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Come back to this page each day to read another entry from Frederick R. Gehlbach's almanac of suburban natural and unnatural history, "Messages from the Wild," which chronicles the world of a forested ravine in central Texas.
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Since 1974 I've recorded breeding birds from now to mid-June. I'm dismayed by the fifty percent decline of summer residents that migrate to the tropics, but intrigued by the sixty-seven percent rise of permanent residents, coincident with suburban sprawl, and their apparent stability in the 1990s when my suburban census area ceased growing. Downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, blue jay, northern cardinal, eastern screech owl, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, Carolina wren, house finch, and American crow are common residents. None declined or disappeared, qualifying all as reliable neighbors, by contrast to the forty-three percent of human families who moved over the same twenty-five years. |
Frederick R. Gehlbach is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Baylor University. His ecological studies have taken him from New Zealand to Slovakia and, in the Americas, from Alaska and Newfoundland to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. His research interests include the life-history strategies of small owls, small burrowing snakes and urban wildlife ecology.
From MESSAGES FROM THE WILD: AN ALMANAC OF SUBURBAN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY by Frederick R. Gehlbach, Copyright © 2002. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.
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