Utopia, of course, is in TEXAS! Roughly 75 miles
West of San Antonio, so south central Texas. It lies
in the Sabinal River Valley, near the southern edge
of the Edwards Plateau on the Balcones Escarpment.
It was named for its climate in the late-1800's.
Elevation is 1350' and the population in town and
surrounding area is about 200 and change, except on
weekends in summer.
To navigate this site, there is a link bar at
the top of most of the pages and link boxes
at the bottom of the pages ... scrolling over
the subjects in the nav bar above will provide a
dropdown box giving you the selections.
Click one and you're off!
Over time, our site will grow so please
bookmark it now before you lose it. :-)
We hope you enjoy this window into Utopia's nature.
Here we have collection of pages about the incredible
natural history of the Utopia area. The pages
feature the local fauna ... birds, butterflies,
dragonflies, "critters, bugs and stuff,"
and more. It will start small, but we hope
grow with time and can give you a good idea
of the fauna present. The idea being to
educate others, share, and document the incredible
diversity of wildlife in this area.
Most of the photos are simple "snapshots"
and not high quality photos, but are generally
enough for you to make an identification of a bird,
butterfly, dragonfly, or other animal you may have seen.
Probably 95% of the butterflies you see locally could be
identified from the butterfly photo pages, and most
of the common local dragonflies and damselflies are
on our dragonfly or damselfly photo pages. A large
percentage of the local birds species are on the bird
photos pages now too.
In now our 19th year of bumbling around the area I have
seen over 360 species of birds, 144 species of butterflies,
and 81 species of dragonflies and damselflies around Utopia.
It is world class bio-diversity for such a small area.
Painted Bunting, adult male,
which are common late April to
early August locally.
Most of the action is at the "Bird News" page, which
should really be called "Nature News," since
butterfly and dragonfly
(Odes) news is there too.
Current updates of local bird and other sightings are there,
generally updated weekly on Friday evening. Directions to some
local spots to see all of this interesting stuff, as well as some
local business information is also shared on various pages.
We hope you enjoy the pages and view into Utopia nature.
Many birders come to the area to see the Edwards Plateau's
two endemic threatened bird species, the Golden-cheeked Warbler
and Black-capped Vireo. Huge draws for their small size. Besides
the roles they play in the ecosystem, they are very important
economically to the area, locally to the tune of many tens of
thousands annually. If you can't guess which is which in
the photos below, birding might not be your thing. ;)
If you come out and visit, we hope you
have a good time, just remember to go home!