This post was supposed to be a contemplation on the nature of nature. Then nature decided to aim a hurricane towards the small private nature preserve I manage and the time I should have been writing was spent disassembling various decorative archways and moving future projectiles to safer ground. This morning, we got the good… Read more »
Let’s blame the pandemic, or the heat. I played hookey down in Galveston on Tuesday and saw four or five things that warrant an entire post exploring them in detail. But I seem to lack the energy. So here are the amazing things with brief description of why they amazed me. Above is an aptly… Read more »
Galveston Island State Park was the balm my soul needed. Not nature in little pockets; not hooray, I stumbled on something; NATURE, glorious, free, exuberant nature. I needed to be surrounded by wildness, dipped into it and rolled around until the stench of indoors had completely washed away. Mission accomplished. I spent over an hour with… Read more »
Last year, a pair of red-shouldered hawks raised their chicks in a sycamore tree north of the bayou just east of the Shepherd bridge. Red-shouldered hawks will re-use a nest multiple times, but they will also abandon a nest, so it is exciting to report that last year’s nest is being used again. However, this… Read more »
There’s a new kid on the block. Literally. A juvenile red-shouldered hawk has been a pretty constant presence on the north side of the bayou just west of the Jackson Hill bridge. Last week, he or she decided to sit in the open at eye level and not fly away even if I got within… Read more »
Carolina wrens are adorable, industrious and fierce. They have the lives your parents hoped for you. They mate for life, settle down on a half acre that’s theirs, and start producing kids. Lots of them. Up to three broods a year. Instead of putting a fence around their half acre, male Carolinas define the boundaries… Read more »
This is the first blog post I ever wrote. And I never got to publish it until now. That’s because I have finally found another polyphemus moth cocoon. I found the first one (photo at the top of the page) two years ago and by the time the blog was up and running, the cocoon… Read more »
Before you were born, kids listened to hot singles on small vinyl disks with a big chunky hole in the middle. They were played at a speed of 45 rpm rather than the usual 33 1/3 rpms that larger albums were played at. We called them 45s. On one side, they had the song you… Read more »
The processes of the natural world operate at all scales, from tiny to enormous. But however large or small, complex or simple, every living thing is pushed by two drives: stay alive and reproduce. Knowledge of the natural world is essentially the details of how each species manages these drives. The natural world in our… Read more »
There are many lenses through which to view nature in general and our Park in particular. Recreation, tranquility, civic pride, aesthetic beauty. There’s a more prosaic lens as well. Nature, and our Park, can be seen as a collection of eaters and their food. Some organisms are always one or the other; some creatures can… Read more »