At the Grasslands, With Bug Nerds

April 21, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

(I’ve been preoccupied with writing a series of articles about “nature kids” for Green Source Texas, and if you’d like to read the first one, it is available here. And so I thought I would re-post something from July of 2019. I was getting to know Meghan Cassidy, a wonderful woman who – with her wife Carly – has become family to my wife and me. I remember this walk from nearly seven years ago well, including that rat snake that bit Meghan!)

I’m seeing more of the LBJ National Grasslands this summer than I have in a while, and it’s been wonderful. The rainfall over the past eight or nine months have resulted in a bonanza of plant life, which leads to a bonanza of bug life, and so on down the food chain. Yesterday, I visited again with a couple of “bug nerd” friends (shorthand for “people who know a lot about invertebrates and other stuff I don’t know”).

*Prairies and oak woodlands of the Western Cross Timbers*

Actually, Meghan and Paul are all-around fans of the entire natural world, which is just my kind of folks. We talked about the Post Oaks and Blackjack Oaks which are the signature trees for this ecoregion, and Little Bluestem grass and Partridge Pea and what the difference might be between Meadow Pink and Prairie Gentian, and bent over to look at a hundred different plants. Meghan suggested it would be fun to come back and try to inventory all the diversity of grasses and forbs in a one-meter space, which we all agreed would be a long list.

But just as I am first and foremost a “herp nerd,” these guys are “bug nerds” and more specifically, Meghan specializes in spiders. It’s an interesting and probably helpful collaboration, as I still have enough residual arachnophobia that I won’t handle spiders (though I can examine and photograph them with no problem). As the sun neared the horizon after 7:00pm, we started noticing lots of the orb-weaving spiders that cast their nets between branches and across the trail. I admire the concentric lines in their webs, but hate running into them.

Then, as we talked about the three-lobed leaves of Blackjack Oak with the little spine at the end of the lobes, I spotted a favorite amphibian, resting quietly on one of those Blackjack leaves and waiting for night to fall. It was a Gray Treefrog, currently showing the mottled green color that they can assume when they are not mottled shades of gray. There was no telling which species of Gray Treefrog we were looking at, as Hyla versicolor (sometimes called the “Eastern Gray Treefrog”) and Hyla chrysoscelis (Cope’s Gray Treefrog) are just about indistinguishable except by their calls and their DNA. H. versicolor has a second set of chromosomes, so that they have twice the number of chromosomes as Cope’s Gray Treefrog. Cope’s also has a more rasping and less musical trill than the Eastern Gray Treefrog.

*Little Bluestem in the lengthening shadows of evening*

I’ve noticed that I didn’t take photos of the spiders we saw, but I did take a couple of photos of grassland insects. One was a stick insect we came across, and the other was one of the thousands of grasshoppers (and a few katydids) that scattered as we passed through.

*Grasshopper, with an ant disappearing behind a leaf at lower left*

The grasslands were beautiful as sunset approached and a nearly full moon took its place in the sky. We were privileged to be able to visit this place.

*Sunset on the grasslands, near Alvord, TX*

But we weren’t done yet. Some evening road-cruising failed to turn up the usual Broad-banded Copperheads, but we were treated to a couple of Western Ratsnakes. These snakes are harmless – or let’s just say that they are “non-venomous.” Completely mild-mannered when left alone, they are pugnacious when picked up. I picked up each one so we could examine these beautiful animals, and Meghan wanted to interact with them, too. Knowing they could not hurt her in any important way, she said that she was unconcerned about being bitten. The second one was more than willing to put that to the test, and promptly bit her. After we admired and then released the snake, we looked at the pattern of little punctures on her arm, and she was delighted to see how these snakes have two rows of palatine teeth (fixed to bones in the area where the palate would be in the upper part of the mouth) between the usual rows of maxillary teeth. Four rows of teeth! And being able to discuss and enjoy that little bit of natural history based on the bleeding evidence of your arm, that’s the sign of a real naturalist!

There’s No AI Here

April 20, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

(And there never will be)

I would like anyone reading what I write to know this: Artificial Intelligence has no place in this blog or any of my other writings; it’s a matter of integrity. By that I mean the integrity of our relationship, between writer and reader – what I offer you is real, and really comes from me, for better or worse.

In none of my books did AI play a role, in drafts or in final form. And when I write something for Green Source Texas, what I send to the editor is from my notes and my brain with no AI anywhere in the process.

I’m putting this out there because of the extent to which social media and corporations are coming to depend on this stuff, and I think it’s fundamentally dishonest. Perhaps there is a role for AI in some technical endeavors, but not here.

Enough

April 5, 2026 / Michael Smith / 2 Comments

For many indigenous people in the northeast part of North America, Windigo is a monster whose greed and hunger are completely insatiable. A human might become a Windigo when lost, starving and freezing. Or when the response to starvation is cannibalism. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes very eloquently about it: “The more a Windigo eats, the more ravenous it becomes. It shrieks with its craving, its mind a torture of unmet want” (Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 305).

She also finds the lesson, the cultural meaning behind it: “Born of our fears and our failings, Windigo is the name for that within us which cares more for its own survival than for anything else.”

The answer to the danger from Windigo is to take care of each other and to tame our greed, to know when we have enough. We look around us and see a world where too often greed is the operating principle. We are told from some quarters that taking care of each other is weakness and empathy is a sinful flaw. And yet today is the Christian celebration of the resurrection of one who taught the very opposite. One who would tell us to sell what we have and give it to the poor. That theme, taking care of each other and sharing what we have, is taught as wisdom in places all over the world.

And yet we live in a system that celebrates those who accumulate riches and allows a tiny fraction of us to hold unimaginable wealth while most of us struggle and some of us starve. If only there was a way to help everyone become satisfied, to say “enough.” I wish all of us had a sense of when there is enough and could stop with our acquisitiveness when we reach that point.

That would mean not creating that never ending sense of want, making us crave more no matter how much we have, making ourselves a Windigo that cannot be satisfied. We are capable of knowing when we have enough, knowing how to share when there is plenty. We need stories about mutual flourishing and care, about gratitude for abundance and banding together to get through hard times. We need teachers and role models who can say, “enough.”

A short, readable book about living in this way, from one of the great teachers, is The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I wish I could give a copy to everyone who hasn’t read it. Please get it and share it. It’s $20 from the publisher, or only about $10-11 at Amazon if you must.

A Letter About Attention and Mindfulness

March 25, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

The latest of the “Letters to Nature Kids” is about how I like to use my attention when taking a walk in nature. It describes noticing your breathing and then imagining that your attention is like a light that you can turn toward one thing and another.

I wrote, “When you are outside, try imagining that your attention is a light that you can shine on one thing or another. Put the light on a tree and keep it there for a count of five (or more). Then turn the light toward something nearby and count how long you can keep your attention there.”

This is borrowed from mindfulness, though I’m not trying to teach meditation in this letter. I just want to share some ways to really notice and enjoy things and help strengthen the ability to pay attention.

In the letter, I wrote, “You start narrowing your attention – your flashlight – to a particular flower that has something in it. The flashlight beam gets so narrow that you have to get down near the flower to focus attention that much. The insect is a tiny baby form of a katydid, and look at those black-and-white antennae! Keep the focused light of your attention there a little longer.” The point is to be able to direct our attention purposefully and stay with something long enough to really explore it, like the colors and structure of that primrose flower.

If you know someone who might be interested in this, please share it. Letters to Nature Kids is always a free download (there’s a donation button in the right column of the website for anyone who feels inclined). You can browse all those 25+ letters on the Letters to You page.

Journal: Canyon Ridge

March 18, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

18 March 2026 – Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge 12:10-2:16pm

Along the Canyon Ridge Trail, Lone Point and the surrounding area is a favorite. The rocky remains of the old CCC structure are atop the ridge with limestone, yucca, and live oak. Today I started my walk from below the ridge, near the lakeshore, where a pair of tufted titmice were hopping around in understory and low tree branches.

On the way up to the ridge, there were lots of bird calls in the woodland. Merlin identified the calls of red-shouldered hawk, tufted titmouse, white-eyed vireo, Carolina wren, red-bellied woodpecker, and northern cardinal. Once I reached the ridge, there was also blue jay, red-winged blackbird, and ruby-crowned kinglet.

Right away I saw a young Texas spiny lizard who ducked under the old concrete picnic table. I would see the same lizard on my way out, and a couple of others elsewhere on the ridge. Just one more way in which spring seems already to be going strong.

The top of the ridge is a limestone-based savanna with live oak, pale leaf yucca, and prickly pear. Butterflies were active, including sulphurs, goatweed leafwings, and a little crescent visiting what appeared to be crow poison beginning to flower.

There are not a lot of flowers yet, but a small blue flower caught my eye along the trail. It was meadow flax, according to iNaturalist, an annual with either white or blue flowers. It’s new to me, but with my limited knowledge that’s not saying much.

Back at the Lone Point structure, I sat for a while and noticed that Texas spiny lizard I had seen earlier. She or he was back at the top of the toppled stone picnic table, basking and reminding me just a little bit of the collared lizards I’ve seen playing king-of-the-hill on boulders at Palo Duro Canyon. Very impressive, little lizard – and thanks for sharing a bit of your afternoon with me.

Journal: Wind and Sky

March 16, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

15 March 2026 – Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve 1:55-3:10pm.

A quick walk on a windy day, as the mid-80s warmth prepared to tumble back into winter for brief reminder that winter has a few more things to say. It was constantly breezy, and then the wind would gust and send the crowns of trees into a spasm of bend-and-rebound. Up close, the upper trunks and branches moved and yet were rigid, a contest between strength and pliability. From further away, the crowns of trees seemed to dance and bow to each other.

Once or twice, strength and rigidity failed and branches snapped or trunks fractured. I did not witness this and did not want to, especially not while standing below the tree. I kept an eye out for crowns that had not sprouted leaves, trees that might be dead or weakened, without the flexibility to remain standing.

At the bluff, I lay back and looked at the blue sky whose currents above me were invisible. When we cannot see the torrents of wind or the languid movement of air on a calm day, we may forget that the atmosphere above is like the water below us. It may slide overhead like a big, lazy river or it may rush along like a mountain stream, shoving and rearranging whatever it touches. As I lay there, streaks of wispy cloud were blown in from the west, looking like fingers reaching toward us. Soon the whole hand was above us, and so I imagined the upper winds were speeding along like those at ground level.

As I walked down the south face of the hill I thought about how little activity I had seen. Even the dragonflies’ flight was no match for this wind, and the couple of birds I saw in flight were really struggling. When the wind is blowing like this, the butterflies are grounded. Even the honeybees barely ventured out of their tree.

Wind dance

For a human, it was a good time to take a walk and feel the power of the air when it is really moving. In some places those wind currents are causing trouble and damage to other people, and I wish that was not happening. Where I walked, it was no more than what the woodlands are adapted to (mostly) withstand every spring.

A Spring Journal Entry from Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve

March 14, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

Yesterday I spent an hour and a half at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve on a spring afternoon full of wonderful things. I wrote the following at the Friends of Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve blog, and I hope you’ll go visit there. But meanwhile I have reproduced it below.

March 13, 2026 – Clear sky, breezy, and temperature in the mid-70s at 3:00pm.

I’m starting to think of spring as beginning when March arrives, as opposed to the more official date of March 20th. Trees are leafing out and flowers are popping up like the delightful crowpoison, which grows from a bulb and looks a little like wild onion but is not. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says, “Some references list this species as poisonous to humans. The jury is still out about its toxicity to crows.” That part about toxicity to crows sounds a little tongue-in-cheek, but it makes for a fascinating name for the plant.

*A mournful thyris visiting a cluster of crowpoison flowers*

The flowers were visited by several small mournful thyris moths. These are black-and-white moths that fly during the day early in the year and reportedly just for a few weeks. It’s another species with a name that makes me want to find the story, but so far I have not found a reason for it to be mournful. Even its species name makes me curious (Pseudothyris sepulchralis, where “sepulchralis” seems to refer to a sepulchre, that is, a tomb carved in rock).

Meanwhile at the north pond, dragonflies were flying and turtles were basking in sunshine, including a pair of red-eared-sliders sharing a small branch of wood at the water’s surface. Those pond turtles are active even on warmer winter days, but spring sunshine makes them seem very content – though that is a perception from a human point of view that could be completely off-base.

I tried to capture the overall look of the woodland in a photo that, seen on a phone’s little screen, is probably very plain. But the crowns of trees are covered in a sort of mist of pale green, the budding of new leaves and the catkins of the oaks. I checked to be sure of the details because I’m not a botanist or even a knowledgeable plant person, but catkins are the dangling strings of the male flowers of oaks. They will be releasing the yellow pollen that coats your windshields, sidewalks, and noses in the coming weeks. And with any luck, they find their way to the female flowers on the oak trees, which are much less conspicuous.

*New blackjack leaves – notice the spines at the end of each leaf lobe*

The other thing that always seems wonderful to me is how the blackjack oak leaves come in as little red leaves, then turn such a wonderful deep green later on, and next autumn may once again be red – or yellow or some combination – before dropping to the ground.

*Blunt woodsia growing in a protected spot along with some moss*

Along the north side of the woodland, where it meets the patch of prairie, there are shaded spots and little embankments where the land moves up toward the top of the hill. In one of those shaded places I saw a fern that you can find around the hillside and up toward the bluff. It is the blunt woodsia, also called by a couple of other common names like blunt-lobed woodsia. Finding these little ferns, or the various mosses or even liverworts, brings you to a different perspective, like looking at tiny worlds existing in the shaded places in the preserve where moisture is not too scarce.

*The grand old post oak designated as the Caddo oak, after the Caddo people who once lived in the area*

I walked by the Caddo oak, a huge post oak designated as a historic tree by the Texas Historic Tree Coalition, and its crown is speckled with new green leaves, just as it has done every year for roughly 200 years.

Nearby, I watched a medium to large bird sail through trees and across a part of the north prairie, disappearing into understory and trees to the west. I immediately thought of the northern harrier, a graceful hawk that tends to hunt on the wing, flying low and listening for rodent movement. This bird had the right shape and the kind of flight I would expect with a harrier, and I saw that this brownish bird had some white markings but I could not spot the white band that should go across the base of the tail. So I just don’t know. I noticed that Brent Franklin saw one here at the preserve in 2018, which helps make it plausible, but of course doesn’t confirm my observation today.

Walking around the blue loop, I saw a couple of mourning doves near the boulder trail. They were behind a sort of thicket and did not seem perturbed by me and my camera about twenty feet away. They were probably foraging for seeds along the ground.

*Texas spiny lizard, watching me carefully*

On the way down the south-facing hill, glint of reflected sunlight caught my eye. It turned out to be reflected off the back of a male Texas spiny lizard clinging to a small tree trunk. He eyed me in that way that these common lizards do, making his best guess about whether to remain motionless and hopefully unseen, or quickly scurry around to the other side of the trunk. After I took a photo as I moved around him slowly and hoped not to scare him, he quickly scooted around the trunk and out of sight.

It was certainly a walk full of wonderful things today. Everywhere I went there was butterfly and moth activity, either more of the mournful thyris moths or else goatweed leafwings, sulphurs, or a swallowtail or two. And the southern dewberries are blooming with those beautiful white flowers.

*Southern dewberry, which will feed birds and other wildlife later in the year*

A Letter About Nature Kids and Palmetto SP

March 9, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

You may recall that I write periodically to “nature kids.” It’s a free pdf download from the Letters To You page, written for older kids and teens who are drawn to wild places and the things that live there.

This time I included a bit about why I write these letters. Some of it is about sharing places and experiences that may encourage young people to go see preserves, parks, and such places themselves. As an example, I talked about Ruthann’s and my trip to Palmetto State Park in 2022. (I also blogged about it here.)

If you know any kids who would be interested in this current letter, please share it with them (in print or via a link). I mentioned that I’m currently writing about nature kids in several articles for Green Source Texas and noted that – with parent permission – I very much would like to talk with a couple of serious nature kids. And thanks!

Old Friends and Familiar Places

March 7, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

Climbing to the top of the hill, I pass some friends I see often when I walk this trail. They aren’t people, they are other-than-human relatives like the bees in the bee tree. And the tree with the hole at the bottom like a window into a shelter where a woodland sprite might live. The blue jays hollering at each other like schoolboys, and on really warm days, the Texas spiny lizard hanging on to a tree trunk watching for an insect to eat.

Many Native American cultures see the rocks, waters, trees, and wildlife as our relatives, and many of the rest of us are beginning to understand that wisdom.

From year to year I can count on these friends. No matter how crazy the world gets, they are nearby, doing what they do. It is never boring. That is partly because each season is different. The winter woodland is full of bare branches and beautiful brown colors of the leaf litter on the ground, with the calls of crows and songs of cardinals. It’s the deep blue water of the pond, with sparkling ripples from the winter breeze.

*Flowering plum and juniper on a hillside*

In spring, the angle of sunlight changes and the branches and twigs swell with leaf buds. Plum trees bloom and later, flowers like spiderwort, spotted beebalm, and toadflax cover the soft, sandy soil. The air is sweet, and the night comes alive with frog calls.

It keeps on like that in every season. The peak time for one thing ends, and a new thing begins, like a kaleidoscope in which each turn of the season brings a new pattern and new colors, and each one is beautiful.

The place is never boring, even after visiting it for twelve years. I walk past the same oak trees, say hello to the same Glen Rose yuccas, and I might see some of the same crows (I can’t tell individual crows, but they’re observant and smart, and they can recognize individual humans). It’s a comforting stability, with old friends and places that won’t disappear.

I think that sometimes when we are restless and need some new diversion, some new thing happening or new stuff to buy, it’s because we are anxious or feeling low even if we are not aware of it. We want to maintain this distraction from our distress, and if we don’t get it, we call that boredom. It’s like we’re careening downhill in a moving vehicle trying to dodge random crises, and we want something to take our minds off the fear and not fall into despair.

Something that I think helps is to find islands and refuges of stability. That could be friends and family who provide companionship, steadiness, judgment, love, and support no matter what. It might be found in works of music. And I think places in nature can give us a sense that the world contains goodness and that some good things will not abandon us or be taken away.

In nature there are many places we can get to know and count on. A creek does not pretend to be someone they are not, and a prairie will not “ghost” you. The woods will not assail you with news of conflict and violence, and the pond will gladly let you be still and watch the shimmering reflections of trees as the breeze kisses the water’s surface.

When you go there and stand among the trees or sit beside the water, it helps to be there fully, mind and body. If we can’t let go of the worries about tomorrow or the discomfort of something that happened in the past, we will barely be awake to the woods and ponds. That’s where mindfulness comes in. By paying attention to breathing, we bring ourselves into the present, and by noticing our thoughts and feelings, we can release them and not be caught up in them. And as we stay in the present, accepting whatever is happening without wanting to change it or add to it, those moments can be wonderful. They can be healing.

Some notes from my walk on March 3^rd: “Walking around the crown of the hill, I got a look – from 30 or so feet away – at a roadrunner who looked at me warily and then ran on along the trail. There are butterflies, the bee tree is busy, and at least some oaks are starting to leaf out. Lying under bare oak branches and a blue sky with wispy clouds, at least twice I felt the tiniest sensation of a droplet on my face, and there is a very small drop, crystal clear, on my glasses. I suppose it might be rising sap released where buds are starting?”

Each season is a deepening relationship with this preserve and all that lives there. I hope that you have such a place, whether it’s a National Grassland with thousands of acres or a little patch of wildness in a city park. Get to know it, let it seep into your bones so that you’re like family to each other. Bring your human family, too, and get to know each other.

Wilderness as a Liminal Space

February 22, 2026February 22, 2026 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

I read a post from Diana Butler Bass about the wilderness, saying she hated it. My impulse was to go on to something else, because someone who hates wilderness could not have anything meaningful to say to me, right? Bass is a Christian writer (I would say among the progressive Christians) and she was writing in part about the temptations of Jesus after spending 40 days in the desert. But she was particularly interested in the wilderness as a liminal space, an in-between transitional borderland that may feel so unfamiliar as to be disorienting or frightening.

Most of my experience with the wilderness has been in the Big Bend region of Texas, with deserts and mountains relatively untamed by modern humans. Yes, there are roads and visitor centers, but not many. Yes, the Basin is a tourist destination with a resort and hiking trails up into the Chisos Mountains. But in the Big Bend it is easy to get to a place where you are unlikely to encounter anyone, it is quiet, and smartphones are mute and useless for a time. How can you hate it?

I admit that the prospect of spending 40 days there with no car and no easy source of water or food makes me uneasy. But in my mind those are just practical considerations; being in that wilderness is something that otherwise sounds wonderful. But I think I understand where Bass is coming from with her talk of it being a liminal place. She says,

The wilderness is an encounter with what is otherwise unknowable. We contend with that which the cozy and familiar obscures. … And there is no wilderness without danger. There is no liminal space without danger. This is the fearsome holy, the unsettling sacred. – Diana Butler Bass

The “fearsome holy” and “unsettling sacred” sound to me like ways of talking about awe. That emotion – awe – involves being taken out of that familiar perception of “having it together” and knowing what’s going on. We generally think of awe as a good experience when confronted with things like beauty or moral courage. The psychologist Dacher Keltner, in his wonderful book about awe, defines in this way:

Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world. – Dacher Keltner, Awe, p. 7

Bass talks about the wilderness opening us up to whatever “the cozy and familiar obscures.” After you strip those things away, what then? She recalled sitting in Wyoming among petroglyphs and thinking about the people who, over a thousand years ago, went into the wilderness. Perhaps they had visions, or maybe, out there with only themselves, they had spiritual experiences that cut to the heart of who they were and what they would do if tempted to be someone they were not. Was their belief or their identity tested by an impulse to throw themselves down from the mountaintop? Was this a place of testing, discovering the strength or limit of who they were and what they believed?

I’ve been to the Big Bend plenty of times, and experienced awe frequently. Not necessarily a primal testing of who I am or what I believe, but the stripping away of the cozy and familiar so that you feel yourself in some more essential way, and you might reconsider how you fit within that vast, beautiful space.

In Mindfulness in Texas Nature, I wrote about places where we can look for miles without seeing houses and cars:

…places where, when we look around us, we do not see a mirror reflecting ourselves. I think there should be places where we are able to say, “This is what nature is like if we leave it alone.” When almost every place reflects back something about ourselves, does that foster an unhealthy self-preoccupation? We are estranged from, and many of us are a little afraid of, truly wild places. – p.123

I wish we could, all of us, come to love wilderness and vow to protect it for each other and for its own sake. Wilderness as a liminal space, a place that brings us back to our essential selves, where we can experience awe or even some dislocation as we get a perspective about who we are and maybe where we want to go with ourselves.