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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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Years ago, we might rush to open windows to see and hear returning geese or sandhill cranes, traditional signs of spring. Today, windows are too often closed -- permanently. Folks sometimes confuse geese and cranes, but the cranes' long trailing legs and rollicking musical notes give them away. Many wheeling, swirling, lyrical flocks of dozens to hundreds of sandhills pass over in a day -- untold thousands in late February through March. Crane music is as instructive to me as goose music was to Aldo Leopold, because sandhills also need wetlands to feed and nest in, and much of that habitat has been drained and plowed for crops. Both cranes and geese speak of our separation from the wild orchestra. |
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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