Category: Chapter Meetings

Chapter Meetings

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June 9 Chapter Meeting (in-person & virtual),”Gardening for Bats” with Erin Cord

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Join NPSOT-Williamson County on Thursday, June 9, 2022, when our featured topic will be Gardening for Bats with Erin Cord.   Free and open to the public. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM.

About our topic:  Erin will go over some bat basics and then talk about how you can help bats right in your own backyard by creating a bat garden!

Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea
Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

About our speaker:  Erin Cord is the Community Engagement Manager for Bat Conservation International. She has been with BCI for almost 3 years and absolutely loves all things bats!  Erin got her undergraduate degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Delaware and her Masters in Wildlife Management from the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M Kingsville. Erin currently lives in Austin where she works to make her own yard a native plant and wildlife oasis.

At every meeting, we give away a book — about native plants or the meeting topic — to one randomly chosen meeting attendee!

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NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public. We hope you attend!  Meetings may be in person, virtual, or both, so be sure to check details in the meeting announcement. Meetings are announced on our website, our calendar and Facebook.

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May 12 Chapter Meeting (In Person and Virtual), “Riparian Management, Why Creeks Act the Way They Do” with Ricky Linex

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Join NPSOT-Williamson County on Thursday, May 12, 2022, when our featured topic will be Riparian Management, Why Creeks Act the Way They Do with Ricky Linex.   Free and open to the public. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM.

About our topic:  This presentation goes into the relationships of riparian areas to the uplands that provide water to the riparian areas and the importance of good land stewardship for the maintenance of healthy creeks and rivers. I will show several native riparian plants and discuss a strength rating of each plant as well as its wetland indicator rating which shows how much wetness a plant can tolerate. We will discuss what goes wrong when vegetation and landform cannot support the excessive amounts of water provided to the creeks, say from overgrazing or urban growth, and how erosion results. We will show how creeks can be restored by removing the hindrances that created the problem.

Ricky has provided a handout for his presentation (see this link) listing riparian plants of north central Texas including their strength ratings and wetland indicator ratings.

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About our speaker:  Ricky Linex retired in 2021 as a wildlife biologist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service and works as a range and wildlife consultant. With NRCS, Ricky worked 52 counties in north central Texas covering the Rolling Plains, Cross Timbers, Blackland Prairie and Post Oak Savannah vegetational regions. He worked 38.5 years with NRCS in Goldthwaite, Snyder, Abilene and Weatherford. Ricky is the author of Range Plants of North Central Texas, A Land Users Guide to Their Identification, Value and Management, a plant identification book for Texas. Range Plants was recognized in 2015 as an outstanding publication by the Texas Chapter-The Wildlife Society, the Native Plant Society of Texas and the Texas Section-Society for Range Management.

At every meeting, we give away a book — about native plants or the meeting topic — to one randomly chosen meeting attendee!

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NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public. We hope you attend!  Meetings may be in person, virtual, or both, so be sure to check details in the meeting announcement. Meetings are announced on our website, our calendar and Facebook.

** ARCHIVED POST – LINKS AND IMAGES MAY NOT WORK**

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April 14 Chapter Meeting (In Person and Virtual),”The Importance of Native Plants for Birds” with Gil Eckrich

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Join NPSOT-Williamson County on Thursday, April 14, 2022, when our featured topic will be The Importance of Native Plants for Birds with Gil Eckrich.   Free and open to the public. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM.

About our topic:  Native plants are essential to our avian species. They provide shelter, nesting material, and what the birds eat!

Ruby-throated Hummingbird enjoying nectar from native Cardinal Flower/Lobelia cardinalis
Ruby-throated Hummingbird enjoying nectar from native Cardinal Flower/Lobelia cardinalis (USFWS Flickr Creative Commons)

About our speaker:  Gil Eckrich was born in Germany and came to Texas in 1964. Upon graduation from college in 1970, he entered the U.S. Army as an officer in the Infantry. Twenty years later, and with assignments around the globe, he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in Central Texas.  After that, Gil taught state and federal government courses for Central Texas College until retiring from that position in August 2009.  Until his most recent retirement in March of 2013, Gil had also been a wildlife biologist in Fort Hood’s Natural Resources Management Branch for 22 years. In that position he became knowledgeable about Central Texas native plants, their beauty, and their necessity for wildlife. Since his retirement, Gil has been traveling extensively in the US, Germany, Ecuador, Scotland, Alaska, Costa Rica, and most recently on his third trip to Colombia – always in search of a good photo of an elusive “lifer” bird species.

At every meeting, we give away a book — about native plants or the meeting topic — to one randomly chosen meeting attendee!

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NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public. We hope you attend!  Meetings may be in person, virtual, or both, so be sure to check details in the meeting announcement. Meetings are announced on our website, our calendar and Facebook.

** ARCHIVED POST – LINKS AND IMAGES MAY NOT WORK**