Nature Notes Previous Episodes

They’re diminutive, less than a foot tall, but their claim to the open spaces and arid plains of the West runs as deep as the bisons’. They’re skilled hunters in the prairie night. Burrowing owls live in holes created by … Continue reading →

Travelers on Interstate 20 east of Midland see it from dozens of miles away – a bluff rising 200 feet above the otherwise unbroken West Texas plains. The promontory has always been a landmark. Abundant springs once flowed at its … Continue reading →

It’s a place of serenity, a West Texas landscape with the power to mesmerize. Monahans Sandhills State Park encompasses almost 4,000 acres of sand dunes and sandhills – part of a larger expanse of sandhills here at the southwestern edge … Continue reading →

This episode of Nature Notes was inspired by a question from listener Josh Knight – submitted as part of “West Texas Wonders,” the reporting series where listeners ask questions and Marfa Public Radio finds answers. Knight asked if the Odessa … Continue reading →

Beneath the soaring western escarpment of the Guadalupe Mountains, geologic and chemical forces combine to create a resource humans have sought since civilization began: salt. Indigenous peoples made salt expeditions here for millennia. Spanish invaders sent wagon trains to gather … Continue reading →