A Sad Underwing

September 26, 2025October 5, 2025 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

I visited Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve today, much as I have for the past ten years. I followed the trail to the sandstone ridge at the top of “Kennedale Mountain,” walked around the hill and down the boulder trail and back to the west. Despite one recent rain, it is dry at the preserve and many of the plants are drooping. On some sumacs, the leaves are giving up and becoming dark and shriveled. Some others are turning colors and autumn has barely begun. I suppose it reflects the stress of recent hot and dry conditions. Soon, the rest of the sumacs will turn bright red and orange, if they can hold out until the days get a little shorter and the temperature cooler.

As I walked, a medium-sized moth flew across the trail in front of me and landed on an oak’s trunk. I was able to get a photo of this slightly fuzzy delta of moth beauty, and then it flew away. Those wings near the head were frosted gray with vague scalloping black lines and then irregular bands of darker color, then a brown band and alternating colors like soft squiggles. Finally there were dark/light dots – one above each scallop of the wing’s edge, with a pattern like tiny feathers. There were a couple of warm reddish-brown spots at the edge of an arc of dark color, symmetrical on each wing. The subtle patterns and colors were beautiful.

The iNaturalist app identified this as a “Sad Underwing,” with the scientific name Catocala maestosa. The genus (Catocala) means essentially “beautiful below” and the species (maestosa) is a reference to “majestic.” The underwing moths have hindwings of a contrasting and often beautiful color, thus “beautiful below.” Those hindwings are covered by the forewings when the moth is resting, and that explains the “underwing” part of the name.

Many underwings have splashes of orange or pink color in those hind wings, which might startle a predator when the moth suddenly takes flight. But this species, the sad one, has hind wings that are very dark brown to nearly black. Some sources suggest that this is the reason for the “sad” in the name, either that the darkness reflects something sad or perhaps that being deprived of color is a reason for sadness. The moth had no comment about it.

From what I can see, the larva – this moth’s caterpillar – is even more camouflaged than the adult, mottled brown and gray to look like tree bark. Multiple sources say that the caterpillar feeds on three tree species: Water Hickory, Pecan, and Black Walnut. The moth is found from eastern Canada down through roughly the eastern half of the U.S., including Texas. NatureServe says that it is found in woodlands and river floodplains.

Walks through this and other parts of the Cross Timbers are often like this. Some small treasure crosses your path somewhere, a moth or bird or flower with a fascinating life story and a beauty that you discover by staying with it for a minute, looking closely, and wondering about it. I have probably walked by underwing moths before and missed all this. I’m very glad I noticed this one today.

Drenched In Humidity and Birdsong

May 25, 2025 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

As I started on the trail this morning at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve, I asked permission, so to speak. I said: “May I be here as one among many, neither greater nor less than. May I understand how I fit within this place and cause no harm.”

I expected no particular answer, but I did hear calls of Bewick’s Wren, Northern Cardinal, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, and Painted Bunting (identified by the Merlin app), and those calls felt welcoming. Low clouds covered most of the sky, and it was a little like being draped in a warm, wet blanket. Weather Underground said it was 81F and 76% humidity in the area.

On the trail I was submerged beneath the green canopies of oak trees and then emerged at a little open hillside where the spring rains are helping the Little Bluestem grasses look like they might take back the slope that has suffered erosion and drought.

At the pond, the roster of bird calls expanded to include White-eyed Vireo, Carolina Wren, and Carolina Chickadee. And while the Black Willows have taken over large sections of the bank, in one spot there was a beautiful patch of flowers. Chickory, Black-eyed Susan, and Bitterweed were scattered in different shades of yellow. And as I looked out over the water, a group of Blanchard’s Cricket Frogs set up a chorus of “grick-grick-grick” calls. Those calls are always surprisingly loud for a little frog that could easily sit on your thumb.

*An Eastern Pondhawk. Females of this species are bright green while males are blue*

I climbed uphill and away from the pond and walked upslope along the north prairie. Every part of this walk brought wonderful things into view, including Glen Rose Yuccas retaining some of their flowers, a few Indian Paintbrush among the grasses and Western Ragweed, Silverleaf Nightshade (a nettle with a beautiful name and lovely lavender flowers), and Texas Bull Nettle growing tall with their big leaves and white flowers.

And that brought me to the Old Man (Old Woman, if you like) of the preserve, a huge Post Oak that the Texas Tree Coalition designated as a Historic Texas Tree in 2019. It is called the “Caddo Oak,” in honor of the Caddo People who once lived here. After more than 200 years it continues to stand, with a huge trunk and massive branches stretching out like arms to embrace the sky.

This “Old Person” – oak trees have both male and female flowers so I shouldn’t assign them a gender – might give us a sense of a something ancient that presides over the place. There are a few other big oaks on the preserve, but probably none that were growing when Texas was part of Mexico, before independence or the battle at the Alamo. We are fortunate that it is still here, never in all those years cut down or burned.

From there I followed the trail as it turned south, taking me to where I could visit the yucca meadow, a big patch of deep, soft sand that supports Glen Rose Yucca, Lanceleaf Blanketflower, and other low plants. Some of the yuccas still had their flowers, though the cycle in which Yucca Moths pollinate the plant and lay eggs where the larvae will then eat some of the developing seeds (not too many) is probably winding down. That meadow is also home to the Comanche Harvester Ant, a species of what Texans call “big red ants” but this one requires deep sandy habitat with nearby oaks, and this limits where they may be found.

*The yucca meadow (I took this photo on May 8th)*

Continuing around the preserve, I found a tiny juvenile bush katydid with black-and-white banded antennae on the flower of a Lanceleaf Blanketflower, and then a Six-spotted Flower Longhorn Beetle crawling over a Black-eyed Susan flower. On a walk like this, the insects provide so many fascinating forms and colors.

I arrived within the woodland at the crown of the hill, and the clouds had broken up so that there was bright sunshine and lower humidity. At 11:20am I lay on my back and watched the low fragments of cloud drifting swiftly to the north. At the ground there was a good breeze. A Tiger Swallowtail fluttered through the area, perhaps visiting the Standing Cypress that are scattered wherever there is a small opening in the oak woods.

And the Standing Cypress is having such an amazing year at the preserve. You first see them in winter, growing as a delicate rosette of thin, fern-like leaves. But in spring the plant sends up a tall stem that can grow up to six feet, with a flower spike at the top that produces clusters of red, tubular flowers.

It was over two hours of delight, despite that warm blanket of humidity. After the first hour I was pretty well adapted anyway, or else all the wonderful stuff outweighed any discomfort. We are all lucky to be able to go and be part of this wild piece of Arlington.

Yuccas and Moths Need Each Other

May 12, 2025 / Michael Smith / 1 Comment

Saturday the 10th, a group of us took a walk at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve to find moths at sunset. They are very special moths that pollinate and in turn are fed by the Glen Rose Yuccas that live there. It’s a great example of biological mutualism, and it’s the subject of my most recent “Letter to Nature Folks.”

I hope you’ll visit the page with “letters” to you and download that May issue of Letters to Nature Folks – the one marked as “Yuccas and Yucca Moths.” And if it sounds like a good walk (it was a very good walk), thank John and Grace Darling for leading it and telling us the story of how the yuccas and moths completely depend on each other. And thank the Friends of Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve for offering this and other great activities. (Disclosure: I’m on the board of that Friends group, but I’m not the one to thank for the walk.)

A Small Restoration

March 1, 2025 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

I had to go to the woods today. Among my frequent visits to those places, some are for spiritual and psychological first aid. Today was a day like that.

*Cardinals like this male were singing throughout the preserve*

Here at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve, I can sit on the ridge and look down into the brown and gray woods, still in those colors for a while before the leaves appear. There are some glimpses of green, bits of juniper seen through oak branches, and patches of moss at the base of tree trunks. And there is a flash of reddish feathers from a female northern cardinal.

Yes, there is traffic noise and a barking dog somewhere, but it feels quiet and there is a stillness to the dormant woods, here at the edge of spring. I needed this respite. Not a respite from my home, except that home is where the news arrives. Home is where I get sucked into the Internet, with stories from the world: destruction, corruption, and bullying. Here, I don’t allow the news to appear on my phone, which is used only for photos or checking the Merlin app to identify some unseen bird.

The sun is at my back and a butterfly dances by. Mosses and lichens growing on the stones of the ridge provide endless color, life, and art. And there is the stillness that hardly seems able to be found in the city.

Butterflies agree that spring is ready to arrive. On the trail from the ridge to the boulders, a fritillary glides in toward me on rigid orange wings. It sails on past, wings now flapping to carry it up to the treetops. Nearby, a pair of butterflies suddenly appear and spiral up in their fluttering flight, above the crown of the nearest tree. When I reach the boulders, a pair of sulfurs chase each other down the path. The fluttering, erratic flight of butterflies might make us think they cannot control their flight very well, but have you noticed how often they can weave among obstacles without hitting them? That erratic flight seems to be a gift, an ability to make quick turns and maneuvers that help them escape predators.

*The historic 200-year-old post oak referred to as the Caddo oak*

I walk around the preserve, past the historic Caddo oak, seeing many more butterflies and hearing a number of bird species: Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, a chickadee or two, an eastern phoebe, and many northern cardinals. I see a red-tailed hawk overhead, soaring and then turning on powerful wings.

*A slightly fuzzy photo of the red-tailed hawk*

Arriving near the north pond, I think about how much data we have about the benefits of mindfulness and time spent in nature. There is the reduction in stress, the cardiovascular benefits, an immunologic boost, reduction in depressive rumination, and increases in empathy among other gifts. Those things make time in the woods not some privileged escape or ignorance of the troubles of the world. It is a sort of refueling for the work that lies ahead. It is restorative – a little like sleep – and so it should not be undervalued.

*Blanchard’s cricket frog at the pond’s edge*

It is now 77F in the shade. Down at the north pond, life is in full swing. red-eared sliders swimming or pulling out and basking in sunshine. Cricket frogs jumping into the water as I get too close to them. All that is needed is the emergence of dragonflies, and the pond will seem complete. I walk back to the car after nearly two hours of walking, sitting, and noticing things in a world that seems so different from the big events of the wider world. It has been a small but important restoration.

A Winter Walk, January 12th

January 12, 2025 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

An hour’s walk at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve provided a few impressions of winter here in North Texas. We had sleet and snow three days ago. We laugh at ourselves about how we overreact to snow and ice although occasionally, like in February of 2021, it becomes deadly serious. Mostly we get a brief taste of snow and it seems to us that we’ve had a brush with glaciers and blizzards and we know the depths of winter.

It is always a delight to find a bird’s nest, even the loose arrangement of twigs and grasses I found today. When winter leaves the trees mostly bare, old bird nests are sometimes exposed even very close to the trail. Some time last year this would have been a concealed refuge where eggs could hatch and baby birds grow and, after a while, fledge. I’m drawn to these relics of avian architecture. The birds weave and knit with such skill, and find ways to incorporate so many materials – lichen, moss, hair – so that I’m reminded of woodland faeries. And yet I don’t know why I should go to myths and stories when the birds are miracle enough.

Maybe another reason to be drawn to birds’ nests is how they resonate with our own efforts to bring a new generation into the world. The birds prepare and so do we; once the young hatch they are constantly busy feeding them, and we can relate to that. The young of both species go through an ungainly adolescence, partly feathered and awkward. And learning to fly is stressful, but our hopes are pinned on that day when they fledge and fly off into the world successfully. I hope that the ragged nest I saw today has such a story attached to it.

Wherever those birds are now, apparently it was not at the preserve, or maybe an hour in mid afternoon wasn’t the best time to see and hear them. The sounds today came from the surrounding traffic. Neither my ears (with high mileage and wear, not the most sensitive instruments) nor the Merlin app detected any.

My eyes saw the remnant ice and my skin felt the cold, not that friends and family in Minnesota, Illinois, and Colorado would agree that it was really cold. My thermometer, placed in the shade while I wrote in my journal, dropped degree by gradual degree until reaching 55.5F. Not exactly the arctic.

But at some point during the walk through bright sunshine and shadow, past little patches of remnant snow, I had a momentary recollection of being a kid outside in a Colorado winter, with a cold breeze stinging my skin a little. Up there, at the end of the 1950s I remember two- and three-foot snowfall and I also remember how bright a winter day can be, especially when reflected off of all that snow.

*The darkened, mottled leaf of saw greenbrier rimmed with those little spines along the edge*

There was one more small thing. Greenbrier is a thorny vine that grows commonly on the preserve, and the name I’ve heard for this one is “saw greenbrier.” While I haven’t seen an explanation, I’ve thought that the name might refer to the little spines all along the leaf edges, like a saw blade (but perhaps it’s something else).

Greenbrier leaves are usually mottled, and in winter the leaf may become dark and purplish while the mottled areas remain green. It occurred to me that each leaf was a small bit of abstract art, and that we could let our imaginations go and see if the patterns suggest something, sort of like Rorschach ink blots. Go ahead, see what comes to you when you look at the pattern. I love the way it splatters out from the central vein.

Just an hour in a place that offers wonder after wonder, in all seasons.

*A little remnant ice among the oak leaves*

Happy Holidays – and a Letter

December 21, 2024 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, however you celebrate it. We’ll be sticking close, avoiding traffic, and getting together with family. I’ve recently been walking at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve and Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge (FWNCR), and wrote a “Letter to Nature Kids” (See December, 2024 End of Autumn) about those walks and some of the birds and other wonders I saw.

If you can, I hope you can take a walk that is as wonderful as mine yesterday at FWNCR. “It was a day at the edge of winter, getting late in the afternoon. A crow’s call echoed through the woods and a few dragonflies flew low around the edge of the grasslands. Other than that, this place felt like it could be sleeping – still, quiet and peaceful. We all need to sit quietly in a place like that sometimes, don’t we?”

Wear Your Love…

December 6, 2024 / Michael Smith / 2 Comments

I sat beside the pond, looking at the line of trees outlined by a pure blue sky. The glossy green blackjack oak leaves were turning a mixture of caramel and ruddy red. In front of the trees was a stand of little bluestem, a native grass with subtle beauty. Each starts with a little clump of narrow, curled leaves at ground level, sending several tall stems to reach chest high. The tiny seeds along those stems are feathery, and in autumn sunlight they are like a constellation of stars scattered among the grasses. Altogether a lovely little spot on a fine late autumn day.

You might say that this preserve has been kissed by creation, filled with a beauty that it wears in one form or another throughout the seasons. Before long I was thinking of “Wear Your Love Like Heaven,” a song by Donovan Leitch that most of us – of a certain age – have some memory of.

When it was released in 1967 I heard the song many times, but never listened to it well. I assumed it was a hippie love song (“kiss me once more”), the opening of the double album “A Gift From a Flower to a Garden.” But Donovan, with his soft Scottish voice, is often deeper than that. It is more like a prayer than a love song.

The verses suggest an artist with a beautiful palette of colors, or someone experiencing such a range of hues in nature. “Color in sky Prussian blue,” but the colors change with sunset as the “crimson ball sinks from view.” There are shifts to “rose carmethene” and “alizarin crimson.” It is easy to imagine being in a place where the land and sky overwhelm one with beauty, where any of us might ask for more such experiences of awe. Such a plea could easily be a prayer:

“Lord, kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah, kiss me once more
That I may, that I may
Wear my love like heaven”

What might it mean to wear your love like heaven? I suppose wearing it would be to let it show, not hide it, and offer it freely to anyone. And a state of bliss and love freely shared with everyone is one way to imagine heaven.

Within such a state, Donovan experiences an extraordinary vision:

“Cannot believe what I see
All I have wished for will be
All our race proud and free”

Perhaps he is seeing what follows from wearing our love like heaven. Generous and open-hearted, not trapped in greed or the desire for domination, free of self-destructive impulses and all the things that bind and restrict us. Wearing a transcendental love would make us proud and free.

It was a beautiful vision to carry with me as I walked through oak woodlands and on trails along patches of prairie that are lovingly being restored. Some of the blackjack oak leaves have taken on a shade of alizarin crimson, and tonight, if the sky is clear enough, we might look up to see Prussian blue.

To connect with and be blessed by the divine, filled with song, and to live in beauty and love. That’s a lot of message to be carried by a two-and-a-half minute pop song from 1967, but we are allowed our interpretations of the meaning of art and this is how I hear it. The song has been covered over the years by people I think of as serious artists. Ritchie Havens recorded it in 1969 and Sarah McLachlan covered it in her 1991 album, “Solace.”

Before the Storm

November 4, 2024 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

On Monday morning, November 4th I felt the uncertainty of the storms that were on the horizon. How soon, and how severe would they be? But that was the future, and beyond my doing anything about. A good alternative was to be in the present, and also in the presence of trees, soil, and other living things. What could be as trustworthy and reassuring as nature? There are some people in my life like that, and they are essential. There are also places like that, and I’m grateful for them.

*Oak leaves covering the trail – the oaks are dropping leaves without showing much autumn color*

So, with storms still to the west, I took a walk at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve. It was cloudy, with low cumulus clouds racing to the north and the occasional glimpse of blue sky between them. A couple of black vultures were overhead, careening back and forth in the wind with acrobatic turns and adjustments of flight feathers. From my camp stool near the bluff, it was 75.3F, continuing the above-average warmth that is becoming our new normal.

*The “official” autumn colors: crimson and orange, yellow and green*

At 9:20am I sat near the top of “Kennedale Mountain,” that hill that overlooks the lowland through which Village Creek drains. From the sandstone escarpment you can glimpse downtown Fort Worth through the oak branches, if you want to. I’d rather keep in the company of the blackjack oaks and sandstone, watching clouds or butterflies. Away from the bluff, on the back side of the hill is a place a bit more protected from traffic noise, where fewer visitors walk, and so it is a favorite with me.

*A place a little quieter, maybe a little wilder than other locations*

As I sat, a crow flew past, cawing loudly, and clouds continued streaming to the north. The wind moved through the trees, and when stronger pulses of air came through the sound was like a rushing river. Downslope toward the east I heard a northern cardinal and a Carolina wren.

Some of us need natural sounds like these, and relief from the unremitting mechanical noises that so often mask them. The noises of human activity are certainly present at the preserve, as it is located a little south of the third-busiest airport in the world and sits right beside major highway construction. But some days, when we let go of the noise and focus on birds, breeze moving the trees, or the occasional frog calls, we get a little of the peace that natural sounds bring.

*A tracing of green in the crimson leaves of a ragged sumac*

By 9:50am, back over on the bluff, the clouds seemed thicker and the sky a little darker. Here and there I noticed the pattern of fallen leaves on the ground; the variation in color and shape and things like acorns or moss always pull me in. It is art on a tiny scale, for those who are pulled toward such things.

The storms held off until after I left at 10:13am, and we can hope that they bring only the rain we need. A little thunder is always good – one of those natural sounds I like so much. Just under two hours at the preserve had brought some of the peace and wonder that are part of that place.

A Sunset at the Ridge

August 20, 2024 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

A recent mid-August Sunday was the hottest so far in 2024, with a high of 104F. When Kat and I walked up the trail at Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve to the sandstone ridge, the stone was quite warm to the touch. Regardless of the day’s heat, we wanted to experience a summer sunset there, and we arrived at the ridge about 8:00pm with the sun still glaring yellow through the leaves of oaks. Those trees grow immediately below the sandstone ridge, a curtain that hides the Fort Worth skyline and offers some shade.

*Kat, making a few notes in her journal*

We sat on the stone ledge with water bottles and notebooks at our sides. Looking behind where Kat was sitting, there were tall stems of little bluestem reaching above our heads, and with each little breeze they waved as if they were the tops of trees. The breeze was welcome, of course, but for the most part the air was still and with the humidity at 50%, it felt sticky. Turning back to the west, the disk of the sun peeked through branches and leaves in yellow-orange sparkles, as if coming from the facets of a jewel.

The constant nearby traffic sounds dominated, but at 8:10pm a wave of insect calls moved through the area and then stopped. Although at some point the Merlin app picked up the call of a northern cardinal, I could hear no birds. After a few minutes another wave of insect sounds lasted several seconds and then abruptly stopped.

Meanwhile, a pastel yellow sky at the horizon filtered through the trees, silhouetting leaves and branches. I reclined on the still-warm rocks to be able to see the whole field of the pale blue sky, watching for birds or insects and hoping to see the first star become visible. I saw none of those. At 8:26pm the temperature at the ridge was still 92F, with humidity dropping a little. The western horizon was a deeper orange.

*Sandstone, little bluestem, and sunlight in the blackjack oak*

Behind us, the canopies of blackjack oak were dimly lit by the remaining light from the western horizon, almost glowing with a yellow tint that contrasted a little with the surrounding vegetation. And when we looked lower down in those blackjacks, through bare branches we could see the bright, round full moon rising.

It was about ten minutes later that we could see the first glimmers of a couple of stars. “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” but these tiny bright pinholes in the not-yet-dark heavens did not seem bright. Kat’s younger and more perceptive eyes could soon make out four stars.

*Moonrise through the trees (photo by Kat Oliver)*

Shortly after that, we started walking back in the relative darkness, much darker under the trees. But in open areas, the full moon had risen higher and provided enough light for walking. When the moon is bright enough to light your way, and you walk along a path just visible, it may bring to mind childhood adventures in back yards or campgrounds. Something about it makes it seem special, a moonlit faery world much different from the bright daylight colors.

And what is the attraction of sitting with the sunset, riding that transition between day and night? The world rides along with us as we notice the settling of birds, the emergence of insects or frogs, the way any clouds transform the last light of the sun. Most days we declare our independence from the rhythm of the Earth, turning on our lights and continuing whatever we are doing while the sun disappears and gives the night to the moon and stars. Sitting outside with the sunset is a way of reconnecting with that rhythm. Through such a connection, perhaps we synchronize ourselves with something important.

“Kaleidoscope of Color”

April 19, 2024 / Michael Smith / Leave a comment

All around, kaleidoscope of color

I think that maybe I’m dreaming
–The Byrds, “Renaissance Fair”

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.

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).

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!