Wildlife Amidst the Wildflowers - A Photographic Exhibit
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Fauna Survey
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, located in Austin, TX, is the official botanical garden of Texas and a popular visitor destination. The Center’s wildflowers are the main attraction, but gardens are not just collections of plants; they are ecosystems. While the flora of the Wildflower Center had been well studied and documented, the animals that live there had not previously enjoyed the same attention. At least not until March 2010 when Valerie Bugh launched the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Fauna Project to collect information on the non-human visitors (and residents) in the Gardens.
Spearheaded by Valerie Bugh, and a group of enthusiastic volunteers, the Wildflower Center Fauna Project is now 15 years old. During that time, the Fauna Project has documented over 3,500 species at the Wildflower Center including over 3,000 different insect species.
Most Thursday mornings, photographers and bug people meet at the Wildflower Center to record and photograph the wildlife they see at the Center. One of the benefits of these surveys is to help the visiting public see and understand more about the ecology of gardens. There are some outstanding, award-winning “photonaturalists” that regularly contribute to the Fauna Project, and this exhibit showcases some of their work and the fauna that call the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center home.
The mission of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is:
inspiring the conservation of native plants.
The Fauna Project contributes to that mission by underscoring the key role that native plants play to fauna in our ecosystem. Moreover, the Fauna Project improves the visitor experience by spotlighting things that may otherwise go unseen.
Fauna Project volunteers are more than field researchers or photographers, they are ambassadors for the Wildflower Center and for the animal kingdom what calls the Wildflower Center home.
Many Fauna Project volunteers are Texas Master Naturalists. Core to the Texas Master Naturalist program is volunteering and members from local chapters contribute hundreds of hours a year to the Wildflower Center Fauna Project.
Master Naturalists get back far more than then contribute, honing their observation and identification skills as well as witnessing the wonders of the insect world. And learning from Val Bugh on a weekly basis is like a graduate entomology seminar.
“Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on
nature’s services in a world of close to 7 billion people”
Achim Steiner - UN Sustainable Development Group
Number of Bee Species Observed in Fauna Project - 73
“The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird…the raven…the dragonfly…And on and on.
It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.”
Mary Oliver
“From the intricate patterns of spider’s silk to the ephemeral beauty of a butterfly’s wings, nature’s artistry is most vividly expressed through its smallest inhabitants”
Tom Turbin
“The moth settled…and sat still. It was an astonishing creature…
So much detail goes unnoticed in the world”
Barbara Kingsolver
Number of moth species observed in Fauna Project - 922
“The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity”
George Carlin
“If I could turn myself into any bug or insect;
I would like to be a butterfly and fill colors, beauty and happiness on others lives”
Miti Sengupta
Number of Butterly Species Observed in Fauna Project - 109
The Jumping Spiders keep their eye on the photographers at the Fauna Project
“And then there is the world of little things, seen all to seldom…
some of nature’s most exquisite handiwork is on a miniature scale”
Rachel Carson
Participating Photographers
Val Bugh - Wildflower Center Fauna Survey Founder and Leader
Bill Boyd
David J Cook
Linda Crabtree
Katherine Daniels
Joe Fernandes
Mika Geiger
Michael Knox
Dwayne Mann
Julie Shaw
Cyd Wehner