Over the past year and a half writing this blog, I have become aware of what I’ve taken to calling the jigsaw puzzle problem. Until I began looking at plants and animals in detail, I didn’t realize how interdependent the whole enterprise of life is. Monarch butterflies are a familiar example. Monarchs have to lay… 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 »
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 »
Free food! Hang that sign in front of a restaurant and the line will be around the block in no time. This is, of course, a terrible business plan. But it does illustrate a universal truth: everyone wants to eat and the less money or energy expended the better. Places full of food tend to… Read more »
The North American Prairie Conference has come to Houston for the first time ever and because of that, I’m spending time in a classroom rather than our Park. What, you might ask, do grasslands have to do with Houston? Just EVERYTHING!! For at least 20,000 years, Houston was part of a vast grassland ecology that stretched… Read more »
The Park is full of wild onions. All of Houston is full of them. They are visually intriguing, but I didn’t think they were interesting enough to write about. This is an onion. Story told. So I didn’t do much more than enjoy how they bite back sharply when you nibble them. But this week,… Read more »
Big spring arrives soon with fields of wildflowers buzzing with bees, birds migrating through, butterflies flitting hither and yon, and mosquitoes. That last one isn’t a delight, but reality is what it is. But before big spring gets here, you might take a moment to enjoy tiny spring. I should note that tiny spring is… Read more »
Ancient Europeans took note of a flower that grew in barren soil. They decided that this plant must be stealing the nutrients other plants need and hoarding them for itself. Hence, it was like a wolf, stealing animals from the flocks they tended. They called the flower lupine which is Latin for wolf-like. We no… Read more »
There is an eye-catching plant in our Park right now. Usually, when I post about an eye-catching plant, it is in glorious bloom. But in this case, the plant is in glorious seed. It bloomed months ago and I have to admit, I didn’t even notice. The plant is Baccharis halimifolia, its common names include… Read more »
First, the tasty. Knotweed (also known as smartweed) is blooming in our Park right now. It is fairly insignificant looking but it packs a heck of a punch! It is spicy. Peppery hot. Indigenous people and early European settlers used it to flavor their stews and salads. When you chew a leaf (only a bit,… Read more »