Fond farewell to the screech owl family
June 04, 2025 By Memorial Day, the screech owlets in our garden had flown the coop — on the same timeline as hatchlings in years past. I caught a few last glimpses of the trio on May 24th or 25th, as they perched in the live oak near their nesting ...
Screech owlets ready to fly away
May 24, 2025 Aw, they grow up so fast! All three screech owlets have left the nesting box and are roosting in a nearby live oak. One owlet hangs out on a low branch, next to its parent. When it’s tired, it rests its head on the branch, splayed out ...
First owlet leaves the nest, two more in box
May 20, 2025 Several times a day and night I pop outside to check on and photograph the screech owl family nesting in our front yard. I’m obsessed. Since I first spotted them using the nesting box back in April, I’ve followed their progress with the eagerness of a new ...
Night owls
May 15, 2025 I’ve always been a night owl, and right now we have a family of them in the garden. They sleep by day… …and wake in late afternoon, ready to hunt. I get a kick out of watching our screech owl pair deliver meal after meal to the ...
More fox and owl action in the garden
May 12, 2025 I’d seen her, but my husband hadn’t. So yesterday evening, we did a fox stakeout. As the sun went down, we parked ourselves on the front patio, watching and listening. Then — a scratching sound behind us. We turned to look, and there she was, perched atop ...
Owls, lizards, finches, and fox at home in my garden
May 11, 2025 It’s Wild Kingdom in my garden right now. Watching wild creatures make their homes, hunt, and raise their young in the garden hugely motivates my gardening efforts. There’s nothing better than watching a hummingbird zoom in to sip from a salvia, or a bumblebee bob among skullcap ...
Screech owl in the box and garden anoles
May 04, 2025 Over the last few weeks I’ve been keeping an eye on the screech owl box in the front yard. A nesting pair has chosen it, and even though I haven’t seen owlets yet, I believe they’re in there. The mother owl spends more time in the doorway, ...
Athena the great horned owl nesting again at the Wildflower Center
April 28, 2025 A great horned owl has been nesting at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for 15 years, laying usually two eggs each spring in a planter niche high on a wall, sheltered by a spiny Wheeler’s sotol. See her up there on the right, under the blue-green ...
Cottage garden charm in Tom’s Tarrytown garden, Part 1
April 25, 2025 Spring is when I get invited — or invite myself — into gardens all around Austin. It’s a rush to see as many as I can before summer and the Death Star arrive. Right now though, it’s sweetness and light! Especially in the charming cottage garden of ...
Cactus flowers, lizards, and another owl sighting
April 23, 2025 It may be peanuts, but that’s a good thing when it comes to peanut cactus. My peanut (Echinopsis chamaecereus) erupted with starry orange flowers last week, and they’re still going strong. They are eye-poppingly orange-red, like molten lava. Cacti have such stunning flowers. This one was a ...
Wildflowers, donkeys, and old-sign magic at Katie Bird Farm
April 22, 2025 Last week I invited myself to Kay Angermann and Julie Nelson’s utterly charming Katie Bird Farm, their home garden on 3 acres in southwest Austin. I love everything about their country garden, starting with this eye-catching vignette along the driveway: an upturned stock tank displaying a succulent ...
Screech owl nesting in new owl box
April 15, 2025 We’ve been sadly without a screech owl family for several years after losing our owl-box tree and having to move the box. We actually have two owl boxes now — one in the front yard and one in the back. Since January (when nesting season begins) I’ve ...
Wildflower safari east to Independence
April 13, 2025 The wildflower reporters I follow — and my own eyes — say this is a poor year for Texas bluebonnets and other spring wildflowers, especially from Austin west into the Hill Country. Our ongoing drought kept seedlings from germinating last fall, and there hasn’t been much rain ...
Spring flowers and fab foliage a-popping
March 16, 2025 Late last week, while I was under the weather and holed up on the couch watching Wicked, winter turned into spring. Yesterday I woke up feeling like myself again and noticed a text from my neighbor, thanking me for the beauty of my Mexican plum, which stretches ...
Lori’s blue fantasia garden
January 04, 2025 I popped over to my friend Lori Daul‘s house on Thursday, craving one more garden visit before the Arctic barrels down to Austin and brings our long growing season to an end. At Lori’s, fountains still trickle, ponds reflect sky, and plants sprawl luxuriantly. The garden echoes ...
Exploring the Gardens on Spring Creek in fall
December 01, 2024 I always look for gardens to visit when I travel, and our fall trip up to Denver included quite a few. Happily I was able to squeeze in another during a day trip to Fort Collins, where we spent a couple hours at The Gardens on Spring ...
