year was a

crazy, excit-

ing one in which I learned many

new things and made many new

friends. I want to thank you all

for the support you offered me

and your fellow group members.

I couldn’t have asked for a better

group of classmates! I urge you

to continue to support the chap-

ter officers and committee

chairs.

I think this chapter has the po-

tential to be one of the best ones

in the state. That can only hap-

pen if you continue to support

the officers you elect and the

committee chairs they appoint.

Remember, we are all working

for one goal—to advance educa-

tion about the natural wonders

of our beautiful state.

The Advanced Training Com-

mittee is planning lots of fun

classes for you, both in the class-

room and in the field. We have

recently become partners with

Bat Conservation International

and we are looking forward to

adding some classes about bats

to the schedule as well as pursu-

ing some volunteer opportuni-

ties with them. Also, the annual

meeting at the end of October

will provide at least 8 hours of

training classes, so try to attend!

Finally, Mom and I have extend-

ed our lease thru May 9th so she,

at least, will be here throughout

the training cycle. I graduate in

December and will begin the job

search process with the start of

school in August. Where I end

up is in God’s hands.

As Past President, I will contin-

ue to give Kaitlyn all the support

and help that I can. See you in

the field!! — Maire

B a l c o n e s C a n y o n l a n d s a t C o n c o r d i a U n i v e r s i t y T X C h a p t e r S u m m e r , 2 0 1 5

Save the Date!

9/10/15—New TMN Class begins! 10/23-10/25/15—Texas Master Naturalist 16th Annual Meeting at Horse-shoe Bay Resort

Congratulations to our

New Officers!

1

From our Outgoing

President

1

New Committee Heads 2

Native Plant Highlight 2

There’s an App for That 2

Out and About 3

TMN Annual Meeting 3

What’s in My Mailbox? 4

Officers & Committee

Heads

4

Inside this issue:

the program by continuing to

show my support to you, the com-

munity and our environment.

— Kaitlyn

Cheryl Grayden, Gloria Sutton,

Kaitlyn Rodriguez, and Jose Rivera

tents of several bird guides onto

your phone, including photos,

recordings of calls, range maps,

and other information so you

can access it without internet

access. Available for iPhone and

Android for a fee.

Audubon Mobile Field Guide

Apps for North America include

Birds, Mammals, Wildflowers,

Trees, Insects and Spiders, Fish,

Butterflies, and more. Available

for iPhone, Android, iPad, and

others.

Committees can be an important

working force at the heart of any

organization. They help distrib-

ute the workload and give mem-

bers opportunities to participate

in getting important work done.

In addition to electing new exec-

utive officers, our chapter named

new committee heads during our

Committee Night this August.

Here are our standing and ad

hoc committee heads for the new

year. Volunteer to join them!

Standing Committees:

Training—Theresa Rooney

Membership—Theresa

Rooney

Volunteer Service—John

Laisy

Advanced Training—Jessie

Zehr

Program—Gloria Sutton

Newsletter—Karen

McGraw

Outreach—Beth Samuelson

Host—Bill Cryer

Student Welfare—Dr.

Whitehead

Youth Programs-Michael

The Historian committee

head is currently an open

position.

Ad Hoc Committees:

Nominating—Maire Cox

categories and 5 searchable

categories for scat, with photos

of animals featured.

Project Noah is an app to ex-

plore and document wildlife and

a platform to harness the power

of citizen scientists. Record and

manage your spottings, partici-

pate in missions, and earn

patches for your efforts. Availa-

ble on the App Store and can be

downloaded for Android.

iBird is the leading app for iden-

tifying birds. It loads the con-

The Merlin Bird ID App from

the Cornell Lab gives you free,

instant bird ID for birds in your

area at the time you are seeking

to identify them. The Bird ID

Wizard guides you through 5

questions before offering identi-

fication help. Download the

free app from the App Store or

Google play.

MyNature Animal Tracks is a

comprehensive field guide to

animal track identification using

smartphone technology. It is a

database with 7 searchable track

There’s an App for That: Nature Apps

mainstay in Hill Country gar-

dens.

While today we prize it as a

plant in our landscapes, native

peoples made good use of most

parts of this plant. They used

the fibers from sotol leaves to

make mats, many different

types of baskets, and twine. The

straight, woody flower stalk was

used as a lightweight wood, and

we have evidence that historic

people ate the seeds.

Look for it on hikes, but beware

the ‘teeth’ on the spines!

Texas sotol is a spiny evergreen

perennial that is often mistaken

for a cactus. It is commonly

seen growing on rocky, well-

drained areas and tends to

clump in dense stands.

The sotol is a summer bloomer.

A 9 to 15-foot flower stalk bear-

ing a 2-3 foot spike of yellowish

flowers grows from evenly-

spaced spines and a wide

cupped base. Even though its

native habitat includes flat de-

sert areas, prairies, meadows,

and brush, it has become a

Native Plant Highlight: Texas Sotol

New Committee Heads

Canyonlands Chronicle Volume 1, Issue 3

“Sotol grows in flat

dessert areas, prairies,

meadows, and brush.”

Page 2

Merlin BirdID

Sotol (Dasylirion texanum),

Ladybird Wildflower Center

opportunities to meet your Ad-

vanced Training requirements.

Some of the training topics in-

clude:

Project WILD Facilitators

Recruitment and Retention

of Volunteer Members

TMN VMS Training for the

End User

A Natural History of Milk-

weeds

Bird Tales for the Elderly

Chapter Outreach

Good Water Chapter’s

Youth Education Commit-

tee

You Can Help with Pollina-

tor Recovery

Nightengale Archeological

Center

..And many more!

In March/April 2015, I went

through training and began to

volunteer as a Texas Master

Naturalist for the Colorado Riv-

er Watch Network. LCRA

administers this volunteer pro-

gram, whose mission is:

“The Colorado River Watch

Network (CRWN) supports

community-based environmen-

tal stewardship by providing

volunteers with the infor-

mation, resources, and training

necessary to monitor and pro-

tect the waterways of the lower

Colorado River watershed.”

CRWN is the first and largest

regional volunteer network of

water quality monitors in Tex-

as. Trained volunteers submit

water quality data that is re-

viewed and analyzed by CRWN

staff, creating an early warning

system that alerts LCRA to po-

tential water quality

threats. Although CRWN only

requires a two-year commit-

ment to monitoring, many vol-

unteers have been participating

for 5 to 10 years.

Water sampling and testing

takes about 90 minutes (not

counting travel time), once a

month. Sampling is performed

at sites throughout the lower

Colorado River watershed, from

above Lake Buchanan down to

Matagorda Bay. Tests are per-

formed and data submitted to

LCRA (via an electronic form)

for dissolved oxygen, pH, con-

ductivity, and nitrate nitro-

gen. Observations and data are

recorded and submitted for air

temperature, water tempera-

ture, weather conditions, and

water conditions. I will soon begin recording observations for evi-

dence of zebra mussels and for depth transparency.

I work for LCRA in power generation engineering, so my CRWN water

sampling work is not part of my job. My sample station is on Lake

LBJ near one of LCRA’s power plants where I commonly work, so I

can take samples and perform the tests on my lunch break. The lake

water quality information I collect is important to the power plant’s

environmental manager, so I provide a copy of the data separately to

her when I upload it to the CRWN website.

The training to become a

CRWN water quality

monitor is very thorough

and well-organized.

I received the training, a

reference manual, a loan-

er sample kit, and a sup-

ply of test chemicals from

Jacob Apodaca, the LCRA

CRWN coordinator. Ja-

cob, who is very apprecia-

tive of TMN volunteer

monitors, spent several

hours training me (including follow-up training) and answering my

questions.

If you’re interested in water resources and the supply of good quality

water to the people (and environment) of Central Texas, becoming a

CRWN water quality monitor is a great way to get involved! If you’re

willing to learn and commit (and you didn’t fail high school chemis-

try!), then you’re qualified.

See me or click here for more information. Several members of our

chapter have gone through the training and are actively monitoring

for LCRA’s CRWN in the Colorado River watershed. I’ve got the

“inside track” with Jacob to get you signed up if you’re interested!

—John Laisy

The Texas Master Naturalist

16th Annual Meeting is October

23-25th at the Horseshoe

Bay Resort just outside of

Marble Falls, TX. For infor-

mation about the event, go to

the official Meeting Website.

Please consider attending this

important event, where you can

mingle with and learn from

other Texas Master Naturalist

volunteers from around the

state. There will also be ample

educational seminars and

Texas Master Naturalist 16th Annual Meeting

Out and About — Colorado River Watch Network

Canyonlands Chronicle Volume 1, Issue 3

Page 3

Lake LBJ, near the Resort

This summer, my humble mail-

box became the nesting place of

two Carolina wrens. What began

as a perplexing clump of small

branches and leaves quickly

became home to four eggs. I

peppered my family's email

inboxes with reports and up-

dates. My sister responded with

a link to the website,

"NestWatch.org" and told me

the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

might be a more appreciative

recipient of my regular reports.

NestWatch is a nationwide

monitoring program designed to

track status and trends in the

reproductive biology of birds.

The website allows individuals

all over North America to ob-

serve and report nesting data

that is able to be used for re-

search and is shared openly

through the website. By partici-

pating in a brief but important

instructional component, a user

can obtain certified NestWatch

status and begin contributing

data.

I added a new nest named in

honor of Carol, our star mailbox

bird, and began faithfully add-

ing data on a near-daily basis.

The data fields included the

status of the nest, the presence

of adult birds, the number of

eggs, hatchlings, fledglings, and

even the number of cowbird

eggs or fledglings (if they were

present).

Our four eggs, three hatchlings,

and three fledglings all made it

into the nest attempt data and

on July 28th our last fledgling

flew the coop! Aside from con-

tributing my own data, I could

also explore all the other nests

in Austin and beyond, learn

more about nesting habits of

various species, view other par-

ticipant photos, and engage in a

virtual community of like-

minded passionate stewards

and observers of wildlife.

The commitment was minimal

and the collective impact has

huge potential! — Jessie Zehr

Chapter Officers & Committee Heads

What’s in my Mailbox? (Reports from a Citizen Scientist)

Canyonlands Chronicle Volume 1, Issue 3

“NestWatch is a

nationwide monitoring

program designed to

track status and trends in

the reproductive biology

of birds.”

Page 4

Committee heads:

Training & Membership: Theresa Rooney

Volunteer Service: John Laisy

Advanced Training: Jessie Zehr

Program: Gloria Sutton

Newsletter: Karen McGraw

Outreach: Beth Samuelson

Historian: OPEN

Host: Bill Cryer

Student Welfare: Sam Whitehead

Nominating: Maire Cox

Officers:

Current officers for the Balcones

Canyonlands at Concordia University

TX Chapter are:

Kaitlyn Rodriguez, President

Gloria Sutton, VP

Cheryl Grayden, Secretary

Jose Rivera, Treasurer

Thank you to Maire, Kaitlyn, Theresa, and

Jose for their service as officers last year!

Our mascot: Salam ander

Newsletter masthead: Jessie Zehr

A big “thank you” to our

officers and committee

heads!

Kevin Shea, photogra-pher, from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology web-site

Chapter members are encouraged to contribute articles and photos to the newsletter. Let us showcase

your recent activity, favorite native plant, tree, bird or book! Most stories are 125-150 words in length.