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 »
This week, I visited our miracle prairie and was blown away by how birdy it was. This almost never happens, but that prairie was genuinely full of birds. Maybe not rarely seen birds, but it was full of the birds that should have been there. I saw ruby crowned kinglets, phoebes, orange crowned warblers, a… Read more »
I am giving a birding presentation this week and preparing for it, I ran into something I never knew and I can’t stop thinking about it. As anyone who has used a bird guide knows, the organizational system behind all bird guides is identical and impenetrable. Experienced birders learn how to navigate the books and… Read more »
Between travel and an injured foot, it has been weeks since I’ve really spent time in the Park. The two hours I spent Monday felt like a great big hug. The prairie grasses are everywhere announcing themselves. Even pros (one of whom I’m not), can struggle to identify prairie grasses when they are not blooming…. Read more »
We have approximately 250,000 Mexican free-tail bats when the colony under the Waugh Drive bat bridge is rolling. That’s roughly 6,250 pounds of mammal. I’m not sure, pound for pound, there is a larger concentration of wildlife in the city. This huge biomass creates its own gravitational field. We have a pair of red-shouldered hawks… Read more »
Two years ago, I saw something I had never seen before. It was during our regular walking tour, so a bunch of other people got to watch it with me, but the only photograph I managed to get was of the footprints left behind. What we saw was a wasp laboriously dragging an immobile caterpillar… Read more »
In the summer, almost every night, Swainson’s hawks fly through the stream of bats emerging from the Waugh Drive bridge and indulge in an orgy of bat consumption. They grab a bat in one claw and put it in their mouth, often while grabbing another. I really should have written about this in the spring… Read more »
It is perhaps a sign of advancing age, but I often ask myself about the purpose of this and that. Life, emotions, the entire living enterprise that is Earth. This is a blog about a park, so don’t expect big answers, but from the unique perspective of a minor nature blogger, the purpose of everything… Read more »
I am an enthusiastic birder and through the years, have picked up this and that. But there are always birds that simply mystify me. This week, I ran into three such birds. They were all on the high-tension power line that runs north from The Dunlavy. That tower and the line strung from it is… Read more »
People have long argued about which is the sexiest heron. Okay, no one has ever argued about which is the sexiest heron. But that little blue heron I saw on Monday was damned sexy! Little blue herons are not nearly as common as the other herons we see regularly in the Park. iNaturalist has only… Read more »