The Hays Humm - March 2021
The Hays Humm
Award Winning Online Magazine - March 2021
Tom Jones - Betsy Cross - Constance Quigley - Mimi Cavender - Steve Wilder
CHILL COUNTRY
Mimi Cavender and Hays County Master Naturalist Members
Chill Country—sounds like Central Texas on any lazy weekend, right? Nope. After the record shattering February 2021 week-long Winter Blast, we’ll take some time before ever again inviting fellow Texans to chill out.
It was brutal. And beautiful. As our pipes exploded and live oak leaves iced solid, like the children we still are, we bundled up indoors and watched snow softly envelop the world. Frost crystals grew up the window glass.
We hope everyone stayed reasonably comfortable and escaped costly repairs. But now that Texas is Texas again, let’s do our Naturalist thing and think of the big chill as an opportunity to share observations. We might have seen effects of extended deep cold on our Central Texas plants and animals. We doubtless saw beauty. What did you see?
Hays County Master Naturalists answered with words and pictures, documenting our experience of Central Texas nature during the 2021 Arctic blast. Be sure to click on all photos to enlarge them. Members have sent in great stuff!
Snow was lovely, but in more ways than one, ice was the story.
Biologists Lee Ann and Gordon Linam sent us these photos from February 19, including the partially frozen and snow covered Blanco at the Spoke Hollow crossing. Lee Ann tells us it last happened in 1989. Reports of the prolonged cold’s lethal effects on birds, bats, fish, deer, and many other species are only now—especially after appeals from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD)—coming in. These links give us some chilling updates from our region:
TPWD needs help documenting facts from recent freeze
Extreme Cold Weather Kills Bats Across Texas
Fish found dead along San Antonio River, Texas coast after freezing weather event
But the ice brought compensating beauty. Lots of us were fascinated by the fractal branching that allows frost crystals to spread across the window glass. With the outside so cold, these delicate patterns stayed intact for 24 hours regardless of indoor temperatures. There are northern states full of Yankees laughing at us as you read this.
Patty’s Frostweed (Verbesina virginica) were biding their time until water freezing in their stalks exploded into snowy sculptures. Has anyone ever actually seen the extrusions as they happen? It’s exactly what happened in your pipes—mysteriously, like mushrooms, just suddenly there in the morning!
Carolyn and Wayne Bauknight tell us “We did have a sweet dove sit in our front entrance for several hours just before the worst of the storm. Our retention pond froze over and the ducks continued to try to swim on the thin ice. Our cactus garden was hit pretty hard by the single digit temperatures, turning into gelatinous looking plants.”
And they weren’t the only ones of us venturing out to find Jello where our desert-y plants used to be. Consider our agaves: They spent years reaching decent five-foot size after several slow recoveries from rutting Whitetail bucks shredding them. They’re the pride of our romantic “Southwestern” landscape—only to freeze down overnight to that stringy army-green gelatin! Anybody know if they’ll come back from their “pineapple?” They’re beginning to ferment and smell like tequila, or worse—some killer pulque! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulque But in Nature’s wisdom, she takes revenge on the deer: we saw whole family groups of hungry deer up on their hind legs like giraffes, browsing ice-coated juniper!
Squirrels continue to fish acorns out of roof gutters. MNs report that small groups of presumably hungry squirrels have been biting the last two inches off Ashe juniper branch tips and dropping them on the ground uneaten! If it’s not hunger, what is it—territorial display? Compulsive pruning? Cabin fever?
Here’s Patty Duhon’s enormous (obviously deer-free) agave—frozen, and thawed.
Rosemary, our Italian-speaking best friend, took a palpable hit. The upright varieties, though deep frozen, may come back, but the prostrate (creeping, trailing) varieties went gray and dry right to the soil. Why the difference?
St. Augustine lawns are toast, probably to the roots, but those short-grass mixes like Native American Seed’s Thunderturf are actually greening up now after the thaw! Fancy nursery-bought clump grasses are hay balls, while lovely native Seep Muhly, Big Muhly, Curly Mesquite, and Bluestem varieties came through just fine! So did Texas verbenas and bluebonnets and many other early-sprouting forbes and grasses in our meadows. Are the huisache trees in southern Hays County blooming yet? The mesquites and pecans will be the last to leaf out.
Members are reporting that our green sotols and all the yuccas thawed out undamaged, but the blue sotols are looking stressed. Cacti and succulents, and the euphorbias (white sap), if left unprotected, are jelly. Does all this hit and miss suggest species’ lingering genetic heritage—an echo of ancient habitats? And if so, what’s up with the prickly pear? They cover the temperate zones of the world and take desert heat. They were encased in ice and snow here for a week and thawed out…refreshed!
We need reports on the varieties of Opuntia with orange or red blooms and those that people are reporting blushed pink or purple after being frozen. Watch to see what survives.
And plants weren't the only species dealing with the ice. Eva Frost caught her little "Puffy" Lesser Goldfinch chilling out, his feet not even making contact with the actual twig!
Eva Tells us, "I spent a lot of time out there, constantly feeding and watering. I built a covered feeding area there the night before it snowed. And I don’t think I have ever had bees in my birdseed! Pretty desperate for pollen. Apparently, they get it from the cracked corn among other things."
Chippers and goldfinches gathered at Constance Quigley’s gourmet feeder.
Constance tells us “I lost lots of beautiful tree limbs, found two dead birds, and am still working on cutting the huge Ashe juniper away from one of my bee hives…”
Mike Meves reports: “During the [freeze] week the Dripping Springs Birding Club Facebook page was very active with members relating their bird feeder experiences. On my end the birds were mobbing the feeders. Knowing that birds need food to keep warm, I was usually refilling the feeders twice a day. I do bird counts and am happy to report that after the cold weather ended I had the same number of total birds and total species as before the cold weather hit. I also noticed the squirrels and voles survived as well. The Facebook members reported finding a few dead birds. Usually these were Pine Siskins. However, there is a Salmonella outbreak, so that might have been the cause as well as the cold. On Facebook it was reported that mockingbirds, jays, and roadrunners were seen attacking the smaller birds, probably as a desperate way to get food. Many of the members reported running out of birdseed with no way to resupply. Members shared homemade recipes for bird food, such as mixing peanut butter with cornmeal and oatmeal.”
Roger Allen told us his feeder “was swarmed, even during the coldest temperatures.” Susan Neill put out two suet blocks per day!
Mary O’Hara‘s video gives us her swarmed feeders’ sight and sound, including what must be one tantalized cat! Turn up your video volume to hear the meow and flutter in Mary's Video .
Mary installed a heat lamp over a sheltered feeder within easy view from indoors, where a wood stove kept her household, including that frustrated kitty, toasty during out power outages.
Get the impression Mary keeps her wildlife pretty happy?
”Although I had plenty of seed, it was fun raiding the pantry for supplements: cornbread, raisins, sunflower seeds, mixed nuts. They also got a smearing of peanut butter, oatmeal, thistle seed, and oilers concoction on small split wood chunks.”
Mary keeps a yard full of colorful bee hives. (See them in this issue’s Gallery) “Mother Nature sealed the honeybees in snugly. As long as their food stores are strong, they have no problem keeping thermoregulated in the hive. The girls cluster in a ball around the queen and brood cells, and while the outer fringe of bees may die off, the colony survives.”
Mark Wojcik’s long peaceful backyard view of snowed-in Hays County. Mark enjoyed the quiet and watched all the usual species crowd his feeders.
Susan Powell
Members who do regular bird counts agree that there was no observable change in feeding times or drop in species or numbers at feeders. See Hays County results for the Cornell Great Backyard Bird Count Winter 2021 at https://ebird.org/region/US-TX-209
But there was drama! Neeta Allen had three stray robins “vying for food…16-20 Lesser Goldfinches, and when the nyjer seed got knocked to the ground, Pine Siskins feasted on them on top of the snow. Three different woodpeckers came to the suet: Downy, Ladderback, and Gold Fronted. We sadly found a dead Yellow-rumped Warbler up against our front door… a dead Pine Siskin on the patio. A Bluebird came briefly to the frozen birdbath on Monday, and a Hermit Thrush made several appearances for several days.”
But no drama is more chilling than this. Susan Powell thinking Will that hammock ever see another summer?! Quit that Yankee snow shoveling and go watch frost grow.
Sarah Carlisle also reports mobbed feeders and hummingbird drama. “I made tea, stayed warm, and watched dozens of birds at four feeders & a suet feeder. I refilled them all at least once a day, sometimes twice. Sadly, I have not seen the rufous hummer since that Sunday’s first snow, but I keep hoping. I have not found any dead bodies so far.” Bird bodies, right Sarah?
Sarah has a pleasant wooded path on her property that leads through a snowy oak arcade. But notice her live oak canopy turning brown? Yours are too, more or less, depending on variety. Should we be worried? Their leaves were iced solid for a week. Our neighbor swears he’s lost his mature Monterrey oaks (Quercus polymorpha), a white oak native from South Texas to Honduras. They’re normally semi-evergreen even in the Hill Country, but will go bare dormant up around Dallas. The prolonged freeze could have forced ours into dormancy. So we’re hoping the same for our live oaks: crispy brown = dormancy = earlier spring leaf drop before new leaves. In fact, as this March 2021 issue reaches you two weeks post freeze, HCMN members have spoken with a Hays arborist, who reassures us that our native live oaks are indeed in premature leaf drop and should be just fine. Red oaks seem fine, but are still deeply dormant.
Like Sarah Carlisle, Betsy Cross is still missing a favorite hummingbird (see it at her feeder just before the deep freeze set in on Monday evening; photo in our gallery at the end of this issue); and Christine Middleton found this Pine Siskin (?) dead on top of the snow “as if he just fell out of the sky mid-flight.” He might have been a Salmonella victim, but they weaken and flutter for hours on the ground as they die.
There are no signs of struggle here; the snow is smooth and there’s no new snow on the bird—a mystery! On a 7° morning a fluffed up red-shouldered hawk perched above crowded feeders; any winged predator could have dropped this little guy.
Christine Middleton and others saw roadrunners and their tracks. And some folks suspect hungry foxes and feral cats were snapping up the dead and dying casualties of disease or cold or both. Wow! All this Chill Country drama!
Our native Mountain Laurel (just tips were nipped) and Mexican Buckeye (crimson leaf buds already unfurling) are good to go. Roger Allen says the Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum is fine, and Mexican Plum actually needs seasonal cold. Everyone says Yaupon holly and Agarita are unscathed after the ice. How about Possumhaw holly, Redbud, and American Beautyberry? Now that we’re out and sort of about, let’s check these Texas natives out!
Now some notes on everyone’s favorite wild thing to love or hate, to feed or not to feed, our ubiquitous Whitetail deer. HCMN’s February guest presenter, passionate Texas conservationist Walt Davis, author of Building an Ark for Texas, University of Texas Press, 2016 https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781623494421/building-an-ark-for-texas/ reminded us that by 1900, once abundant Whitetail had been hunted almost to extinction in Texas. What a difference a century and common sense regulation make!
This beautiful guy near Eva Frost’s work in Henley and the many does who secretly adore him (and our shredded agaves who don’t) are back, of course. The secret may be that somehow, with no fur undercoat, bedded down in grass under ice-covered junipers, they can still survive single-digit nights and days of snow-covered forage.
Cellphone photo: Rui Cavender. Neighborhood Whitetail does at dusk. Temperature dropping. In small family groups, their body heat melted the snow in bedding areas under junipers. They returned to these same beds each night of the deep cold.
Cellphone photo: Rui Cavender. Deer group bedding spot under junipers. And you think you were cold!
Hays County is a diverse and beautiful place to be a Master Naturalist. Texans have just rediscovered that unusually cold weather events are hard on people, infrastructure, our budgets, and on the natural world around us. We may have to learn, like squirrels, to store more nuts and put on a thicker winter coat. In February 2021’s Chill Country, the hardship and beauty together were an interesting laboratory for us to watch nature surviving on the edge. Even thriving.
Thanks to all of you! Limits of space and time prevented all contributions’ making it into this article. A future article might include your thoughts and photos when we speculate on long-term effects of possible weather pattern changes, such as the possibility of more extreme summers and winters in Texas.
So please keep your words and pictures coming in—on any topic. This virtual Magazine is the face of Hays County Master Naturalist to Texas and the world. It’s our voice, our Chapter’s collective memory. Our modern nature journal.
From her property in western Hays County, Melinda Seib looks far out across a frozen Devil’s Backbone.
Betsy’s note: Due to the number of photos and size/layout constraints, photo credits are embedded within the stories that surround these fascinating pictures. We are so appreciative of the contributions from all who dropped us a line and included their photos and videos. You can see more photos in The Big Chill Gallery at the bottom of the magazine.
Jacob's Well (JW) is an important monitor of the health of Wimberley’s water supply. This iconic spring is a reliable indicator of how much water is in the vital Middle Trinity (Cow Creek) aquifer. Fortunately, Jacob's Well does not stop flowing very often.
On January 20 I received an email alert sent to the JW Guide Team: "Jacobs well is at zero flow; can anyone get out there and take some photos to document this event?” Early the next morning I arrived at JW Natural Area and headed down the dry Cypress Creek trail. I wanted to first check a small spring that that flows all year. It is next to the cliff, about 100’ upstream from the back pool. The spring is being fed along the same fractures as JW. I saw the spring with its small pool and low flow. A good sign, since I believe the spring would go dry before JW. The photos document recent history of the spring pool.
Jacob’s Well – Apr. 18, 2018 - no pool
1753 gallons per minute of flow. The low water dam which creates the pool was being repaired when I took this photo. The flow looks to be lower than was reported by the monitoring equipment.
Jacob’s Well – Jan. 21, 2021 - with pool
624 gallons per minute flow. Note USGS staff measuring the pool level. The low water dam below the spring creates a pool, making it difficult to see water flow from the spring.
Jacob’s Well – Feb. 4, 2021 – no pool
674 gallons per minute flow. USGS bypassed the low water dam to recalibrate the flow rate monitoring equipment, allowing a good view. Conclusion: JW has low flow but not zero flow.
I arrived at JW and immediately saw the pool level was lower. The pool made it hard to determine spring flow from the big cave opening. Personnel from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) were onsite taking pool height measurements and recalibrating the monitoring equipment. I returned on February 4 to photograph the spring with the low water dam bypassed, eliminating the pool. This allowed the best view JW water flow. I also checked for flow from the small spring upstream from the well. The spring was dry. I learned that the USGS monitoring equipment had been recording lower than the actual flow. "As flow approaches zero, it is increasingly hard to measure. Gates were removed from a downstream dam to allow repairs, with the lowered water level Jacob's Well flow is visible at the Well itself. The USGS verifies the discharge calculations reported at the gauging sites by taking a manual discharge measurement. Over the past few weeks, USGS staff visited Jacob’s Well several times to ensure that the gauge is reporting the most accurate data possible.” (Wimberley Valley Watershed Association, February 2021 Newsletter.)
The chart below illustrates the changes to the measured flow before and after gauge recalibration. My opinion is that Jacob’s Well experienced a low flow, but not a zero flow event.
USGS taking flow measurements at Jacob's Well
Manual flow measurements were made using an acoustic Doppler velocity meter. ( WVWA Feb. 2021)
What does near zero flow in Jacob's Well tell us about the well and the aquifer?
Low flow is the result of decreasing water volume in the aquifer. Less water equals lower aquifer pressure. Water level and flow from Jacob’s Well is an indicator of aquifer pressure. The top of the Middle Trinity aquifer is ~100 feet below the JW surface elevation of 922' mean sea level (msl). Jacob’s Well is a textbook example of karst-related caves, connected openings, and honeycomb features in the limestone. It is an easy passageway for water to flow. Karst allows ground water to move quickly through the aquifer, contributing to reduced water availability in the Wimberley area. High-volume water supply wells are located close to JW. They are responsible for a quick and pronounced effect on the aquifer. Pumping large volumes of groundwater from nearby wells results in a lower spring flow. To mitigate this impact the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD) implemented mandatory curtailments from water supply wells based upon the low flow rate at JW.
District-wide Water Well Curtailments Implemented
To safeguard groundwater supplies and protect spring flow, the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD) declared a 20% drought curtailment district wide in September 2020 and increased curtailments for the Jacob's Well Groundwater Management Zone in November 2020. Water conservation now will help extend water resources until enough rain events generate meaningful recharge. (WVWA)
Checking Two Monitor Wells
The HTGCD initiated a groundwater level monitoring program in 1999. Today, water levels at 41 privately owned wells are monitored monthly across the district, including multiple wells located in the area surrounding JW and Cypress Creek. Monitoring of the wells is done with the permission and cooperation of the well owner. Public water supply companies with wells in the area also collect and submit monthly water level data to the HTGCD. These combined water level data are used to determine general groundwater trends in the Cypress Creek watershed.
Two monitor wells measuring water levels in the Middle Trinity Aquifer are in close proximity to JW. They are identified by a red circle on the map below. Woodcreek 23 monitor well is west of JW and shows a slight decline in the aquifer water level over the previous 60 days. This is consistent with the effects of the low intensity drought during this time. HCP 3 monitor well is located on the east side of JW very close to several large geologic faults. I plotted data from both wells along with a summary of my interpretation in the graphic below.
Low flow at JW is a cause for concern. Recent actions by Hays County show their commitment to protecting the Cow Creek aquifer. A few examples:
Quick notifications were sent to key agencies and support teams.
USGS actions included an extensive review of the JW monitoring equipment. Work in the field included finding and fixing problems with the spring flow measurement system, increasing both the accuracy and confidence of the data collected.
Early curtailments were applied to water supply wells, following the Jacob’s Well Groundwater Management Zone guidelines. The curtailments allowed the aquifer to recover some of its water volume and pressure.
Although the efforts above are notable, Hays County can learn from this event and improve water conservation efforts. Future water availability for an expanding population is likely to depend upon the Lower Trinity aquifer and its capacity for groundwater storage. Aquifers store water following high rainfall events for our use when droughts return.
Betsy Cross
Have you heard about HELM?
HELM Team site visit to Prospect Park in San Marcos
Site visit led by HCMN and San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance volunteer Todd Derkacz
A group of Hays County Master Naturalists led by Chris Middleton has developed a new community outreach and education endeavor: the Habitat-Enhancing Land Management Project, or HELM. Starting in September, 2020 the group met monthly, putting their offering together, gathering and curating content, conducting walk-abouts and training exercises on different properties, and learning from experienced Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and Hill Country Alliance (HCA) employees regarding how to talk with landowners about their property.
In Spring 2021 the HELM team began offering their services to the general public. They offer site assessments to landowners, with a focus on identifying plants and trees, make recommendations on improving soil and controlling erosion, provide habitat advice for attracting birds and other wildlife, share information to prevent oak wilt, and more. Brochures on land stewardship, habitat, and other conservation techniques are provided to landowners, along with a list of recommended books and other resources.
HELM is targeting properties in the 5- to 30-acre range. Interested landowners may request a visit by completing a short site visit request form through HELM’s webpage. Most visits are conducted in the spring and fall.
February 2021 HELM Meeting with Hill Country Alliance Land Program Manager Daniel Oppenheimer
Daniel Oppenheimer with Hill Country Alliance shared his advice and lessons learned during his years of working with landowners. As Master Naturalists, we can all benefit by heeding these key tips from Daniel:
First, remember you’re not there to pontificate. This is about the landowner. Keep it simple and straightforward. Start by asking, “how do you like to enjoy and use your land?” Find out about the landowner’s goals and values and focus on those.
Be honest with what you know and don’t know. For things you don’t know, don’t worry, just say “I’ll get back to you on that.”
This is an opportunity to build trust. Be respectful. Avoid politics. Talk about land stewardship.
Some things will be cool and exciting, and some things will need improvement. Don’t just focus on the negatives. Balance out good and bad. Find things to inspire them, things they can be proud of. Stick to the topics that are of greatest interest to the landowner.
Logistics — some properties may be 1/2 acre and others may be 500 acres. Unless you know for sure about the location and access to the property, ask for special instructions like landmarks and gate codes. Arrive a few minutes early. And leave the gate the way you found it!
How can you help? Spread the word to your neighbors!
If you are interested in having the HELM team conduct an assessment of your property, please fill out this form and we’ll be in touch!
THE MIND’S EYE
Journaling from Nature
Mimi Cavender
PART ONE: Nature philosophers become scientists
Nature, nature all around us. Starlight, sunlight, cloudscape, landscape, meadow, flower, petal, cell, molecule, atom, particle…the smile on the face of a child we love.
The dance of reality. How we “see” it—really understand and appreciate what we see—becomes a question of perception and cognition working together. That wildflower mirrors in a single cell all the matter in the known universe. We see beauty. But then we begin the very human enterprise of seeing more, knowing more, and leaving our knowledge for those who come after us.
That enterprise is the inspiration for this two-part look at nature journaling. This month’s Part One reviews our enduring human urge to journal in nature: to record the natural world we observe, to put order and purpose to what we learn, to preserve that knowledge and transmit it beyond ourselves. Journals made scientists of “natural philosophers.” Journals changed the world and changed with the world. Let’s see how.
Start with reality. How we see nature depends on perception: reality travels to and through our eye’s lens, retina, and optic nerve to our brain. What we see and the meanings we make of it depend on cognition: our attention and expectations, our interpreting, ordering, and integrating perceived information to knowledge already similarly processed and stored in memory. What we see becomes thought, to be woven again into what we see and how we think—a feedback loop going forward. So is this our mind? Obviously, the same circular process—perception to thought and back to perception, with enhancement each time—occurs with information from all our senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. They enable ever expanding knowledge until we die, when, as far as we know, our mind dies with us.
And there’s the rub. After all our accumulated knowing, our mind is fragile and finite. Remember perceptions? The dozens of painted buntings you’ve sighted, the hundred screech owls you’ve heard, the thousand Texas verbenas you’ve smelled, the million fireflies you’ve chased, the billion blades of grass you’ve lain in, the nectar you sucked from the honeysuckle bloom as a child? And remember the knowledge scaffolds you’ve built around them—details of their taxonomy, behavior, purpose, and peril. Remember? No one else will. Unless…
Pecos rock paintings, some from 4,000 years ago, depict early humans’ shamanic place in nature. Journaling their nature lore and magic, each wave of humans sought survival in a harsh landscape.
In early Chinese nature painting, humans are small compared to the landscape around them. Paintings freely adapted observed nature, capturing the spirit of the natural world and humans’ humility in it. Ma Yuan (1160-1225): Peasants dancing and singing on their way home from work
How much of it dies with us? The How and What of each of our knowing will be a puff in the breath of the universe. Unless we preserve it and pass it along.
Humans seem always to have been intrigued by our experience with the natural world, including our mortality. We early saw the need to record and transmit knowledge to our children and beyond. We left myths, sagas, rock art, cave art, tomb hieroglyphs, tablets, scrolls, books, paintings, photos, film, and the Internet. Throughout history, the natural world of which we’re a part has been a constant, and our need to document it, to record information about nature and keep it for others, was essential. A pharaoh’s scribe recorded wheat crops and the annual flood of the Nile. A Medieval monk listed kitchen herbs. Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci journaled prodigiously (and weirdly backwards); he drew violets, shells, his hand, and a fetus in the womb. Spanish conquistadors sketched maps of volcanos deep in New World jungles. Romantic painters idealized Scottish moors and American forests. Documentation of nature in words and pictures accompanied our progress in perceiving and knowing and transmitting human knowledge beyond the individual human. So today we can know something of the natural world of those “journalists” from centuries and millennia ago. Did they know we would?
Captain James Cook sailed the Pacific on the HMS Endeavor in 1768-1771, the first of three voyages of discovery, which included documenting Venus’ transit of the sun (aiding navigation science and best viewed from Tahiti) and scouting Pacific island territory for annexation to the British Crown. On board were official astronomer Charles Green and an international collection of talented naturalists, including Daniel Solander and Herman Spöring, Polynesian high priest Tupaia, and botanists Sydney Parkinson and Joseph Banks. Banks collected 30,000 plant specimens, about half of which were new to science, and he journaled 200,000 words of description. Absent photography, recording all specimens needed detailed sketches and paintings by Sydney Parkinson, a Scottish artist on Banks’ team. When Parkinson died at just 25 on the ship’s return to England via South Africa, he left 269 plant watercolors and 673 unfinished sketches. The wealth of these men’s exquisitely journaled descriptions and drawings kept England in the forefront of nature study for decades and set the standard for nature documentation for nearly 200 years.
Leonardo’s journals show his scientific curiosity ranging broadly across species.
Engraving, Kangaroo seen at Endeavor River, Australia, and painting Bouganivillea Spectabilis, are by Sydney Parkinson. Both photographs: Editions Alecto Ltd. and Trustees of the National History Museum, London
In 1804, thirty years after Cook’s tour de force, an ambitious new nation’s president, Thomas Jefferson, sent explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to find an overland route to the Pacific across the vast northwestern Great Plains and Oregon Territory. The men, neither of them naturalists, kept diaries that astound us today with accounts of hardships they endured and awe us with written descriptions of an American wildness we soon lost forever. Lewis journaled passable wildlife drawings, but biologically accurate visual documentation, such as Cook’s team had provided, was missing. Boatloads of animal hides and dry specimens went back instead, and many deteriorated along the way. Skilled field drawings and paintings would have been more lasting. Surprises at https://www.amphilsoc.org/exhibits/treasures/landc.htm and https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/item/lc.sup.johnsgard.01#fig35
Drawing by Charles Darwin, in his The Voyage of the Beagle, republished by National Geographic Society, 2004
And another thirty years later, when Englishman Charles Darwin signed on to HMS Beagle’s voyage of discovery in 1835, “naturalist-philosophers” (his word for himself; today they’re called scientists), were routinely doing their own nature journaling, or they hired a “journalist” (from which we take the modern term) to do it. During his 1835 visit to the Galapagos archipelago, a young Darwin’s journal voice—chatty, lyrical, and unflinchingly observant—frequently sounds mystified by the “eminently curious” variation in species (he still called it “modification of creatures”) on each separate island and from island to nearby island in the archipelago. Perplexing differences in the beaks of those now famous finches (actually tanagers) Darwin gave as evidence of natural selection, an explosive idea that gestated for twenty years until his publication in 1859 of On the Origin of Species. His journal germinated an idea; his idea rattled the world.
Journaling was a well established scientific practice by the time of 20th century ventures into Earth’s last true wildlands with polar expeditions by Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd. They had the advantage of some photography, but daily handwritten accounts still filled those precious leather bound log books. It was only from Captain Robert Scott’s 1912 journal that we can relive his despair while he and four companions starved and froze to death in blizzard whiteout only eleven miles from a supply depot. His well-journaled failure led to standard improvements in expeditionary logistics and gear.
So, we humans apparently love to explore and document our changing natural world, not only in words, but in images. Only recently has modern photography filled that need. We’ve long written up our observations, but hi-fi imaging them had been the real challenge. Cameras evolved from an ancient aid to drawing: the camera obscura, literally dark chamber, a box or even a small room with a pinhole to focus an image carried on a beam of daylight, projecting it onto an artist’s sketch paper (later, onto metal, then glass, then chemical coated paper). America during our Civil War was documented with cumbersome early cameras requiring bright daylight, still subjects, heavy plates, long exposure times, and darkrooms full of chemicals. Outdoor photography remained expensive and unwieldy well into the first half of the 20th century, except for wildly popular roll film cameras like the Kodak Brownie. With them, everybody could take posed outdoor snapshots and travel landscapes in black and white. But flower pollen grains or hovering hummers were impossible. Even LIFE magazine’s acclaimed 1953 nature feature The World Around Us, Part Two: Miracle of the Sea, made do with full-page artists’ paintings and black and white photos. Our 1970s’ groovy color family photos turned orange in their shoeboxes. Then, steady improvements brought fast color, onboard flash, faster film, improved SLRs, specialized lenses, digital cameras, and cellphone cameras with built in editing! This winter, your visiting Pine Siskins were sharable, scannable, printable, or straight to eBird and Instagram!
But before truly portable photography, it was journals with drawings that were the nature observer-reporter’s only field imaging device. From cave wall to laboratory, an artist’s eye brought Nature to Mind. And from Leonardo’s studio to today’s museums and galleries, nature art is still both visual document and art for gorgeous art’s sake.
Look at these paintings from the 1800s to early 1900s, when outdoor (plein-air) painting was in its heyday; these painters actually lugged their easels out under the sky!
Romantic painters gave us idealized views of nature, leaving a priceless record but glorifying wilderness as Paradise, the Garden before Man. People are rare in these documents, as if we were intruders in Nature’s perfection. Albert Bierstadt: Tahoe's Lake (1868)
Late-Romantic Texas painter Robert Onderdonk (1852-1917) recorded isolated Hill Country life in bucholic natural landscapes, like this Farm Near Kerrville.
Robert’s son, San Antonian Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922), an Impressionist painter, gave us a more humanist view of nature. People worked the land in a vast and still very rural Texas landscape. Here, in 1910, they’re harvesting tender cactus pads, nopales, for food.
Julian Onderdonk, our grandfathers’ “bluebonnet painter,” inspired all our favorite Texas paintings and photographs since. How many times have we seen that pink evening sunlight slanting across a Hill Country ranch road? Have we preserved it in words or pictures for our grandchildren? It’s about time.
Before color photography, only a painter could wordlessly “journal” a moment in Texas nature: right: a commonplace scene in our rural [great-] grandparents’ lifetime. In Julian Onderdonk’s Road Through the Woods, 1909, see the low water crossing? It was a packed-dirt and log bridge strong enough to support a wagon crossing a narrow stream; landowners had to re-chink it after high water. Hill Country groves of huge old red oaks have since been decimated by heat, drought, overdrawn aquifers, vanishing surface water, and two species of oak borer larvae. We have only their sparse survivors and the painter’s journal of them on canvas.
As voyaging naturalists and intrepid explorers used up wild destinations, the romance of documenting nature came home to thrive among trend-setting men and mostly women with a little gardening time on their hands. They imported the look of wilderness into their hip back-to-nature cottage gardens, inspired by the early-20th-century Arts and Crafts design movement. Although these folks imitated nature’s informal wildflower drifts and chaotic multi-species interplantings, they charted in their diaries every bulb, bush, grass, and heirloom rose. Soil prep, seed set, planting, grafting, pruning, and seasonal maintenance was described in fanatical detail. Hybridizing of bulb species and roses was a popular hobby; treatments against root rot and black spot succeeded and failed. These gardeners’ written journals, often hand illustrated, documented real advances in native planting, hybridization, and garden pest and disease control.
Some of these talented home naturalists were ahead of their time; they took their notebooks to a clamoring public in magazine articles and monthly newspaper columns. English novelist Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) spent thirty years and considerable wealth developing her stunning “natural” gardens at Sissinghurst, Kent. But Vita’s monthly columns in The Observer until 1957 transformed gardens everywhere. She’s the godmother of natural/native gardening and modern garden journaling. An excerpt:
Photo: Texas AgriLife
I suppose every gardener is familiar with Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus), that ubiquitous weed…with its woolly grey leaves and yellow spike of bloom…we should regard it as a decorative border plant. Mullein tea is an almost historical remedy for coughs and…for ringworm, warts, toothache, headache, earache, and gout...It will dye hair to a rich gold…The poor wore its leaves inside their shoes for warmth. [A common name in Texas is “flannel leaf.”] Do not expect your Verbascums to do anything much for you during their first year after planting. They will be too busy making roots and leaves to think of throwing up a flower spike… —Vita Sackville-West, Some Flowers, London, Cobdon-Sanderson, 1937
Today, thanks to Vita, Texas gardeners plant our naturalized—listed F2 invasive!—Common Mullein, along with hundreds of native species from rocky pastures, riverbanks, and disturbed soils. See more at:
https://invasive-species.extension.org/verbascum-thapsus-common-mullein/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbascum_thapsus
https://npsot.org/wp/story/2009/271//
Nature journaling as documentation persists, and since the 1950s—especially with today’s easy digital storage and communication—it has redefined itself in two modes:
1. Technical documentation from field and lab work by state agencies and schools, intended for professionals such as academics, farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, zookeepers, nurserymen, botanical gardeners, landscape designers… Experts.
2. Informal documentation of personal experience, for sharing among amateurs, many with high skill levels. Think bird lists, wildflower pictures, breed and species logs. Think this Hays County Master Naturalist Hays Humm magazine with members’ annotated photos and videos. Think myriad worldwide blogs on every species in Nature! These are journals for our modern mind. And think gardening: 1930s’ Depression era city folks had Federal government pamphlets to guide them in planting community gardens on railroad land; housewives exchanged tips on vegetable and flower gardening. It was when many of our mothers or grandmothers, especially those not from rural roots, learned home gardening. And then came the 1950s’ explosion of garden clubs, garden shows, and high-maintenance home gardens—all now a memory as women have gone to work. But we have our mother’s faded garden snapshots in those shoeboxes, and if we’re lucky, we have her journals, where she left us her monthly planting tips. From her eye to her mind—then in her journals to my mind and eye, her gift of nature, a gift of love.
THE MIND’S EYE, Part Two, is coming soon. News Flash! Nature journaling is back and wildly trending. Journaling in nature has some exciting new applications that in the long run might accomplish as much as any of our Naturalist outreach to date. Whaaaat? Hint: It’s journaling as the Mind’s Eye. And mind will be what matters.
Yellow-rumped Warbler February 18
Photo by Betsy Cross
Thank You Contributors
Neeta and Roger Allen, Carolyn and Wayne Bauknight, Sarah Carlisle, Mimi Cavender, Patty Duhon, Jane Dunham, Eva Frost, Lee, Ann Linam, Mike Meves, Christine Middleton, Susan Neill, Mary O’Hara, Lilita Olano, Susan Powell, Constance Quigley, Melinda Seib, Steve Wilder, Mark Wojcik
Lilita Olano, HCMN published a new book. Morning Musings: Creating My Life One Page at a Time
"I live my life as a writer. I wake up, warm up a cup of tea and start a sacred ritual of writing my morning pages. What happens now is a magical alchemical process. I transform any thoughts and feelings that may look like coal into gold, and get some kind of resolution that allows me to live my day to the fullest. I set my intentions for the day and thus I create the kind of day I want to have.Are you willing to try? I’ll let you peek into my journal with daily morning pages in the hopes that you may also create your life one page at a time." https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TRZRBXP
The Blanco February 19 by Lee Ann Linam
THE BIG CHILL GALLERY
Be sure to click and scroll to see these in beautiful detail!
Betsy Cross
Eva Frost
Betsy Cross
Mary O’Hara
Mary O’Hara
Eva Frost
Mary O’Hara
Betsy Cross
Betsy Cross
Eva Frost
Eva Frost
Eva Frost
Eva Frost
Betsy Cross
Eva Frost
Mary O’Hara
