Owls

December 27, 2019 Looking for free family fun over the holidays? Why not burn a few calories on a self-guided walking tour of public art in downtown Austin? My daughter and I did just that a few days before Christmas. I was eager to see Kempelen’s Owls, a pair of ...

March 19, 2019 Although its name is a bit of a misnomer — the gardens at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center showcase native Texas trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, succulents, vines, and water plants, not just wildflowers — the Wildflower Center really does shine in early spring when bluebonnets, pink ...

January 29, 2019 The sky went pink last evening as a cold front blew through. In the owl box, a small screech owl watched me from his snug perch, safely out of the wind. The owl box hangs in a different spot in our back garden this winter. We recently ...

May 18, 2018 The three screech owlets in our owl box fledged this week. We’ve spotted one of them in the crape myrtle — the red-hued Moltres, my daughter thinks. Its red coloring is more visible in the last photo below. (The other two chicks are named Articuno and Zapdos ...

May 14, 2018 The owl channel is playing 24/7 in our garden as the screech owl chicks grow more active. They are close to fledging, I think, and Mama and Papa Owl are kept busy night after night, bringing them tasty morsels of tree roaches, mice, moths, lizards, and whatever ...

May 13, 2018 The most exciting time of screech owl nesting season is here! The owlets have grown big and curious enough to climb to the doorway and look out at the world for the first time. For the past several days we’ve seen the tops of fuzzy heads in ...

April 29, 2018 Yesterday, to our excitement, we spotted Lucy and Desi, our nesting screech owl pair, perched in live oak trees near the owl box. I’d suspected that their chicks had hatched and were getting bigger because Lucy was spending a lot of time in the doorway of the ...

March 26, 2018 The female screech owl nesting in our owl box is a rufous, or red-feathered, owl. She gives me some funny looks when she hangs out in the doorway, and I’ve named her Lucy. Desi, her mate, hangs out in a stand of bamboo all day, and he ...

March 22, 2018 Texas mountain laurel, one of our finest native flowering trees Whether you’re hunkered under a blanket of snow or your gardening season is well underway, let’s pause to appreciate the beauty of spring-flowering trees and other gorgeous native plants at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center here ...

March 18, 2018 For 5 years in a row, screech owls nested in our owl box every spring. Watching them raise their chicks was an annual delight. But then they stopped coming, and for the past 2 years, no owls, which bummed me out. It’s nesting season again, and I’ve ...

August 11, 2016 Houston doesn’t always get a lot of love, especially from Austinites who invoke it as a negative example of soulless sprawl and traffic. True, Houston is a sprawling major city with congested highways (although I swear Austin may be its equal in traffic jams). But in-town you’ll ...

April 09, 2016 When the universe offers a weekend of perfect weather, don’t squander it. Central Texans, if you’re looking for something to do outside this weekend, head on over to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Their spring native-plant sale is being held both Saturday and Sunday, so you ...

March 24, 2016 Every day, through the open window, I hear the thin cries of cedar waxwings as they strafe the back yard, flying from ligustrums to yaupons in the greenbelt behind our house to polish off the late-season berries. With their sleek, tan feathers and robbers’ masks, they are ...

March 11, 2016 A few days ago I visited my favorite North Austin nursery, Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery, which is actually located in Cedar Park, just northwest of Austin. As the name implies, HCWG carries pond plants, fish, fountains, pond equipment, and other water-garden supplies. But over the ...

January 10, 2016 Aloes bloom in profusion at the Huntington in Los Angeles at this time of year, and my winter-blooming ‘Blue Elf’ aloe is already sending up asparagus-shaped bloom spikes. But soap aloe (Aloe maculata) prefers warmer weather to strut its stuff in my Austin garden. And yet… …with ...

May 16, 2015 I stalked this guy from the deck last night as dusk fell and he waited impatiently for his parents to bring him dinner. I wasn’t quick enough to get a shot of the feedings, but I did witness a couple. The hungry chicks — there are at ...