Bee-ing On The Sun

Saturday, February, 27, 2016

This European Honeybee is busy doing what only pollinators can do:

Bees, along with all the other pollinators, really are disappearing. Seeing only one bee in a patch of a half dozen or so Sunflowers where bees should be abundant even this time of year is frightening.

The web of life on this planet is exceedingly complex. It is dangerously naive to think we can keep eliminating species, intentionally or not, without dire consequence. At some point the entire system will collapse and take us with it.

Hopefully, we have not unknowingly passed the point of no return. Ecosystem restoration is beginning to be valued, but there is much work left to be done. We are in desperate need of a shift in paradigms.

Manicured, mowed lawns must be replaced with native landscaping and the use of pesticides eliminated except in very limited, highly targeted applications. Agricultural practices that degrade the environment must be replaced with ones that maximize ecological quality.

Generally, my goal is to keep While on a Walk upbeat and inspirational, but when confronted with this horrific and dangerous decline in pollinators, there is no choice but to make the message as blunt as possible: Prosperity and aesthetics that are lethal are neither prosperous nor beautiful.

These photographs were taken on my walk along the Roosevelt Park loop trail of the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River on Monday, February 22, 2016.

Watching the River Flow

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Sometimes even the Snowy Egret, Great Blue Heron and Yellow-crowned Night Heron like to just stand and watch the river flow by:

The Great Blue Heron shown above really does have two legs. Most bird species, not just Flamingos, will stand on one leg and tuck the other leg up against their body when they remain standing for an extended period of time. It is an efficient way to conserve energy.

These photographs were taken on my walk along the Roosevelt Park loop trail of the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River on Monday, February 22, 2016.

Spring!!!!

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

There is still almost a full month of winter left according to the calendar, but the bloomin' flowers along the trail tell a much different story:

This looks much more like Spring than Winter.

The Huisache are blooming right on time and I don't think it has been cold enough, long enough to prevent the Four-nerve Daisies from blooming all winter. The Anacacho Orchid tree is blooming about a month early, the Common Sunflower didn't wait 'til summer and the Eastern Gamagrass is about two months early.

And above all the others, Texas Mountain Laurel shouts "SPRING" the clearest of them all.

These photographs were taken on my walk along the Roosevelt Park loop trail of the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River yesterday, Monday, February 22, 2016.