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 »
Not a long post this week, but I want to let you know how to find the red-shouldered hawk nest. I have found two spots from which you can see the nest and I will be checking out a third when I get a moment. The nest is in a large sycamore on the… 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 »
Waxwings arrive in Houston after Christmas and stick around until they eat all the mulberries, which don’t even get going until late March. They aren’t large birds, about the size of a starling, but they are dapper. With a red tip on each wing, a yellow band at the tip of their tails and a… Read more »
I don’t know how many creatures live in Buffalo Bayou Park, but I do know that we have almost exactly as many as the Park can support. If the Park could support more critters, they would have been here already. When you run into critters in the Park, they are not there for rest and relaxation…. Read more »
We have just one Park and just one bayou within it, but lots of different shore birds find ways of staying fed on the same basic diet (fish, amphibians, insects and crustaceans.) You might imagine, given that this, that our Park is a battleground of all against all. But that’s not what happens. Each animal… Read more »
The Snowy Egret In this corner, we have the magnificent snowy egret, the most elegant bird in North America. This is the bird for whom the entire Audubon Society was formed. Hunted almost to extinction for its fabulous feathers, the snowy egret is now plentiful, a conservation success story. Snowies are energetic fish hunters who employ… 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 »
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 »