Group documents Park Cities wildlife with photographs, videos<\/p>\n
There are some wild Park Cities residents, and they\u2019ve got the whole neighborhood talking.<\/p>\n
A Texas bow-legged bug was caught exploring a children\u2019s play set. An unidentified bright green insect \u2014 possibly a grasshopper, katydid, or bush cricket \u2014 was spotted on a patio waiting for the rain to stop. A great egret helped himself to some treats during a child\u2019s fishing birthday party in Caruth Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And multiple bunnies, owls, ducks, and coyotes have been caught on film everywhere from front yards to the tops of road signs thanks to ever-vigilant security cameras and alert Park Cities residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their footage has been shared on the Park Cities Wildlife Facebook Group, which has grown to include more than 1,000 members since it was created in 2021 by resident Charles Leary.<\/p>\n
\u201cHighland Park and University Park and SMU are about seven square miles,\u201d he said. \u201cMy hope is that it showcases what\u2019s in our backyard or in our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leary had the idea to start the group after he captured a young coyote on video while driving down the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There were already Park Cities Facebook groups for high end yard sales, garage sales, and general neighborhood discussions. Why not, Leary thought, start a forum for people who cared about local wildlife? But he never imagined his creation would grow to be this popular.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people are interested in their community in this way,\u201d he said, \u201cand surprised by some of the stuff they see.\u201d<\/p>\n
The more unexpected Park Cities visitors include a ringtail, which was captured on alley camera making itself at home atop a gate. Ringtails are solitary mammals and rarely observed in the wild. But the presence of this nocturnal visitor is good news for University Park and Highland Park residents concerned about pests \u2014 ringtails aren\u2019t picky eaters and will munch on rats, which have also been documented on Park Cities Wildlife.<\/p>\n
Images of a bobcat have been shared multiple times, including a video of the animal giving itself a bath on a doormat, then glaring at the filmmaker when it was interrupted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the recent January storms, wildlife watchers posted photos of tracks in the snow, which provided clues to the identities of even more furry and feathered neighbors.<\/p>\n
Highland Park resident Amy Genender, who has posted images of critters including an unusual white possum, called Park Cities Wildlife her favorite Facebook group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives people something positive to focus on,\u201d she said. \u201cIt makes people pay attention to what\u2019s going on around them as they\u2019re walking or driving around the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her favorite posts include images of a mother owl and her adorable babies on a bird bath. \u201cI wish they\u2019d come to my house,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
The group benefits from the expert advice of Dallas Birdman, who is actually David Hurt, the owner of Wild Birds Unlimited on Lovers Lane. Hurt weighs in when there are questions about bird identification and enriches his answers with more information about the species.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The friendly group has shown that those who think there isn\u2019t much wildlife in dense, urban areas are wrong, Hurt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just not a lot of room left for wildlife,\u201d he remarked. \u201cOne of the nice things about Park Cities Wildlife is that it does show that some of this urban wildlife is still doing just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Group documents Park Cities wildlife with photographs, videos There are some wild Park Cities residents, and they\u2019ve got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-196100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}