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Come back to this page each day to read another entry from Frederick R. Gehlbach's almanac of suburban natural and unnatural history, "Messages from the Wild," which chronicles the world of a forested ravine in central Texas.
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At dawn it is forty degrees. Enough damp and cold that I click the furnace back on and wish for sun. The temperature drop was thirty-five degrees last night. This time of year even fifty-degree changes in less than twenty-four hours aren't that unusual. Ten to fifteen degrees per hour is typical, often to freezing, followed by rises of five degrees per hour if the day is sunny. Today, though, no sun -- the right condition for soaked fox squirrels to evict screech owls from snug roosting cavities, and that's exactly what happens, as my attention is drawn to an afternoon scramble. Yesterday's singing female is routed, while her mate sits impassively in his red cedar roost. |
Frederick R. Gehlbach is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Baylor University. His ecological studies have taken him from New Zealand to Slovakia and, in the Americas, from Alaska and Newfoundland to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. His research interests include the life-history strategies of small owls, small burrowing snakes and urban wildlife ecology.
From MESSAGES FROM THE WILD: AN ALMANAC OF SUBURBAN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY by Frederick R. Gehlbach, Copyright © 2002. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.
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