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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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Autumn has been unbelievably wet this year, courtesy of several tropical storms spun off of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Wildflowers rebloom, including the usual false garlic, but also Mexican hat, standing cypress, and Texas marbleseed. The outburst, transferred to insect energy, induces many summer resident birds to remain for weeks past their normal migration time. Southward-moving monarchs are stalled by south winds that deliver our first-ever malachite butterfly and many immigrant zebras and Julias that bounce about in the lilting flight so typical of their tropical family. This experience is new to me. Is it a precursor of increasingly stormy weather associated with climatic warming? |
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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