recently saw a gray fox standing in the pedestal birdbath in my back yard, lapping away at the cool water.   With its long snout and bushy tail, it was quite a sight, but when I opened the door to get a better look, it casually hopped down and trotted away. We have both red and gray foxes in this ar...

t’s summertime and birds need all the help they can get. This is a great time to offer some sort of water feature to our feathered friends, whether it be a simple basin of cool water or a fancy circulating fountain with pool. A plain, sturdy birdbath is hard to beat, just make sure it is heavy enoug...

f you have a couple of weeks to spare this fall, you might consider a trip to southern Africa for a birding safari. You’ll want to visit Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana and see such diverse birds as carmine bee-eater, snake eagle, jacana, sacred ibis and many more.  You’ll also have a chance to see on...

have a book titled “100 Birds To See Before You Die,” and the number one bird listed is the ivory-billed woodpecker.   This is a bit cruel, I think, since that bird has been extinct for at least 20 years.   But the other 99 species are at least possible and, of them, I have seen 35.   So I have many...

f you see formations of pointed-winged birds sailing overhead, they may well be Mississippi kites, heading for their summer home in the Texas Panhandle. This streamlined, falcon-shaped hawk has a wingspan of about three feet and is dark gray above and a paler gray below.   It has a long black tail a...

his has been a very green spring; it is hard to recall a better year for emerald fields of grass, green tree leaves and assorted greenery in general.   Green is great. Wildflowers are also out in abundance, especially bluebonnets.   And I’ve seen lots and lots of butterflies, most recently a flutter...

was in downtown Kyle recently, walking around in a small city park with a circular fountain spraying water high into the fresh spring air. Strutting around the base of the fountain was a male great-tailed grackle, resplendent in his black, iridescent plumage, and trying to impress a smaller, less sp...

rock Huffman is a mostly retired criminal trial lawyer from San Antonio who still takes an occasional case, but for the most part now lives in San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico. While in Mexico, he has trained several people to serve as guides to English-speaking birdwatchers and now offers birdi...

ome generous soul left a very nice hard cover book in my mailbox:   “On The Wing: To the edge of the earth with the peregrine falcon.”   I’ve just started reading the book, but it did prompt me to do a bit of research on the peregrine falcon, also known in Latin as Falco peregrinus, or “wandering fa...

ater this month, I will drive over to the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Eagle Lake to see some wild early-morning dancing. The dancing will be done by male prairie chickens desperate to attract a mate.   Based on past visits to the refuge, the females will generally strut ...