Welcome back to the Cliff Swallow Chronicles. To catch you up with our story this far: There has been a cliff swallow colony under the bat bridge forever. Our cliff swallows winter in South and Central America, return to their mud nests in Houston each year. Upon their arrival, they spiff up the nests and… Read more »
Our red-shouldered hawks have hatched their egg(s) and the nest is no longer even a little sleepy. Mom and Dad are steadily coming and going and feeding the little ones. I think there is more than one, but I cannot tell yet. This week’s post is a video of our happy family. In the video… Read more »
We tend to think of animals as interesting stimulus-response machines. When faced with X set of circumstances, the animal will be triggered to do Y. The bee sees a flower, which triggers the urge to drink nectar which causes the bee to bump into pollen organs. That triggers the bee to groom and pack that… Read more »
For the last 23,000 years (give or take), Houston was a prairie. A tall grass coastal prairie, to be precise. We stopped being a prairie within the last 150 years. We stopped so thoroughly that there is almost no original prairie to be seen. When we look at Houston, we see, for the most part,… Read more »
Lots of family stuff this week so just a short post. I have found yet another viewing spot for the red-shouldered hawk nest that involves standing on a tall ladder at some remove. After I work out a few kinks, I think I might use this perch to see more into the nest at eye… Read more »
People gather the most information about their surroundings visually. I realized this when an old dog of mine lost both his sight and hearing and it hardly slowed him down. If I were blind and deaf, I would have been in terrible trouble, but Al (my beloved corgi) did not gather the most important information… Read more »
Big shout-out to fellow master naturalist David Strong who noticed two red shouldered hawks tending to their nest in the Park, snapped a great photo (above) and let me know where to find the nest. The plan formed immediately! I would document the nest-building, egg laying, fledgling feeding, first flights. This was going to be… Read more »
Ahab had his white whale, I have my beavers. There are a pair (at least) of beavers living on Buffalo Bayou. I have seen them in the Park a few times, once on land feeding and several times swimming (the beavers, not me). When I started this blog, I couldn’t wait to write about the… Read more »
It’s a brand new year and this blog is starting it off with a bang. We have a pair of loggerhead shrikes in the Park. Wait, you’re not jumping up and down with glee? Then let me explain. Loggerhead shrikes are cool birds for a bunch of reasons I will get into. But the reason… Read more »
There aren’t that many weeks left in the year. I thought I might use that fascinating observation as a excuse to post some photos that I had taken this year but had not used. Next week, you might get that post. But while combing through a year’s worth of photos, I ran into this striking… Read more »