By: Linda Wood
Celebrating 100 years of Texas State Parks has every park holding a big celebration event. Dinosaur Valley State Park held theirs, Wing Ding, on April 15th celebrating all winged creatures and their habitats. This included birds, insects, and, of course, dinosaurs!
A wide variety of booths brought together university students, TPWD park rangers, game wardens, master naturalists, Friends of Dinosaur Valley, and many others. This provided a great diversity of activities and information to learn about our winged friends. Examples included making bird houses, assembling bee habitats, obtaining seeds to start your pollinator garden, learning about bats, and preventing bird strikes. The Texas Game Wardens brought their informational trailer. Although it was not exclusively winged creatures with the inclusion of some mammals and fish, it is a must see, very impressive.
POMN volunteers participated also, presenting our “Owls About Texas” display. We had participants try to identify four common owls found in Texas by picture and their call. Many participants were surprised to learn not all owls voice whoooooo! Their calls can sound like a horse’s whinny, a person saying, “who cooks for you?” and a variety of clucks, screams, and rattles. Also, children were helped with creating bird kites. They had great fun running with their kites through the open fields of blue bonnets, paint brush and other wildflowers in bloom.
Wing Ding is an annual event at Dinosaur Valley State Park, usually the 3rd Saturday in April. Mark your calendars and plan to attend next year’s event.
