When you take a really close look at butterflies, there’s a lot more going on than gossamer wings toting a straw from flower to flower. For example, what’s up with those eyes? Each of our eyes has a single lens and both rods and cones. Rods allow us to perceive light and dark. Cones are specialized… Read more »
Baby birds behave in unexpected ways. This is because they are idiots. I have mentioned this before in passing, but this post will be almost entirely about the incompetence of juvenile birds and referring to two in particular: a Red-Shouldered Hawk and a Great-Tailed Grackle. It is a heroic tale of peril, escape, and maternal… Read more »
Vast swathes of Buffalo Bayou Park are a banquet for butterflies. Wildflowers spread across sunny hillsides. Yet, when I visit the shady Greentree Nature Trail, I always see bunches of butterflies. This is odd because I cannot think of a good reason for them to be there. Butterflies do not waste time. Their job is… Read more »
Almost every time I walk under the bat bridge I see a Black-crowned Night Heron (BCNH) or two and they are almost always standing still. I imagined that they were waiting for a baby bat or egg, or who knows what, to fall at their feet and provide a meal. These were apparently lazy birds… Read more »
You might never have noticed the sign pointing to the Green Tree Nature Trail on the north side of the bayou just east of the bat bridge. Or, if you did, you might have thought twice because the trail is dark and isolated. But, if you summon your courage (it is, by the way, absolutely… Read more »
According to a 1998 Gallup survey, more Americans were afraid of snakes than of anything else. In 2001, again, snakes led the way. In 2014, surprise, it was SNAKES! You can safely say that at almost any point in human history (I mean, it was a serpent in the Garden of Eden) humanity’s chief fear has… Read more »
If you are in Buffalo Bayou Park looking for butterflies, find a stand of Bidens alba and stay there. Every butterfly in the park will stop by for a visit. Because of this, Bidens alba is one of my favorite plants. It’s no show-stopper. You’ve undoubtedly seen it; in summer months, it is ubiquitous. If… Read more »
We live in a world divided. Inside and outside. Everything inside is ours and we try very hard to share inside with only invited guests. We try that outside as well, making decisions about what plants to put into our ground and which insects we will tolerate in proximity. The park is outside, but it… Read more »
When I’m out walking on the bayou, my two most frequent thoughts are: 1) what is that? and 2) what’s that critter doing? As to the first question, I knew this was a dragon fly because that’s easy. Although you should pause a moment when you’ve got a really slender dragonfly because it may be… Read more »
For the next few weeks, there is a spectacle of nature taking place right under the Waugh Drive Bridge. Not the bats, although they live there, too, but the Cliff Swallows. The colony has almost 100 birds. Each Spring, the colony returns from South America and refurbishes their mud nests that are built on the… Read more »