It's a beautiful day on Galveston Bay -- the clouds that have been bring rain for the past week cleared out, and the tide is high, washing well back into the marshes. I wandered out today to see what I could find.
Mulberries are just finished blooming and the fruit is starting to form--still green, but filling out. This is a psoitive sign for it always indicates that the migration is about to begin here on the central flyway. You can always find an oriole or rose-breasted grosbeak around the mulberries when the fruit is ripe.
Even better news is that the pecans are just leafing out. Down here the old folks say that you should wait for the pecan leaves to plant your tomatoes and you won't get frozen out. Well, they're just a bit early this year. And the flowers will appear about a week after the leaves get well established, and then the warblers will come flitting about, resting after their long journey from the south, feeding on the little insects that the pecan flowers draw. When they come they come in droves, and there can be 30 or 40 birds at a time, and a dozen species, all darting about confusing the watcher as to who they are. These little guys are so beautiful that I'll spend hours running around under them, dancing about for a position where I can make out their markings. It makes for a fun day.
Eight or ten brown pelicans sat out on the old broken backed pier down the way. Until last year we hadn't had brown pelicans here on Galveston Bay since back in, I guess, the 1960s. They had just flat disappeared from the upper- Texas Coast because of the use of ddt in the agriculture and a general decline in the health of our Bay. But good folks that saw it happening got together and got legislation passed, and now, finally and thank goodness, these wonderful, big, comical birds are back, and they are nesting down off of Galveston Island and rearing their young. I wouldnt be suprised if they started nesting up around here soon.
The wildflowers are abundant. I saw blue-eyed grass, daisy fleabane, Indian blanket, false dandelion, dewberies, self heal (prunella), scarlet pimpernell all crimson just above the ground. And vetch, clover, oxalis, lyre-leafed sage, dayflower, coreopsis (both the lance leafed and ticksee varieties) the evening primrose, curly dock, crow poison, and lantana. The monarchs seem to like the lantana.
So you guys up North hold on just a little: the cold is going to go away, and the little migrators are going to be on their way soon. Some are already going your way. And the mass of the migration isn't far behind.
Don
Donald Perkins _____ _____ Armadillo--The Texas Studies Gopher /\_/ """" \ HoustonISD, 3830 Richmond, Houston 77027 / o | |||| | (713) 892-6900 / | |||| |\ dperkins@tenet.edu /__)_/\ |||| | \ http://chico.rice.edu/armadillo/ \____""""_____/ ) gopher chico.rice.edu 1170 )) )) " "