*With apologies to the 7th Bomb Wing, USAF We returned home last Sunday afternoon after a whirlwind** 750-mile weekend trip to our old stamping grounds*** in West Texas, and as we drove over the low water crossing to pick up our mail, we saw that a squirrel had recently been hit by a car and… Continue reading Mors Ab Alto*
Category: Wildlife – Birds
Clash of Species – Woodpeckers vs Snakes
Earlier this spring, an oak tree across the street from our house attracted the attention of a pair of golden-fronted woodpeckers*. The tree’s trunk has a hollowed-out place about twenty feet off the ground and the opening faces our front windows; I can see it from my usual seat in the living room. Since April,… Continue reading Clash of Species – Woodpeckers vs Snakes
Stranger Things in the Back Yard
I haven’t had much activity on the game camera lately, possibly due to the fact that the batteries were dead. Once I figured that out, I replaced them and set the camera on a step on our back porch, facing out into the yard. When I downloaded the images this morning, there was our neighborhood… Continue reading Stranger Things in the Back Yard
A Week in the Texas Hill Country
MLB and I spent last week at Horseshoe Bay, and it turned into quite a busy time. (Important Note: The following is the equivalent of showing blurry vacation slides from that trip with your parents to Knott’s Berry Farm to captive friends who reciprocate by never coming back to your house, even when tempted by… Continue reading A Week in the Texas Hill Country
Rooftop Serenade
Lately, this is what we’ve been hearing, coming down our chimney and serenading us, unbidden. Your browser does not support the audio element. If you live anywhere in North America, you no doubt recognize the random stylings of Mimus polyglottos, otherwise known as the Northern Mockingbird (although the georeference seems superfluous since there’s no Southern,… Continue reading Rooftop Serenade
Bird Talk
First, listen to this: Your browser does not support the audio element. No, that’s not Donald Trump’s mating call*. It’s the dulcet tones of the Black-crowned Night-Heron, a bird that I have heretofore never seen, but one appeared on the banks of our neighborhood pond a fortnight ago. MLB and I were out for a… Continue reading Bird Talk
Fish Dinner
We were giving some friends an afternoon tour of Horseshoe Bay and were driving across the low water crossing where Slick Rock Creek empties into Lake LBJ when I spotted a crane* diving under the water, presumably in pursuit of a fish. Sure enough, he surfaced shortly thereafter with a large silver fish grasped firmly… Continue reading Fish Dinner
When Species Collide
Update (6/21/15) – A lot of people have asked if we’re feeding this fox, and that’s why he’s in our yard so often. The answer is an emphatic “no.” I have no doubt that there are some people who are providing food, perhaps inadvertently, in the form of cat or dog food, but I would… Continue reading When Species Collide
Local Nature
Just a few random observations from the Wide World of Nature – Midland, Texas Edition. First, the following video is noteworthy in spite of its poor quality (shot through an office window with a zoomed-in iPhone), because it shows a ladder-backed woodpecker who landed on a red yucca and began working over the blooms. These… Continue reading Local Nature
Another Ill-placed Dove Nest
If you’ve spent much time around doves you know that they run a close second to sheep for being the dumbest animals on God’s green earth. I make this assessment based primarily on the ridiculous places they choose to build their nests. For all I know, they’re geniuses when it comes to differential calculus and… Continue reading Another Ill-placed Dove Nest