MONTROSE WILDLIFE Poet Mark Doty, while explaining Houston to the Travel set: “Here the city’s splendid tradition of patronage is on its best display, so the great old live oaks thrust their bowing branches out beside the Cy Twombly Gallery and the Rothko Chapel. The limbs dip perilously toward the ground, and the roots heave the sidewalks beneath them into little concrete alps, but since nobody walks anywhere it doesn’t make much difference. In summer the trees resound with cicadas, like electronic versions of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir chorusing an insanely repetitive song. Gangs of bronzy black birds—boat-tailed grackles—prefer smaller trees in busier areas; they like grocery store parking lots and the drive-through lanes at the Taco Cabana, and they shriek and holler long into the night, as if in avian parallel to the traffic below. They’re the loudest part of a plethora of urban wildlife: opossums, raccoons, the occasional snake slithering across the road, a sadly large population of stray dogs. Coyotes roam the cemetery north of Buffalo Bayou, where Howard Hughes is buried. All over town, tiny green lizards hold their heads up with notable alertness.” [Smithsonian, via HAIF]
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Coyotes?!!! Didn’t believe it until I googled it for news reports, and found they have been sited in Memorial Park & along the Bayou. What next? Chupacabra(s)? Happy Halloween
Aww. That article cheered me up on a really bad Monday. Thanks for pointing us in its direction, Swamplot! :)
Shakes fist at non-walking comment!!
Don’t forget the feral humans…
Hey, thanks for the name of the blackbirds. Walk around the park between Rothko Chapel and the Menil Collection mid-afternoon to dark. Walkers abound. Including me and all those birds.