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Other Nations: A Naturalist’s Blog about Buffalo Bayou
by Alisa Kline

Posts Tagged: Texas Master Naturalist

Jan 13

Shrub detailing. Free of charge.

Sometimes your shrubbery can get, let’s not mince words, a bit buggy. The leaf suckers start to pile up. The mites get a bit mitey. Beetles are out-beetling you. You need help, but who do you call? Well, you call the gnatcatcher. That’s who! If only. We cannot summon birds to do yard work, although… Read more »

Jan 05

Brainiacs

“Birds of a feather flock together” is an old saying based on an observable avian truth. When you see a flock of birds, they are almost always all the same species. Until I began to write this post, which is about birds not of a feather, I hadn’t thought much about why birds flock by… Read more »

Dec 17

Good-bye bee

A quick post this week. I have been trying to write about anything other than this photo, but I have failed, so meet my friend, the eastern carpenter bee who has done his job well. At the end of each summer, the solitary native bees (that’s every bee flying around that isn’t a European honeybee)… Read more »

Dec 07

How do sanderlings manage?

I spent Thanksgiving day in Galveston on east beach because there are always tons of birds on east beach, right at the point where the ship channel and the Gulf meet up. This year, I really needed to be surrounded by wildlife and Galveston did not disappoint. Camera in hand, I immediately settled into my… Read more »

Oct 21

Best little carpenter-bee ranch in Texas

In my Texas fantasy, I own a small ranch in the Hill Country where I raise longhorns. In my Texas reality, I own a small private nature preserve just north of the Park and I raise carpenter bees.  I did not set out to raise carpenter bees, but my haphazard land stewardship could stand as… Read more »

Sep 30

Catfish 911

Each year I train for the half marathon by running the trails in the Park. You might have passed me while out for a walk. I run that slowly. The slower you run, the less you miss. This is the only benefit I have found so far to my pace. Last week, I was crossing… Read more »

Sep 03

The Birds and the Bees (or Ladybugs)

Below is a video of two ladybugs doing what ladybugs do. I stumbled on this pair because the hamelia in the small nature preserve I manage is thick with aphids.  Were I a gardener in search of a landscape that maximizes visual impact so as to demonstrate my utter control of “nature,” this would be… Read more »

Aug 26

Windy

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 »

Aug 20

Playing hookey

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 »

Aug 06

Mental health day

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 »

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“[Animals] are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

—Henry Beston, The Outermost House

 

For sightings, questions or comments email blog@alisakline.com.

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