A painted lady butterfly alights on a sunflower at the Cibolo Nature Center.

This party is commonly known here as “research.” During  “research” the CNC hosts a group of special volunteers, who work in teams to gather data on the “state of the park.” We survey the plants and animals living here using eleven different research protocols that guide our study of aquatic invertebrates, fish, riparian trees and shrubs, birds, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, ants, prairie vegetation, butterflies and dragonflies.

During the first part of research week, we have workshops and training sessions for some of our teams. This year we offered a new workshop called “Is the Water Clean?,” “Basic GPS for Beginners and Intermediates” and our ever-popular “Monarchs, Milkweed and MLMP training.” All of these are also open to the general public.

We started the CNC research project in 1999 – with a few of us practicing to see if meaningful surveys could be done by non-professional volunteers. From that small but optimistic beginning, the CNC Wildlife Field Research project has grown into a huge community of citizen scientists.

Through Wildlife Field Research, we are inspired to be part of a long-term project contributing to a body of knowledge that would not exist without our efforts. We make special friends and have a great time together. Just getting out to collect the data is an invaluable education. It puts us in a position to see new things, ask meaningful questions and make important discoveries.

During the fall 2007 Wildlife Field Research event, CNC citizen scientists gave 1040 hours of their time to help us learn some interesting information about our park. We seined 8 species of fish including our state fish the Guadalupe Bass. This team took fin clip samples from the bass. These samples will be sent to the state lab for genetic testing to determine if these fish are members of the genetically pure strain that our citizen scientists discovered here a few years ago!

Although fall 2007 research days were before the peak of bird migration, our incidental bird survey team identified 52 species in the park! They saw an interesting mix of migrants (broad-winged hawk and Wilson’s warbler), winter birds (American kestrel and American robin), along with summer birds (vermilion flycatcher and summer tanager) as well as year-round residents (green heron and Bewick’s wren).

Patty Leslie-Pasztor and Martin Reid led the Lepidoptera survey this fall and their team discovered four new butterflies for the park while identifying 43 species. Mary Gomilion’s new amphibian watch group also found a gray tree frog, the first for our park. The prairie photo point team reports that the prairie grasses were higher than ever – with switchgrass growing taller than 2 meters in many parts of the prairie!

Some of our research teams are well staffed with youth led by popular field biology specialists. One of these is the “herp search” team led by Dave Barker. Of note from Dave’s team of kids and kid-like adults are: 3 large diamondback watersnakes, 1 adult female blotched watersnake and 1 juvenile blotched water snake, a rough green snake and 3 large adult female Texas Spiny Lizards. The biggest diamondback watersnake – at 51 inches – was our largest to date. This snake was captured by Dave’s youngest son, Guy. All the snakes are weighed, measured, pit-tagged and released exactly were they were found. This is part of a long-term Cibolo Creek watersnake population study.

The small mammal survey, lead by TPWD wildlife biologist Richard Heilbrun, is also very popular with our youngest citizen scientists – so much so that in recent years one of the young team members Sarah Abernethy has become a co-leader and presented a research paper on this work to the Texas Wildlife Society. In fall 2007, the team found a higher than usual population of pygmy mice in the prairie, marsh and riparian zone. This is probably due to abundant summer rainfall that produced plenty of food for these primary consumers. In turn, the healthy mouse population can become a great food source for the hawks that nest here and need to feed their young this winter and next spring.

Enormous thanks go to all 120 of CNC’s fall 2007 citizen scientists—for their time, talents and dedication to field research and teamwork. I also want to thank Suzanne Young, who is our remarkable Wildlife Field Research volunteer coordinator, chief cook and bottle washer! Her kitchen team feeds breakfast and lunch to CNC’s huge research crew. The food for our Friday night, volunteer thank-you dinner is generously provided by Bear Moon.

If you are interested in joining the spring 2008 Wildlife Field Research even during the first week of May, e-mail Suzanne at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . She will help you choose and be trained to work on a team of special interest to you.