An important aspect of participating in the annual City Nature Challenge is identifying species of greatest conservation need (SGCN).
These initial paragraphs may look like alphabet soup but read on. This blog post is about Texas birds – and local ones – that are surprisingly on the SGCN list. Two of the listed birds have been recently featured in stories I’ve published.
The SGCN is the nation’s database that identifies species that need the most conservation action. The list is part of the State Wildlife Action Plan, (SWAP) implemented to conserve wildlife and habitats before they become too rare or costly to restore.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), in partnership with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, developed a process that allows SGCN from all state plans to be compiled.
This is an important link: https://www1.usgs.gov/csas/swap/ There are three large blocks at this page. The middle block has a map of the United States where you can “Launch SWAP species lists by state.” The species are listed alphabetically by scientific names; they are intermingled, plants, birds, other invertebrates, reptiles, fish, mammals, mollusks, amphibians. The initial page comes up with 25 entries; at the bottom of the page, you can change to where a page will list 50 or 100 species at a time. A TPWD list updated January 31, 2024, lists 1,279 Texas species; it can be found here:
A Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) news release announced an updated SGCN list in 2021, and although the release is three years old, it gives a comprehensive account of the national and state authorities. A link toward the end of the article directs you to where you can download the most current SGCN list at the TPWD website. https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20210520a
Back to where the annual City Nature Challenge helps this SGCN venture: many residents of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy Counties upload observations for the Lower Rio Grande Valley during this spring Bioblitz. This year, on the Sunday of the four-day (Friday to Monday) challenge, I had a meeting in Port Isabel. So not to waste any observation time, before leaving for the meeting, I Googled parks along the north shore of Port Isabel. On my way home after the meeting, I stopped at the Arturo Galvan Coastal Park on 2nd street beyond North Shore Drive.
Little did I know what attention my quick, 20-minute stop at the bayside park would call up. I garnered more than a dozen bird and plant observations during that short interval, including a photo of a Least Tern prancing on the beach. Fast forward to this week, some six weeks after the City Nature Challenge was completed, I received an e-mail from iNaturalist with the subject line: “Birds of Texas Project.” The message was from a fellow Texas Master Naturalist from the Guadalupe chapter, which is in Guadalupe County, just northeast of San Antonio. The master naturalist had been going through observations for Least Terns. He found my observation and noted that it was not in the Birds of Texas Project.
In his e-mail, he explained that one of his volunteering activities is assisting the TPWD Texas Nature Trackers (TNT) in curating species of greatest conservation needs. He also explained that there are numerous projects with the Birds of Texas project name and the one he is concerned with begins with the description, “The purpose of this project is to enhance our understanding of the distribution of birds in Texas.” It is identified by the yellow and black photo icon of a golden-cheeked warbler.
The master naturalist asked me if I would be willing to join the project because TPWD biologists could use my observation. Since an important reason to upload observations to the iNaturalist.org databank is for scientific study, I was certainly willing to include my species in that project. And I did.
This Birds of Texas project is a little different from many of the iNaturalist projects in that observations don’t automatically populate into it, even when you’ve “joined.” Each observation needs to be manually added. And that’s a very simple process.
Here’s how: Once you’ve joined the project, when you upload an observation of an appropriate bird species, on a computer go to the actual observation, open it and about midway down the page, on the right, will be the word, “Projects.” In the box provided, type “Birds of Texas.” After that, it will be as a drop down to select.
There’s a bit more for the initial set up that is also very easy. At your home page, or any page, at the very top, to the right of the iNaturalist logo, go to “Community” drop down and select “Projects.” Now, to the right of the “Search” option, you should see “Manage Your Projects.” Click the dropdown and select “View All.” Find the Birds of Texas Project, with the golden-cheeked warbler picture and click on it. About halfway down the page, on the right, you will see “Your Membership.” Click on it. You will need to select an option.
I chose the top “yes,” because it allows the curators on the team to add an observation to the project. That means if I upload an observation that is a SGCN and don’t realize it is on the list, a project curator who notices that observation can include it for the good of the project. If you select “yes” at the second question, only you will be able to add your observation to the project.
Answering yes to one of those top two questions is, of course, completely your choice.
In this particular project, although all bird species observations may be uploaded, the only ones they look at are the bird species that are on the most recent SGCN list. I was quite surprised to find some of the birds I’ve recently published articles about on that list. I did go back and include all my iNaturalist observations of SGCN birds to the project. By doing so, I hope to do what I can to help scientists know more about the birds on the Texas SGCN list.
Texas Nature Trackers targets are species that TPWD biologists are most interested in documenting. They are currently reviewing a list of 72 birds. The list is below. The names of the eight SGCN species that I have added to the project are in bold in the list.
Three of the listed birds, sanderlings, the yellow-billed cuckoo and red-crowned parrots that I have recently published articles about are at these three links:
Sanderling, Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Red-crowned Parrot. (Photos by Anita Westervelt)
Read through the following list and see if you are surprised to see some of these species on it. If you photograph birds, consider joining the iNaturalist.org Birds of Texas Project described in this blog post.
72 Texas Birds listed as Species of Greatest Conservation Need
Attwater's greater prairie-chicken
Bachman’s Sparrow
Baird’s Sparrow
Bank Swallow
Black Rail
Black Skimmer
Black Tern
Black-capped Vireo
Botteri’s Sparrow
Brewer's Blackbird
Cactus Wren
Chestnut-collared Longspur
Chuck-will’s-Widow
Common Black Hawk
Common Grackle
Common Nighthawk
Eastern Meadowlark
Elf owl
Eskimo curlew
Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl
Field Sparrow
Franklin's gull
Golden-cheeked Warbler
Grasshopper Sparrow
Gray Hawk
Green Heron
Harris' Sparrow
Henslow’s Sparrow
Hudsonian Godwit
King Rail
Lark Bunting
Least Tern
Le Conte’s Sparrow
Lesser Prairie-Chicken
Loggerhead Shrike
Lucifer Hummingbird
Mexican spotted owl
Mottled Duck
Mountain Plover
Northern aplomado falcon
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet
Northern Bobwhite
Piping Plover
Prothonotary Warbler
Pyrrhuloxia
Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Red-crowned Parrot
Reddish Egret
Red-headed Woodpecker
Rose-throated becard
Rufa red knot
Sanderling
Scaled Quail
Seaside Sparrow
Short-eared Owl
Snowy Plover
Sooty tern
Southwestern willow flycatcher
Sprague’s Pipit
Swallow-tailed Kite
Thick-billed Longspur
Tropical Parula
Varied Bunting
Virginia's Warbler
Whooping Crane
Willet
Wilson’s Plover
Wilson's Warbler
Wood Stork
Yellow Rail
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Zone-tailed Hawk
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