Nature Notes Previous Episodes

As a return to air travel accelerates, some remember its conveniences, others its hassles. There are also surprising moments of beauty from the air. A window seat on a flight from Midland to Las Vegas presents a vision of the … Continue reading →

On the prairies and deserts, in the cities and towns, sweet bursts of melody are announcing spring’s arrival in West Texas. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, a single bird song, and “the whole landscape flushes on a … Continue reading →

At the threshold of West Texas, where the waters of the Pecos and Devils rivers mingle with those of the Rio Grande, and the Chihuahuan Desert blends with the Hill Country and the South Texas plains, there exists a singular … Continue reading →

“Febrero loco y marzo otro poco” – “February is crazy and March a little more so” – a popular saying in Mexico and the borderlands has it. There are upheavals in the weather here – swings in temperature, days of … Continue reading →

“You can never hear enough sound of wind in the pines,” the writer Gary Snyder says in a poem. It’s like a vast breath, enthralling as crashing surf. In West Texas, that sound, and the presence of the towering evergreens, … Continue reading →