33 posts tagged with "living"

Another backyard success: breeding habitat for the Gulf fritillary butterfly. This medium-sized orange butterfly, while less famous than the Monarch for which it is sometimes mistaken, is a beautiful part of our landscape. Like the Monarch, its caterpillars can only eat from one type of plant ("passionflower") and they have a long-distance migration: across the Gulf of Mexico to southern Florida.

This purple passionflower in these photos only bloomed once or twice this summer, but one or more adult females clearly knew what was what and laid some eggs. I have counted as many as 8 visible caterpillars/pupae of multiple sizes at once (including the one trapped by a spider), and there were probably more that were hiding under leaves and around stems.

• More info on the Gulf fritillary
• View more photos of our passionflower and its denizens

The Yellow-rumped Warblers and Dark-eyed Juncos have been back and enjoying our back yard for several weeks now. This year, the warblers have decided to trust our bird bath - we've frequently seen them drinking and bathing over the past several weeks. While the Blue Jays have still been coming round, and we've had several sightings of Orange-crowned Warbler and Ruby-Crowned Kinglet this fall, I hadn't seen a Bewick's Wren in quite some time. Thus I was delighted to see this guy a few days ago. The light isn't very good, and the window is a bit dirty, but the ID is clear.

Twenty-something years ago, not long after the Exxon Valdez disaster, I wrote a research paper on solar power for my middle school Earth science class. I've been trying to lower my consumption, and looking forward to rooftop solar, ever since. The wait is finally over.

Well, almost. The panels are on the roof, but now I have 4-6 weeks to wait until the electric grid company (Oncor) comes out to inspect.

Who did this? Who would leave such mighty poo below my bell pepper? Our fence is too tight for rabbits...

The Elm Fork of the Trinity River has returned to its secondary banks at last and the Sam Houston Trail Park on the Campión Trail is once again accessible, after two months of flooding. Riding my bike there today, I managed to get a few good photos, which are posted on Google Photos. First six in the gallery are from last fall, but the rest are from today.

Last night we turned off the lights early for Earth Hour, and went outside for a good long walk through the neighborhood and on the nearby Campion Trail.

The photo at right is nearly three years old, and represents one of the last good long night walks I had taken - that time at the beach in Port Aransas. While walking in Irving, TX is nowhere near as nice as walking the beach, it was still delightful. We saw no fireflies - too early, if they're out there. We saw and heard no owls, as I had hoped. But the tree shadows from a bright half-moon, overcoming the city glow, was magical in itself. This suburban dweller, overcome by too many street lights, had forgotten about the beauty of moon shadows.

Birds were not my friends as a child. For some reason birdsong in my backyard was an annoyance. I knew how to distinguish a handful of birds from one another, but they simply held no fascination. Reptiles were much more interesting. In hindsight, I think it was the call of the Northern Cardinal — possibly awakening me in the early hours — that caused my mild disdain. So how did I arrive at this point where birding brings me such joy?

Nature-lovers often speak about transcendent moments, occasions where some experience moved them to a profound awareness of life, the universe, and everything in it. For some, these are timeless minutes, forever memorable, forever inspiring. All of the senses align in memory, and perhaps a bit of wisdom descends in epiphany.

My transcendent moments are not so strong; perhaps that is from a weak sense of smell. Or perhaps because I seek out a low level extraordinary at every turn: the senses are not so overwhelmed in these daily moments, as the ordinary passes beyond rationality. These peek experiences do exist however, and as I sift through the shoebox of memory, two stand out at very different scales.

Beware, o ye who walks in the woods with me. For I cannot help myself: I must share. Look at this little fern over here. This is a nice soapberry tree. So many ant lion nests here! Did you hear the tsip sound? Do you think it's a Dark-eyed Junco or a Yellow-rumped Warbler?

I pray that it is not a subconscious showing-off, know-it-all thing. That accusation has stung me before, in the middle-school classroom. Consciously, I simply love drawing people's attention to that which fascinates me (and yes, please do return the favor). There is a wonder about the natural world, a wonder and a joy that is so great that it often cannot be contained. This joy is reason enough to share with friends and family.

Some folks grow up in households of privilege where trips to the family cabin / ranch / lake-house are common. We had the next best thing: a family friend generous enough to invite us along to The Ranch. Now, The Ranch has a more formal name, but its legend and personal history are best distinguished by turning the general, specific.