Burr Williams's "Phalarope" Essays
Burr Williams began writing for the Midland Naturalist's newsletter, The Phalarope, when he was 10 years old. He created a Midland County checklist of over 100 species of wildflowers. Inspired by his mother, Frances Williams, who was the editor of The Phalarope, and because he was enlisted in helping to put out the newsletter, collating, stapling, folding, and addressing the newsletter, he became a writer of short essays as well.
After leaving town as a teenager, he wrote for The Phalarope a few times when he spent a winter in Midland in 1974-1975, and then when he began volunteering at the Sibley Nature Center in the early 1980s, he became a semi-regular writer for the newsletter until writing the regular weekly Sibley column in the Midland Reporter Telegram in 1999.
What follows are a number of the early essays.
- 1974 - Gardens, birds, and living
- 1974 - Vignettes 1974
- 1975 - Joyful Christmas Count
- 1975 - On the roadside in the spring
- 1981 - The return of the duststorms
After the sandstorms of the spring of 1981, the Williams family moved to a new homestead.
- 1982 - Leaving home without leaving
- 1982 - Summer
- 1982 - The Brushpile
- 1982 - The Cactus Patch
- 1982 - The Pond
- 1983 - Night Driving
- 1983 - Nine inches of gentle rain
- 1983 - Reflections (on summer heat)
- 1984 - Conservation in America (Pittman-Robertson bill)
- 1984 - Life in the Lath House
- 1984 - Rain
- 1984 - Semi-ordered images of Christmas Counts
- 1984 - The three week spring
- 1985 - From Ted's bench at Sibley's pond
- 1985 - From Ted's Bench, Pt. 2
- 1985 - From Ted's Bench, Pt. 3
- 1985 - Not for the squeamish
- 1986 - Amphibian Population Survey
- 1986 - Earth Stars
- 1986 - Grasses
- 1986 - Midland County canoeing
- 1986 - Summer rains
- 1987 - Plague of grasshoppers
- 1987 - Habitat comes first
- 1988 - Reporting details on Christmas Count
- 1990 - Los companeros see a hoop snake
- 1990 - Tilapia, shiners, and darters
- 1991 - OOOh! Green Scarabs
- 1991 - Quail Management
- 1991 - The Pond at Sibley
- 1991 - Snakes in the trees
- 1991 - Vibora!
- 1992 - Chickadees in Midland
- 1992 - Creosote Bush
- 1992 - Have you ever been really hungry?
- 1992 - Possums
- 1992 - Spittlebugs
- 1992 - Turtles
- 1993 - I-20 pond
- 1994 - Tiger Salamanders
- 1994 - Vinegaroon
- 1995 - In June, after a year's drought
- 1996 - Kiowa Dancers (dragonflies and damselflies)
- 1996 - The anoplura
- 1996 - Mesquite Twig girdler beetle
- 1996 - Velvet mites (rain bugs)