Heartland Safari

A flock of fat birds of both sexes sits amid the dense foliage of a prickly hedge. House Sparrow.

Shakespeare again: House Sparrows

Updated January 8, 2024

One of the most familiar sounds on Owl Acres any time of the year is the scolding of house sparrows. They seem to have a lot to say even when it’s really cold out. We hear them as Dave, Clancy and I head off for our morning walk. In the spring and summer, their noisy […]

Birds

Red Oak

Updated January 1, 2024

Most of the trees on Owl Acres are elms, walnuts, boxelders, hackberries and cedars. We only have one oak. It’s a red oak that we planted along the driveway about fifteen years ago. It was a sapling then, battling with the rabbits for survival. Those little creatures of the night wanted to eat its tender […]

Trees

Family Life: American Crow

Updated December 28, 2023

As we start our daily walk, Dave and Clancy and I hear a crow calling from a tree in the woods. Its harsh and easily recognized caw-caw occurs throughout the year, including through the winter. I don’t think we have any crows staking out territory on Owl Acres. We do have visitors quite often, though. […]

Birds

It’s time for the bark to come off the owl tree sculpture. Thousands of red ants, each no more than 1/16-inch-long, are instantly cast into a desperate effort to save the cream yellow babies. Their home is gone, their society in tatters in the blink of an eye. The giant who destroyed their world pauses a moment to reflect on the enormity of the act he has just committed. He snaps a couple of photos and brushes away a few of the tiny creatures who are biting him.

By the Thousands: Field Ants

Updated December 25, 2023

When I built the house on Owl Acres 20 years ago, a walnut tree stood sentinel at the corner of the driveway. Unfortunately, as time went on, that tree began to lean more and more toward the garage. It had apparently been compromised by all the building activity. We decided to take the tree down, […]

Insects and Spiders

A narrow Figure 8 in the sky. Think of a gently twisted loop, like a rubber band, viewed edge-on. This is an analemma of the sun, a composited photo of about 85 separate images, taken at the same time of day and at the same place for a year. The composite photo was then placed on a single, daylight image of the location to complete the work. It records the position changes of the sun in the sky due to Earth’s movement on its orbit. The high and low ends of the figure mark the solstices, and where the lines cross, the equinoxes.

New Beginnings: Winter Solstice

Updated December 21, 2023

Today is the Winter Solstice. Technically the solstice is a point in time when the north pole is tilted the farthest away from the sun that it will get in its yearly orbit. It occurs because the earth is tilted on its axis relative to its orbital plane. At this point in the earth’s orbit […]

Weather

Hard to choose between gruesome roadside dining or sublime, soaring magnificence. But, here’s the magnificence. Large bird with small red head, black body and arms, and broad-spread wings with white trailing edges, soars in a blue sky. Sunlight edges its wings in gold. Turkey Vulture.

The Clean-Up Crew: Turkey Vulture

Updated December 18, 2023

One day recently we were driving along a gravel road near Owl Acres when a wild turkey flew out of the ditch and hit the car, breaking off the mirror and killing the bird. Almost before the dead turkey hit the ground, a big dark bird with a naked red head plummeted from the sky, […]

Birds

Photo of a sculpture by Wendy Taylor on a masonry base at the London Zoo. One broad, disc-shaped beetle handles a ball of dung 10 times its size, while another perches on top. This public installation follows modern accessibility practice, common in cities in Europe. They’re becoming more so in the US.

Rolling the Sun: Dung Beetles

Updated December 14, 2023

The Ancient Egyptians have given us a lot of symbols to wonder about. I could never understand, for example, why the Israelites worshiped a golden calf until I learned while traveling in Egypt that a particular bull was worshiped by the Egyptians, and the Israelites were just copycats. Another symbol that needs explanation is the […]

Insects and Spiders

Snowflake with six strong, hexagon-based arms. It’s suspended in mid-air, caught on the gossamer strand of a barely visible spider web.

Art in Motion: Snowflakes

Updated December 11, 2023

Snowflakes arrived on Owl Acres to welcome winter on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They piled up to about three inches of fluffy white snow. Each one of those trillions of snowflakes was a unique work of art. In spite of the fact that they all formed in the same cloud, at the same time and […]

Weather

Dark green leaf of Virginia Creeper. Also called Five Leaf Ivy, the hand-shaped leaves are made up from 5 smaller, sawtooth-edged leaflets attached to a common petiole.

A Banquet for All: Virginia Creeper

Updated December 7, 2023

There’s a pile of it in the southeast corner of the yard. It’s growing on the fences and climbing the barn. We knock it back, ruthlessly severing it with the weed eater. And it comes back with a vengeance. It could be mistaken for poison ivy—we have plenty of that around here. But a careful […]

Bird with bright blue wings and a feather crest perches atop a feeder attached to a tree trunk. Black-edged, light grey face with round black eye. The blue jay grips a seed in its black beak.

A Trick of the Light: Blue Jays

Updated December 4, 2023

Blue. A primary color. One of the most beloved colors. And, speaking of Owl Acres, a rare color indeed, if you don’t count the sky and the blue jays. The sky is blue. But not really. That is, it looks blue because of the way the air molecules in the atmosphere scatter the short blue […]

Birds