Forested Flyways Near Crockett, Texas

Left side: Area where new wetland site is being created. Right side: A wetland area the Blackwells had previously built.

The Blackwell Tree Farm is located on the Lower Trinity-Tehuacana watershed, and now provides critical waterfowl and wetland habitat under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and Ducks Unlimited's Conservation Plan.

Wetlands created by the project wetlands have increased stopover habitat for a number of migrating Neotropical passerines including Painted and Indigo Buntings, ducks, geese, herons, egrets and shorebirds including Wood Stork and Yellow Rail. The new habitat fills a strategic gap between National Wildlife Refuges in the Houston and Dallas areas, serving as a new stopover area for migratory waterfowl in an area where wetlands are scarce. The Blackwell family is also in the process of enhancing Little Elkhart Creek with a streamside management zone plan developed with Texas Parks & Wildlife.

A 22-acre freshwater emergent wetland habitat was created and is now managed to produce native moist soil and emergent vegetation. Impoundments were created by installing flashboards once wetland vegetation had become well-established. The impoundments remain flooded from October or November through early May to provide habitat for waterfowl during the winter and spring migrations. A slow annual draw-down follows to allow revegetation of valuable seed-producing moist soil plants. This provides critical wetland habitat for migratory shorebirds and brood habitat for wood ducks, and also encourages plant diversity.

An educational field day for landowners was held April 27th, 2002 to demonstrate management strategies Joe Eddie and Deborah Blackwell have used to restore and enhance wetland and waterfowl habitat to encourage replication on other forested properties. Workstations and conservation partners detailed the methods used to enhance and restore the wildlife habitat. Foresters explained the importance of the BMPs guidelines followed by Tree Farmers and their role in providing clean water. Local wildlife experts from Ducks Unlimited, Texas Parks & Wildlife, NRCS, the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service explained the tradeoffs and benefits of forest management strategies for wildlife species. Landowners also had the opportunity to learn about the East Texas Wetlands Project, which can provide cost/share and technical assistance to help landowners realize their conservation goals. By giving landowners a full set of options for land management and a peer role model, Forested Flyways leverages the conservation impact of the initial habitat conservation project.