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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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Mobbing birds tip me off to a light gray eastern screech owl roosting in a plateau live oak, exposed to the warm morning sun. The owl is thirty feet from an empty nest box, while a darker gray individual peers from another box a hundred feet away. Perhaps a pair is together in old number 77's territory. Is it his widow with a new mate? I look for a leg band, but it's difficult to tell, because screech-owl legs and feet are completely feathered. Knowing that owl widows and widowers quickly find new mates, most likely the one in the oak is 77's replacement. The pair eventually nests but is displaced by a fox squirrel, leaving cold, deserted eggs as their legacy and my regret. |
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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