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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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On a mellow autumn afternoon, the season's first yellow-rumped warblers are foraging in trees that still have a few leaves and, doubtless, hidden insects. Yellow-rumps are warblers of autumn and early winter. When their insect and berry supplies run out during prolonged freezing spells, they push south, reappearing in the spring on magic-making south winds. I don't find other part-time winterers yet but flush a poor-will, a small resident cousin of the larger migratory chuck-wills-widow and whip-poor-will. Poor-wills supposedly hibernate, a strange thing for any bird to do; but, rarely, I may startle one on mild autumn and winter days and wonder what we really know. |
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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