Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Fall in Midland County
October 8, 2003

On a cloudy and cool morning recently, I took a short drive in Midland County, moseying down county roads -- and I mean moseying, for I never went faster than ten miles an hour, and I stopped dozens of times. My behavior must have seemed suspicious, for after I passed a gentleman standing in his yard, a deputy sheriff's car appeared in my rear view mirror.

I had just pulled over to watch a female kestrel hover against the chilly northeast wind. The deputy sheriff had stopped well behind me, just at the last bend of the road. I got out of the car, and brought my binoculars to my face. The kestrel, beating its wings quickly, would hover for a few seconds, and then swoop at an angle to the wind, tacking like a sailboat. In five minutes time, it moved only 300 yards. It was hovering over CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) land that had been taken out of production and seeded to native grasses and forbs. The old field was covered with Ratibida, a perennial wildflower known as Mexican Hat for its sombrero shaped blossom.

In the middle of the field were two rusting oil field tanks next to a pumpjack that had been partially dismantled -- its head propped on the ground. A two-lane track led to it, but it looked like nobody had driven on it for months, for tumbleweeds grew in the middle of it. Also in the field was an old yellow harvester, its chute hanging over a fat wheel tilted catawumpus because of a busted axle. Beyond, to the northwest, the city of Midland gleamed in a shaft of sunlight. The soil beneath my feet was lightly dampened, possibly from the early morning fog.

The kestrel dove to the ground, landing where it was hidden from view by mounds of "espantes vaqueros," a fall annual with silver leaves that adds wonderful contrast to the golden panicles of grass of the prairie. It reaches its grandest size in loose sandy soil -- six feet across by three feet high, but it will grow in any type of soil. When the kestrel landed, a small flock of sparrows took off from the lee of the espantes vaqueros and zipped along right above the ground, heading southeast.

As the sparrows passed under the electrical lines along the road, a dapper gray and white shrike dropped from the wires and made a half-hearted attempt to procure its breakfast, but it soon broke off to land on the barbed wire fence on the other side of the road. In the barditch on that side of the road, bluff daisy bloomed, its bright, cheerful lemon blossoms providing a background to occasional sundrops. The long-tubed sundrop blossoms were beginning to fold up, for it is an evening primrose, blooming a pale yellow from late in the afternoon, all night, and into the morning. As they fold up, the spent blossoms turn a blush zinfandel rose color. A smattering of tansy aster sparkled among all the golden blossoms, their purple daisy heads absorbing the reflected golds surrounding them, which resulted in the optical illusion that their blossoms were pink.

I walked across the road, and as I neared the flowers, several dozen white and yellow butterflies swirled up at my approach. I noticed a few small white blossoms of rabbit tobacco and several wild allysums whose blossom spikes had turned to seed. Beyond the fence a hillock of bush muhly grass was smothered in the pink froth of its tiny blossoms. One lone devil's bouquet blossom peeked out of the muhly cloud, its three inch clump of red blooms nestled in the grass by a master flower arranger. On beyond, bristlegrass glowed green, the hairy seedheads glinting reddish.

I turned to retreat back to the car, and glanced down the road. The deputy sheriff had turned around and left, having decided I was harmless. I continued to mosey, drifting past several abandoned frame houses and empty trailerhomes. Dead elms stretched their white skeletons towards the clouds that were beginning to break apart with wider and wider blue patches of sky being revealed.

I passed a country church with a dozen cars parked under living Siberian Elms. Across the street was a house with an 8-foot chain link fence with razor wire for its top strands. On the road lay a dead black and yellow kingsnake. On down the road two scissortail flycatchers flew along a row of soapberry trees with berries translucent amber. The peach smudges under the wings of the flycatchers glowed as they swooped into a ray of sunlight. The gray mounds of saltbush just beyond the soapberries were capped with golden seed clusters. Broomweeds, their intense dark green mounds capped with golden blossoms, were scattered among the saltbush. In some blowsand on my left, from a plowed field to my right, five foot tall sunflowers turned their bright faces to the sun.

I stopped at a wolfberry clump. With the fall rains, the five-foot by five-foot tangles had begun blooming. The sweet smells of their blossoms were attracting insects, so I took a moment to investigate what had come to serve as pollinators. Dozens of tiny bees swarmed over the bramble -- no, hundreds! I noticed that the bees were coming and going from one particular direction, so I followed along until I reached their destination -- a stretch of hardpan soil at the gate to a ranch road. On both sides of the cattleguard were pencil-width holes, six inches apart. Each bee of this species may make its own hole, but they nest colonially. I knelt by the holes, hoping to get a good look at their coloration, but they dove into the holes on the fly, and emerged just as rapidly.

On the deadmen of the fence that attached to the cattleguard the white froth of the seeds of old man's beard clematis sparkled with the remaining moisture of the morning fog. Just beyond the cattleguard was a thick grouping of croton. Walking among their gray mounds were a dozen mourning doves, each stopping after a few headbobbing steps to plunge their little pinheads down to collect the three-seeded seedpods. No wonder that ranchers call this perennial forb doveweed! One must have noticed my movement, for it took off in whiffling panic, then all of the doves took off, scattering in every direction, juking and jiving in the fashion that makes them such a sporting prey for hunters. My eyes followed one dove that soared high into the sky, whereupon I realized that far above were dozens of turkey vultures. The vultures circled, soaring without a flap. With each circle, the flock of vultures drifted slowly south.

Fall on the Llano Estacado is beautiful!