Species Parade, Week Three

At night, outside my window, there’s an intermittent beepy-buzzing. It’s not one of the familiar goatsuckers (nighthawk or poor will). It’ll keep me guessing, I’m guessing. That’s the fun of getting out and seeing (or not seeing) animals. They keep you guessing. They’re like […]

Species Parade, Week Two

I’m reading Wallace Stenger’s Beyond the 100th Meridian, John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West. In 1883, Powell was telling Westerners and prospective Westerners: “Gentlemen, you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not […]

Species Parade, Week One

“Wilderness. The word itself is music,” wrote Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire. There are songs of wind and of light and shadow. There’s a fabulous rhythm to animal movement. And, of course, there are the more literal songs of birds: buzzes, chips, whistles, screeches, caws, […]