Last September, after flipping over to Substack for a while, I came back here as the home base for my writing. I did not want to get too caught up in trying to get paid subscriptions, which is Substack’s business model. Anyway, there were several factors which I won’t bore you with. Now, embarrassingly, I find myself flopping back. Again, there are several factors in the decision, but I guess the bottom line is that I’m a flip-flopper.
I have created a Substack newsletter and called it Rain Lilies, with a focus not so different from this blog. I wrote, “I hope that what you will read here will be like those beautiful flowers that suddenly emerge after a rain, offering what might be a moment of unexpected wonder. Maybe it could offer a bit of insight into how we are a part of the natural world around us. Rain Lilies also takes a bit of inspiration from our wonderful granddaughter’s name.”
At Rain Lilies I plan to keep writing about nature and our place in it. I also have in mind a continuation of the “Letters to Nature Kids” idea, as well as news or comments about my books and related activities.
I do hope you will give Rain Lilies a try. You’ll have the opportunity to be a paid subscriber, and I’ll offer some things to make that worthwhile. However, most of my stuff will be available to free subscribers. This site will continue for now with the pages of information and downloadable materials, particularly in the area of herpetology.
So far this year, Tarrant County rainfall is about 3 inches above normal according to drought.gov. At Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve, the plants have responded with an explosion of growth and flowers.
Walking up the switchback trail to the bluff, I have never seen so many spiderworts, their blue-purple flowers dotting the trail’s edge and the openings in the woodlands. Engelmann’s daisies grew in a few of the sunny spots, and the brighter yellows of chickory were common.
It was cloudy, and an Arlington weather source said that it was 61 degrees. The next day was predicted to be full of rain; I could imagine tomorrow’s shining raindrops on the leaves and the water soaking into the sandy places and forming pools where there is clay. But during my walk it was cool and dry.
Firewheel
At the boulders the green stems and leaves of vetch are overflowing and the bees and butterflies are feasting on clusters of purple flowers. And there were a couple of patches of firewheel (Indian blanket).
Question mark butterfly
The butterflies scattered up from the trail as I walked, including sulphurs, red admirals, and question marks. This last butterfly has a small mark on the underside of the hind wing that is said to look like a question mark, but for the most part with wings folded it looks like a dead leaf and the opened wings are a beautiful study in smudged and burnt orange.
It’s remarkable how different plant species have their time and then move on. The year progresses in a “kaleidoscope of color” as each one has its appointed time. There was no sign of toadflax blooms, even though only recently they seemed like the prominent flowers of the hillside. Near the trailhead, Maximilian sunflower was getting started, although we won’t see their blooms for some time.
Change is constant; nothing stays the same. The woods, prairie openings, and ponds change from season to season, and even within a season everything is in motion. And yet it’s the same place, a constant familiar presence even as it constantly shifts. How wonderful is that!
Engelmann daisy behind new growth of Maximilian sunflowerRipening dewberries
In her book, Wild DFW, Amy Martin says that people like her and me are “creek kids.” Each of us spent some formative years wandering nearby creeks. In my case the creek was my second home from about age 12 until high school, sometimes going with a friend or two and sometimes spending most of the day there by myself. For Amy and for me, the creek played a part in creating a lifelong love of nature. What would have happened, had we not had a creek, or a woods, or a prairie? I strongly suspect that if childhood slips away before we have had a close acquaintance with some place in nature, it might be too late. If there had been no creek, maybe I would have an intellectual or aesthetic interest in nature, but I don’t see how it could ever feel like home. For a creek kid, the attachment to places in nature and the things that live there is visceral. It’s like a beloved sibling, not a casual acquaintance.
The creek in early April of this year
My creek was and is in western Tarrant County in what originally was prairie with black soil above white limestone. It sometimes filled up and ran like a raging river, but mostly it flowed quietly in a small stream from one pool to the next over that limestone. Under overhanging tree branches the water was sometimes crystal clear and cool, and mostly I had sense enough not to drink it. It was, in the early 1960s, full of wildlife, enough to keep me coming back day after day during the summer. My passionate interest was herpetology, but I was learning to love the armadillos, herons, and sunfish along with the reptiles and amphibians.
The creek is still there, but much has been lost in the 60 years since I first walked and waded it. The spaces between pools, those broad gravel bars and broken slabs of limestone, were inhabited by greater earless lizards in colors of pale gray and chalk white. They would run ahead and stop, waving their tails to expose black bars underneath (perhaps meant to confuse or disorient a predator). I haven’t seen one at the creek in many years. Ribbonsnakes used to thread their way through stream side vegetation, hunting for cricket frogs. When spooked, these slender harmless snakes would swim across the pools with bright orange and cream-colored stripes glistening in the sunlight. They seem mostly to be gone as well, at least at my creek. As populations of wildlife disappear here and there, younger generations know of them only through the memories of us older naturalists, or they may never know what is missing (see the article on shifting baseline syndrome).
I keep coming back, though the city’s development has forced me to find access points further upstream. Occasionally I will bring someone, but it’s a little like in Mary Oliver’s poem, “How I Go to the Woods” – those who smile and talk too much are kind of unsuitable, and if I do take someone, it is a person with whom I feel comfortable and close.
Fleabane growing on the banks of the creek
In particular, my visits there with Elijah have been important to me and, I think, to him. He is not quite a grandson but I’ve known him since he was born, so he’s family. I first took him to see the creek when he was six, and we’ve visited on and off since then. I described one such visit in an issue of “Letters to Nature Kids.” Giving kids time in nature, introducing them to the turtles and fish and other things that set the engines of curiosity and wonder in motion, that feels like part privilege and part responsibility. Taking my granddaughter for a walk to see birds and draw in the sand on the path through the woods is a great pleasure, and I think it is more than that. It is planting seeds that might, if she chooses, grow into a source of joy and connection with the world around her.
Blackstripe topminnows at my creek
So my creek is still there and has not been swallowed up by the city. I imagine kids playing in that creek and exploring it as I once did. I imagine it, but I do not see it. I have not seen anyone who appeared to be playing or learning about the life of that creek in a long time. Is this part of the cultural trend that Richard Louv wrote about in Last Child in the Woods? He documented the increasing tendency for children to play inside, to spend their time in front of screens, with little time in woods and fields. As parents, we may worry that no place out of our sight is safe. For a child to be outdoors for an extended time away from contact with a parent seems neglectful to many people. Yet I survived and thrived at the creek with no cell phone, just a watch and a rendezvous time for mom to pick me up.
I hope you have a creek, and that you take your kids or somebody’s kids there. I know that it might not be a creek; it could be a woods or a pond or some other place in nature. I would love to hear about it in the comments – either a place in your memory or some place you can visit right now. And I hope that you can visit it, for an hour or a day.
A near-perfectly camouflaged cricket frog, hoping that I’ll walk on byBlue water-speedwell, according to iNaturalist, growing along the creek
Spring is fully underway and it’s not yet April. Things are green and growing, and the insects – the beetles, flies, dragonflies, damselflies, skippers, and butterflies – are busy. On March 27 I wandered the trails at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve, up the hill to the bluff and over to the boulders. There were filmy high clouds but it felt sunny and the breeze was cool. A nearby weather station reported that it was 65 degrees and felt like 74.
Spiderwort
Many of the oaks were leafed out and a few stragglers were still putting out small leaves tinged in red. Along the trail’s edge there were some spiderworts with their deep blue flowers, three petals surrounding a cluster of yellow anthers. And everywhere I looked in the sandy soil of the hillside, it seemed that I saw Texas toadflax. I’ve really looked forward to this!
Texas toadflax
Last year, toadflax really captured my imagination. I wrote:
“To tell the truth, part of the reason I’ve focused on them … is that name – “toadflax” – which immediately made me think of The Wind in the Willows. A plant with such a name surely belongs in an old children’s tale centered on the English countryside with animals such as the toad.”
Even if it had a completely unimaginative name, I would think this delicate-looking plant was worth paying attention to with its tall stems and pale violet flowers.
Near the top of the hill there is an area with plenty of southern dewberries, and on one of the flowers was a pretty black-and-white moth called the “mournful thyris.” That’s just the kind of name that gets me wondering about how it was named, and an internet search or two did not yield much. Thyris is part of the name of the family – the group of moths – to which this one belongs. The word is said to be a Greek reference to “window,” and they have a spot on the wing that is translucent, like a sort of window. But why is this one mournful? I looked for a window into its grief but could find nothing. If any readers know the origin of the name, please share with us in the comments.
Mournful thyris moth on southern dewberry
I walked the rest of the way to the bluff, along the way seeing beautiful yellow woodsorrel in a few places, with leaves reminding me of clover. Up on the bluff there were places with groups of what appeared to be leastdaisy, with tiny white flowers. It can be so rewarding to pay attention to little things like this, just stopping and maybe getting on hands and knees to get to know something small and magical.
Some leastdaisies at the bluff
There were plenty of butterflies – skippers, sulphurs, and a couple of beautiful tiger swallowtails. And the soundtrack to this lovely spring day was provided by a Carolina wren’s calling, with a blue jay heard in the distance. There were cardinals, too, and it sounded like an ideal spring day. I’m waiting for that first Texas spiny lizard on a tree trunk, which will add that perfect touch to a delightful day. I’m sure I’ll see one soon.
We may feel big, like the most important thing in the Universe, re-shaping the planet and living in worlds of technology and invention. We have been to the moon and back; we could, in a fit of international rage, make the planet unlivable (we came close during my lifetime, and might again). We have created an industrial system that is currently making the planet unlivable, but being like gods, we are sure that we can continue to live anyway.
But some of us don’t feel so big, at least on a collective level. Sure, we sometimes make the mistake of grandiosity as individuals, but we aren’t convinced that we have special rights to convert our world into the exclusive garden of Homo sapiens. We feel a relationship with the living things around us that includes respect and relatedness. We may be consumers, but we’d rather it not be in the industrial sense of consumer and product.
Many of us seek connection with something bigger than we are. Sometimes we sit and look at the heavens and see something so big that it reminds us of our true size. We might experience awe and gratitude. At such times, we might have a desire to relieve suffering or add to the goodness of the world. Could we describe those feelings and that intentionality as prayer?
Practitioners of forest therapy sometimes ask the woods for permission to enter a particular spot. Treating trees, rocks, or rivers as sentient, as beings whose wishes need to be considered, also appears in some Native American cultures and in ancient Japanese Shinto practices. A person might wade into a stream and say “thank you for your cool, clear water.” They might silently say, “May my presence here cause no harm.”
Are such things prayers? I don’t know the answer, but I do greatly value our experiences of awe, of gratitude, of stepping outside of ourselves to connect with something greater. I wish that those things, along with humility and acceptance of the limits of our understanding, were more common.
Like many of us in the U.S. I grew up periodically attending a Christian church and learning the basic stories. I was of course taught it as outright history, not as myth and metaphor. No one questioned how Noah collected pairs of all the world’s animals or got them all on a handmade boat. We learned that praying was talking to God, imagined as an old man like in the Renaissance paintings. Maybe talking but usually asking – for forgiveness or for rescue from danger and disease. Or maybe for stuff we wanted.
I’m not promoting that, and I would go along with those critics who point out that throughout the ages, organized religion has been a great source of misery for many (and a malignant source of personal power and enrichment for quite a few). Jesus’ teachings described a radical love for all, envisioning a society turned upside-down, with the high and privileged brought low and the poor and humble elevated. All this was quickly transformed into a religion in which the right beliefs allowed us to escape eternal torture. Popes dressed in splendor and wielded immense power; so much for the privileged being brought low.
And now we have prosperity gospels claiming that being rich is a reward from God (and therefore being poor must be a sign of failure). So much for elevating the poor. Christian Nationalism is a movement seeking essentially to turn the U.S. into a theocracy, welding the beliefs of the church onto the power of the state. No wonder Christianity is losing ground. A Pew Research Center study finds that fewer people in the U.S. identify as Christian, and 29% say that they are atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular.”
So should we throw away the idea of prayer, along with the rest of religion? Even when the prosperity preachers and dominionists have gone away, our capacity for awe and our tendency to believe that there is something bigger than us will remain. Many of us will still seek a connection beyond ourselves.
Some might consider prayer to be very abstract, a process of opening oneself to the beauty and symmetry of a flower or the immense dome of the sky overhead. There is awe and gratitude in those moments, transcending oneself and feeling a part of such things, of all of creation.
Others may pray in a very direct and personal way, such as Willie Nelson describes in one of the songs from the album, Spirit:
“Remember the family, Lord?
I know they will remember You
And all of their prayers, Lord
They talk to You just like I do”
– Willie Nelson, “Too Sick to Pray”
A famous prayer of St. Francis, the “Canticle of the Sun,” expresses gratitude to the Lord for Brother Sun and Sister Moon, as well as for the wind and air, the water, and Mother Earth. There is also gratitude for those people who forgive and endure trials in their lives. He saw all of creation as a wonderful gift, and all the parts of it – including ourselves – related like siblings.
That brings to mind the Thanksgiving Address of the Onondaga Nation of Native Americans. Some of us first encountered it in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass. Is it a prayer? (Kimmerer says it is not.) From the descriptions I have read, it is a powerful way to affirm the group’s identity and values, its gratitude and the relationship of reciprocity between the people and the rest of nature. Participants in a meeting or students in a classroom recite words beginning with these:
“Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one.”
Subsequent portions of the Address express thanks to the Earth, to the waters, the plants, animals, and ultimately “to the Creator, the Great Spirit.” Each time, there is the refrain, “Now our minds are one.”
Chanting, singing, or reciting something in unison can be a powerful way of transcending oneself. Joining our voice with those of others, we are more than just our individual selves, and perhaps we become something greater. And perhaps that is like prayer.
“To whom do you pray,” some might ask, wanting to know what deity we recognize. But there is more than one way to conceive of the divine. One can have a spiritual life without personifying God as a human-like figure modeled after fathers and kings. Neither does God have to be personified as a mountain or a flower; maybe the Creator need not be personified at all. Maybe it’s all much more abstract than that, and maybe it’s unknowable.
It’s not like I have answers. I’m just thinking out loud, into the keyboard, pulling in the bits and pieces that I’ve read and heard and imagining that prayer is broader than what most of us heard in church as we grew up.
Sitting beside the Trinity River, on the Crosstimbers Trail, I wrote, “The place is so big that it makes the voices of the occasional human visitors seem small.” On a warm Friday in February, there were quite a few people at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, making bigness an important quality if the trail was going to live up to the name “refuge.”
This is a big place, as nature centers go. Its 3,621 acres are loved by many, and that is partly because it is big enough for a little solitude. The Crosstimbers trail borders the river for the first half-mile or so, and that’s a popular walk for people who want to see the water and maybe hope to see a ‘gator. Once the trail bends back into the woods, there are fewer people, and once you get pretty far back on that loop trail, you might be on your own for a good while.
Two red-eared sliders – an old melanistic male and a younger one on the log below him
I got started at 10:40am on a day when thin clouds could not hide the sun and you could walk comfortably in a t-shirt. I watched a great blue heron fly over the nearby marsh and said hello to the cooters and sliders basking on fallen logs and branches in the water. There were plenty of American coots swimming nearby.
Three American coots swimming in the river
The bottomland forests beside the river were full of stately old trees – cottonwoods and other species – and they are often entwined with one or another climbing vine including poison ivy. One old cottonwood tree has huge vines braiding around its trunk.
Bare woody branches of shrubs frequently contained a spray of bright red berries where a kind of holly called possumhaw grows. And around me in the woods were the calls of many birds, including Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, and northern cardinal (identified by the Merlin bird ID app). My thermometer showed that it was 71.8F at 11:25am.
Then it was time to follow the trail back into the woods. There are plenty of oaks; big bur oaks with big notched leaves and the post oaks that are a signature species of the Cross Timbers region. There is ash, cedar elm, and some hackberry trees. Here and there the woodland opens up to a little glade or pocket prairie with native grasses. I took a few photos on the “pano” setting because today the place seemed so big that only a very wide photo might do it justice.
The trail leads through galleries of old trees and the land slopes away to the north toward a wetland. On the other side, the woodlands and open grassy patches gently climb toward a high place. On my walk, the winds seemed to shift around 11:35am and become cooler.
At what seems to be the highest point, there is a bench, perfect for sitting and taking in the wonderful forms of the trees, the carpet of dropped leaves, and the birds. Today it was very quiet and peaceful.
I started back, and as I walked the breeze scattered leaves ahead of me on the trail. That breeze was strengthening and making its voice heard through the tangle of trees. The branches shredded the current of air. Sometimes it was a whoosh and sometimes a soft roar, falling away to silence.
As I got further along, at one point I looked down the trail to see two deer looking back at me. They were silent and still as statues, sizing me up and deciding if I was a source of trouble. After a moment, the group took off, with those white tails flashing a warning to the rest of the group.
Two white-tailed deer froze on the trail as I came into view
When I reached the river and sat on a bench, there was the chatter of a belted kingfisher somewhere nearby (though I could not see it). Merlin also identified the call of a northern flicker. The thin clouds were pulling apart, and when the sun shone down it felt warm. The temperature had fallen a little to 67.6F, but in the little nook where I sat on my bench, the sunshine felt good.
The kingfisher clattered persistently. Another bird came in for a dramatic fast landing, wingbeats skimming the surface of the river. The bird then paddled around as if nothing had happened, sometimes diving down into the water. With the lens on my camera I got a good enough look to see that it was a pied-billed grebe.
Pied-billed grebe
The relatively thick bill with a dark ring around it was a giveaway. The Cornell website gave more information about what I observed about its diving: it was hunting. This bird likes crayfish and also eats small fish, dragonfly larvae, and it would not mind a leech or a small frog.
In that last hour I was grateful to have seen no one along the trail, and was happy to be by myself. I do like walking with others, but on some days like today, the solitude was peaceful. I am so thankful that Fort Worth has one of the biggest urban preserves in the country – and that it “feels” big.
Mild winter days are a gift, one that can make us uneasy and yet grateful for the soft warmth of sunshine in midwinter woods. The uneasiness comes when we recognize that the gift often comes from climate change. A recent Texas Monthly article reported that this past December was 4 to 5 degrees warmer than average, and that January of last year was the sixth warmest ever seen in Texas. In winter, our off-the-rails warming climate can feel good, but it is still brought to us by the worsening climate catastrophe.
Let’s get to the gratefulness part; while some days I try to wrap my head around climate issues and see what I can do, on other days I want to accept the wonder and joy that nature gives. On those days I’ll live in today, not next year or last year. Even as I sit under a blue sky, surrounded by the sheltering oaks, some part of me knows where the gift comes from, but that will not spoil the day. And so here are a couple of slightly edited entries from my journal, reflecting solitude and time in the woods at my favorite preserve.
On February 1st I made my way to the top of the hill under a sunny sky with no clouds. The local weather service said that it was 73F. I was on a little-used trail and the traffic noise was in the background. There was a sense of quiet because the noise seemed distant and subdued. I noticed a little chatter of crows. Nearby it was quiet and peaceful, warmed by the afternoon sun and surrounded by oaks reaching their bare branches up into the blue sky.
It was as if I had a distant memory of sleeping outside on such a day, in a peaceful place with all noise far away. Being lulled to the edge of sleep with a warm sun and soft breeze, in the close company of trees. Or perhaps it just seemed like a perfect place to drift away.
And then a strong breeze blew through, dislodging a remaining leaf or two. “Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree-tops…” Will the bough break? The cradle fall? What a strange lullaby.
A fungus in delicate and beautiful concentric rings
On February 4th it was partly cloudy and a little less warm (61F, reportedly) but at the start of the walk it was mostly sunny. The clouds that moved through were low, thick and heavy, slipping eastward and sometimes hiding the sun. After making my way up to the boulders, I wandered down the trail past lots of small sulphur butterflies and found a small wasp in a tangle of dewberries. Nearby, a Carolina chickadee called from low branches. Blue jays fussed somewhere as the breeze came and went, blowing a few loose leaves.
A small wasp that survived the recent freeze
I came back to the sandstone bluff, and the movement of clouds was putting on a delightful show. Using my shoes as a pillow I lay on the rocks and watched those clouds. Sometimes the thicker gray clouds obscured the sun, and I was glad for my jacket, and then the sun re-emerged with wonderful radiant heat.
Looking up at clouds
There were low clouds still sliding to the east, sometimes wispy and light, and other times wet and gray. High above those, a layer of clouds slowly crept in from the north. Some of those were thin and feathered in intricate bands, but others were ropy and white. The edges of the low, gray clouds were rimmed in bright white from sunlight and almost too bright to look at. As always, the slow graceful movement of clouds was mesmerizing.
Darker clouds were massing nearby, and I started my walk down the hillside. Somewhere along the way I heard thunder, and rain began to fall as I reached the car.
Rain clouds visible from the bluff
I hope you are able to get outside sometimes on days like this. I’d love to hear in the comments whether you feel the same as I do about these warmer winter days, or if you prefer days when winter has a little bite and maybe brings some snow.
A pond at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve, Arlington, TX
In recent years, many articles have appeared with titles saying that we are “loving nature to death.” Most of the ones I have read pertain to national parks and wilderness, but the issue applies equally to small preserves and urban parks. During the first year or so of the Covid pandemic, people lost jobs or worked from home and had extra time on their hands with fewer things to do because we were trying to practice social distancing. Many discovered – or rediscovered – getting outside.
For those of us who recognize the benefits of time spent in nature and hope for a reconnection between people and nature, more people outside is good news. But the amount of public space available for wildlife refuges, preserves, and nature parks did not increase. Neither did the budgets for taking care of such places. As a result, public natural areas have to contend with more traffic and the accompanying litter and the impact of our camping spaces, fires, new “rogue” trails, and other wear and tear.
There’s a little preserve in Arlington where I volunteer. (And my comments here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of the group that I am affiliated with.) I spend a lot of time there because it is near my house. I have walked its trails, sat watching and listening, and become very familiar with its ponds, woods, and meadows. It is a resilient place, but these days it is contending with lots of traffic. That results in rogue trails, soil compaction and erosion wherever people walk off-trail, litter, issues with dogs and horses, dirt bikes and mountain bikes (which are not allowed), discarded or lost fishing tackle, and the occasional improvised shelter although no camping is allowed.
Green heron seen at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve
Urban nature preserves and urban parks share some similarities, but they are also fundamentally different. The preserve is land set aside and protected in a nearly natural state, so that people can see how the surrounding land once was and can enjoy some of the communities of flowers, trees, and wildlife that are part of our heritage. You can see it as a living museum of natural history, letting us experience the place like it once was, at least to a degree. At the same time, you can see it as our wild neighbors, the plants and animals that are our companions who deserve a chance to live alongside us at least somewhere.
Urban parks, lovely as they may be, are usually modified for human use so that little of the original nature remains. There may be lawns, sidewalks and soccer fields, jungle gyms and ponds with domestic ducks. We need such parks, but they are not nature preserves. We might be urged not to leave litter, but hardly anyone feels the need to say, “leave no trace” of our visit there.
By contrast, many of us would urge each other to leave no trace when we visit wild places and nature preserves. There is an important movement that promotes this idea, and one organization, Leave No Trace, promotes seven principles that will help us. “Leave no trace” is a plea for us to visit nature in the spirit of cooperatively and respectfully sharing a space where many of our wild neighbors live and where other humans will visit. Yes, it is there for our enjoyment and learning, but it is not ours alone, and its purpose is not really entertainment.
The first Leave No Trace principle is to Plan Ahead and Prepare. In a small urban preserve that might mean taking the time to review the preserve’s rules, seeing when it opens and closes, and getting a copy of a trail map. Many preserves allow your dog to come if they are on a leash. Almost all prohibit motorized vehicles.
Another principle is to Travel (and camp, if allowed) on Durable Surfaces. In small preserves this translates to “stay on the trail.” Wandering off-trail means trampling plants, compacting soil, and creating conditions where rainfall will erode the soil away. When a place gets trampled, others assume it is a trail, and soon there is a “rogue” trail. When a small preserve gets criss-crossed by lots of such trails, serious damage is done. From wildlife’s perspective, there is no safe place away from people. The habitat that these animals use is of much lower quality, and when rain comes, there will be much more erosion.
Next is Dispose of Waste Properly, and simply put, it means everything you pack in should be packed out. It’s easy to bring a small bag in your backpack or even your back pocket so that you don’t leave litter. Snack wrappers, water bottles, fishing gear, even Kleenex should be bagged and taken with you. I know that when fishing line snags and breaks, it can be difficult to retrieve it. However, hooks, lines, and lead sinkers are responsible for many wildlife injuries , and hooks can cause human injuries. And here’s another difficult but important thing: use the bags provided to pick up your dog’s waste. If it is left in the preserve, not only is it unpleasant, it is potentially a source of new parasites for wildlife. (The waste from the resident wildlife contains stuff that’s already found in the preserve, things the residents are already adapted to.)
Trash near a pond’s edgeFishing tackle abandoned at the pond
The Leave What You Find principle means leaving the living things how you found them, and don’t introduce non-native species. It also means not collecting artifacts like arrowheads and not “tagging” or carving initials into rocks and trees. We all have a tendency to think, “It’s just this one little thing, it won’t hurt anything.” But if you dig up a few plants, you won’t be the only one, and the losses add up. It’s the same with animals. That lizard might look cute, but don’t catch it! And please do not add things that did not come from the preserve. We’ve seen raccoons relocated and dumped at our preserve, and once at one of our national grasslands I found someone had released goldfish into a pond. They probably thought they were doing the fish a favor. When we add things or take things away from a natural community, the negative consequences might not be easy to foresee.
A boulder with graffiti at the preserve
Minimize Campfire Impacts, in small urban preserves, really means “don’t,” because making a fire is almost certainly prohibited. There is the risk of a fire spreading and also the gathering of firewood and tinder removes homes and hiding places for small wildlife.
The next principle is to Respect Wildlife. Every time we see a photo of someone taking a selfie with a bison, we are reminded of how much people misunderstand wildlife. In general, if we are far enough away they may ignore us but if we get too close they may respond in self-defense and we (or they) may be hurt. Or our getting too close may disturb nesting, courtship, hunting, or other important activity. We should not only be aware of how we may affect wildlife, but also how our pets may do so. One reason our dogs should remain on-leash is to keep them from running ahead and investigating the nooks and crannies that small wildlife shelter in.
“Admire me from a distance and please don’t take me home”
Finally there is Be Considerate of Others. People have different ways of enjoying a small preserve, and we can try to see to it that everyone has a good experience. Some of this involves little courtesies such as stepping a little off the trail to let people pass and minimizing noises (ear buds will let you listen to music without others having to do so). If dogs are allowed in small preserves, it is crucial to keep them on-leash and do not let them threaten other dogs or people.
When you think about it, all this follows pretty naturally when we visit a small preserve with respect for what it represents and gratitude for what it provides us. I hope if you visit one of our small, urban preserves, you will keep these principles in mind. That way, those living museums of natural history can continue to thrive.
Today in a walk in an urban preserve, what nature offered was a stark contrast to what many humans offered. Nature offered examples of beauty and harmony. Humans, not so much today. I am grateful for nature’s gifts this afternoon, and I’m hoping for all of us to make more progress toward an attentive and respectful relationship with nature (and with other people).
A red admiral rests for a moment
Butterflies and dragonflies are still active at the preserve. A hard freeze is just days away, and these insects bring their beauty and their skillful flight as if today’s warmth was the only reality. They’re right – today, this day right now is the only reality and they were making full use of it.
A young juniper growing in the shelter of an oak tree’s trunk brought to mind the harmony and tolerance that humans sometimes fail to have. I’m aware that the oak did not invite the juniper, and that the oak will take water, nutrients, and sunlight without much regard for its small neighbor. Regardless of intentions, they grew side by side and appear to be thriving.
Juniper, sheltering beside a blackjack oak
Every winter, a little below the crown of the hill, standing cypress begins to grow. They first emerge as feathery green rosettes, and they grow through the winter and spring. Eventually they produce a spike of the most beautiful red flowers before dying back later in the year. When everything else seems doubtful, standing cypress won’t let you down.
A new standing cypress
Maybe standing cypress isn’t high on everyone’s list of priorities. We need an affordable place to live, and we need people who are willing to set aside their momentary impulses and follow rules for the good of the community. Next to that, being able to count on a plant’s annual re-emergence might not seem like much. But the more other things fall apart, the more valuable seem the parts of the world that are dependable.
Silhouettes
I sat on a boulder in the warm sunshine and wrote a little in the journal. The temperature had reached the middle 60s in the shade, and sitting there in a t-shirt, the radiant sun felt great. Then it was down the trail to the big pond. There were a few places where some leaves still held on to some color, and the sun shining through them was like nature’s stained glass.
Another gift from the afternoon sun – light in the tops of the grasses
I ended up at one of the other ponds, watching the low sun light up the trees at the end of the day. It was a time of day that felt quiet. I had not heard any birds (with my ears or with the Merlin app) during my walk, and no turtles were basking at the pond. The water was still, and everything seemed hushed. Was the preserve ready for a rest? I know that communities of invertebrates, fish, and other animals continue their activities into the night. I also know that the one who was ready for a rest, after unleashed dogs, unruly dogs, and dirt bikes that have no business in a preserve, was me. The peace of a quiet pond was a welcome end to my walk.
We have this urge to mark the end of the old year and welcome the new one, so we gather to wish each other a happy New Year. We think about the coming year as a new beginning. Sometimes we want to try for a new beginning for ourselves, with new year’s resolutions to start doing this or to do less of that. Midnight on December 31 marks a change, for good or ill (mostly for good; it feels like a bad omen to even consider that it could be a change for the worse). Another year older, another chance, another spring.
LBJ National Grasslands, in Unit 29, on the last day of 2023
But spring is months away and our transition to 2024 is completely arbitrary, unless you consider that it’s pretty close to the winter solstice when everything really does begin to change, in ever so gradual degrees toward greater light and warmth. Nevertheless, yesterday was the end of 2023, and among some members of my nature tribe the right way to mark the occasion was to walk the woods and prairies one last time.
Alaina, Sheryl, and Jake met me at LBJ National Grasslands under a warming sun with scattered clouds. It is a familiar and welcoming place, and if we needed reassurance that some good things can be counted on to stay consistent despite the turning of the year, this was it. We did not talk about it, but I expect that this dependability of nature is part of the appeal of a walk here on New Year’s Eve. Many of us are ambivalent about change, considering what we have been through in recent years. The pandemic, a worsening climate crisis, the creep toward fascism in many places across the world; these things make the woodlands and prairies more precious than ever. The cycles of growth, flowering, the shedding of leaves and winter dormancy make up a background of dependability. That, and the love that truly close friends and family have for each other, keep us going when everything else seems to be falling apart.
Alaina and Sheryl
The earth tones of the prairies have become quite “earthy” and the straw and sienna colors have faded, but there was still some warm brown in the woods. And the liberal scattering of junipers adds some touches of green, so it was hardly a colorless winter scene. When you add the ponds with reflective water and surrounding bare trees, the grasslands in winter have a visual beauty beyond compare. Spring and summer are also lovely, just in a different way. The Western Cross Timbers is an amazing gift that every season makes into something new and wonderful.
There is life in every season. We saw a few dragonflies, and I mentioned to my friends that I believe seeing a dragonfly on the last day of the year should be a sign of good luck. Spread the word – let’s make a “lucky dragonfly” tradition and invite urban folks into a new little connection to the natural world. These insects are already associated with good luck in some Asian and Native American traditions, so it shouldn’t be a stretch.
A common buckeye
We also saw some butterflies. We often see them deep into the winter if the day is sunny and has some warmth. They flutter along and bring extra movement and color to the day. One of them was a buckeye, a species with colorful round “eye spots” on their orange, brown, and white wings.
Our walk helped end 2023 in a good way, and we are ready to carry that through into the new year. Here’s to everyone having a year with beauty and wonder, surrounded by those you love (even if from a long distance*) and filled with empathy, compassion – and healing whenever that may be needed. Happy New Year!
Our Lives In Nature 