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
Category: Wildlife – Birds
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
Raptor Breakfast
My favorite chair in the living room looks out onto the back yard where I get to see all sorts of interesting things (and it makes me wonder how much I haven’t seen). Such was the case this morning. As I was finishing my daily Bible reading a movement in the Mexican Elder near the… Continue reading Raptor Breakfast
Nest Report
One of the guys at work claimed he’d seen a hummingbird nest in one of the trees outside our new office building. I was skeptical; in all our years of putting up feeders and watching the little guys, I’d never seen a hummer’s nest. So, today after lunch, Debbie and I walked past a live… Continue reading Nest Report
Pardon me…could you spare some T-Rex urine?
MLB was trimming the ground cover on the east side of our yard and when she pulled back a section from the wall, this is what she found: As perceptive Gazette readers – which is both of you, I believe – will recall, we recently had a family of quail in our back yard, including… Continue reading Pardon me…could you spare some T-Rex urine?
Mockingbirdlets
I discovered a mockingbird nest in the lower limbs of the Chinese pistache planted in our back yard. I had been hearing odd chirps coming at fairly regular intervals over the preceding few days, but didn’t really think anything about it until Saturday afternoon when I noticed some unusually persistent mockingbird presence around the tree. … Continue reading Mockingbirdlets
Return of the Quail
As an alert and perceptive Gazette reader, you no doubt recall this time last year when I undertook to stalk the wily blue quail residing in our landscape. I was able to see but not photograph the two baby birds that the adults were protecting. And shortly afterward, the entire family moved out, apparently tired… Continue reading Return of the Quail
Snooping on the birds and the bees
The barn swallow nest on our front porch that provided some video footage last summer is once again occupied. However, I haven’t noticed the presence of baby birds, and my curiosity got the better of me this afternoon. I mounted my GoPro on an extendable monopod, connected it via wifi to my iPad so I… Continue reading Snooping on the birds and the bees
Preaching to the birds
Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell–and great was its fall. Matthew 7:26-27 (NASB) I suspect that… Continue reading Preaching to the birds