The North Central Fayette County Wildlife Management Co-op (NCFCWMC) was established February 5, 1993 with the belief that proper management of wildlife and its habitat is beneficial to all people. NCFCWMC wants to provide a healthy diverse animal and plant population for appreciative and hunting purposes. Therefore, it is important to manage areas of continuous land. 

No member shall be legally bound by any policy, except expressing their good faith and intent to comply with managing the wildlife habitat and population of their properties using the NCFCWMC principles.

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We have all heard about someone killing a Chupacabra and questioning whether it is a dog, coyote, or some mythical creature made up to scare folks. And some people have even made money selling T shirts using this poor unfortunate critter. Historically so far, most folks in the know will tell you that it is nothing but a mangy coyote. The pictured one was dispatched by one of our members in September of 2011, this year. As you can tell, it is difficult to see what it once was, a healthy coyote. Mange had ravaged its body to the point that dying was more than likely a relief.

Painted Buntings are God's gift to us who pay attention to birds. Their incredible colors especially the male are almost overwhelming and beyond description. The female is just as brilliant with her beautiful green plumage.

These guys decided to spend a bit of time in my Cowbird Hotel. Once I saw them, I immediately took steps to free them. I could not let the opportunity pass to actually hold each of them and of course, take close up pictures. Neither of them was overly excited at being captured but once I loosened my grip, they were more than happy to take to the air. I could not hold the male in the proper position to get the effect of his multicolored plumage because if I just moved my fingers a bit, he was ready to squeeze out of my hand.

I still remember the first time I saw a male Painted Bunting. I could not believe my eyes. Male cardinals are blood red and they look like Christmas tree ornaments, and male Ruby Throat hummingbirds are very easy on the eyes, but Painted Buntings are like the best eye dessert there is.

Announcements:

• ANNUAL FALL MEETING NOTICE

Our annual fall meeting will be held October 13th, 2012 at Cooper Farm. Details as to our speakers and starting time will follow later this year.

• TWA Regional Leadership Meeting

I am reaching out to you to let you know that we will be having a TWA regional leadership meeting in Brenham on Friday, April 13th at 6 p.m. at Blinn College. The meeting room location and directions are listed in links at the bottom of this email.

We hope to assemble some folks who are interested in brainstorming about trying to surface a core of volunteers in Region 7 to serve as your leaders in that area. Working together as a group, allows our regional teams to leverage their resources in an effective and fun way. Region 7 has a proven track record of generating many productive and fun TWA related events and we want to help ensure that this great precedence is carried forward.

This will be a relaxed, somewhat informal meeting, and I will go over our newly approved TWA Regional Development Guide, take input from those who can attend, and discuss some visioning possibilities for TWA activities for your region sometime in the future. This is a great opportunity to help deploy the mission of the organization in your area. I encourage you to invite any members or non-members who you feel may be interested in engaging.

Please RSVP to TWA Director of Member Relations, Kendra Roller at kroller@texas-wildlife.org or call her at (210) 826-2904. I’ve included a regional diagram so that you can see the county structure for Region 7, but please understand that you do not have to live in Region 7 to participate as a volunteer or leader in that particular area.

Location of meeting is at Blinn College in Brenham. The meeting will begin at 6:00 pm on Friday, April 13th.

We will meet in Brenham at Blinn College Student Center in meeting rooms 2 and 3. These rooms are combined into a nice meeting room that should accommodate the group well. The meeting room is at the end of the hallway.

Here is a link to the campus map which will show you the student center http://www.blinn.edu/Map%20details/index.htm.

This link gives driving directions http://www.blinn.edu/Map%20details/Directions%20to%20Blinn.htm.

Thank you for all that you do for TWA and for Texas wildlife. I hope you can attend.
Best,
Greg Simons, TWA Secretary