January
As the month begins, gray fox pups are born
While their daddy sleeps all day in a tree
Near the vixen’s den.
As the pups open their eyes, the underground writhes
Billions of springtails mating, in galaxies of thousands.
The prairie dogs mate, too,
And the greathorned owls lay eggs
Even while the snow falls.
The whitetail deer lose their antlers
As they nibble dandelion, filaree, and mustard,
The companions of emigrating humankind.
February
In the first week modern drivers
Splatter the slowest and dumbest male skunks
But bobcats never become roadkill
Although they wander for mates, too.
Tiny draba, delicate between grass leaf litter
Is the first native bloom of spring.
The Cassin’s sparrow first songflight,
A quavery whistle rising in the sky
Settles in our hearts.
At the end of the month,
Dragonflies fly, salamanders lay eggs
Under ice-rimmed ponds
The first cottontail bunny baby
Of the year opens its eyes
When lizards scamper on warm days.
March
Mule deer shed their racks in time
For the just awakened flies and ants
Grasshoppers jump at the squeak
Of newborn cotton rats
The bloom of scrambled eggs
Set killdeer to courting
As sandhill cranes depart and
Pronghorn lose tuffs of winter pelage.
Ground squirrels whistle and frogs sing
When the yellow-headed blackbirds pass by
And spectacle pod dances in the winds of spring.
Scissortail flycatchers and black-chinned hummingbirds
Skip above two dozen species of wildflowers
And turkey vultures circle north over
Box turtles investigating the changes of winter
April
Prairie dog pups come up to play
With baby preying mantids
And kingbirds chase hawks and ravens
While a bobcat kitten’s eye still are not open.
Impatient tarantulas clean house
While prairie chickens dance and boom
Disturbing baby pronghorn fawns.
Orioles gather hair
And swallows ball up mud.
Ground squirrels tussle
And bullbats pop their wings.
Mississippi kite soar in circles
And thousands of migrating sandpipers
Hem and stitch the shore of playas full of water.
Redwinged blackbirds lift their epaulets for a mate
Above thousands of frog eggs bobbing
A million ladybugs speckle the fresh chartreuse mesquite as
Painted buntings and blue grosbeaks bring tropical heat.
May
The birds of winter
begin to leave and
The summer birds arrive
150 species of birds flit over the blooms
of the mesquite and 200 species of wildflowers.
While yuccas bloom
Cactus wren young act the fool
And the pronghorn males go wandering off in groups.
At first the lotebush has berries,
But their blooms come later.
Possum young cling to their mother
And red shiners are truly red.
As the heat sends fuzzy orange caterpillars scurrying
The grass yellows and curls for the summer
And the ground becomes hard as rock –
But – if it rains, spring continues!
June
The lotebush blooms,
Pools of nectar glisten
Flies, bees, wasp, and ant swarm
And rainbugs march after a rain cools the earth.
Sunfish males hollow out nests
And blackwitch moths pass by
On their death flight to the north.
Dog day cicadas drone in town
Mesquite cicadas squirm to
The other side of a branch
Termites swarm after a rain
And feed the toads rising after a year underground.
Tiny quail chicks run (and there is always one more!)
Around male tarantulas searching
For rain awakened mates.
July
Schistocerca and Melanolopus grasshoppers migrate
In locust hordes in some years.
Painted grasshoppers lek in open grass
And that is why the curlews return.
Badger young wander in sibling groups,
Black tens swoop over rain-filled playas
Scooping the floating insect detritus
Living and dead.
Clumsy blundering giant beetles arise
From horsecripplers.
Cattail caterpillars bristle on the slick green
And spiderlings come to earth with predawn dew.
Mockingbirds and curve-billed thrashers wear
Prickly pear purple capes
In the playas egrets wade
And in the pastures lark buntings
Twitter again.
August
Windmills stop turning for a fortnight
And dozens of migrating hummingbirds
Begin weeklong visits.
Baby whiptail lizards tentatively explore under
Seepwillow swarming with sand wasps
Near halophytes saltmarsh moths mate all nightlong
And in the prairie prairie dogs refurbish their burrows,
while great blue herons arrive at every pond
to teach fish guile.
Thistle down is plucked for lesser goldfinch nests
And the soft sibilance of upland sandpipers
Filters from cloudy night skies.
Deer rub their velvet in jerky irritation
And young toebiters leave their daddy’s back.
At daybreak leopard frogs songs deafens a passerby
Mississippi kites form swirling kettles and head to south
America.
South Texas butterflies ride the moist Gulfwinds of
hurricanes.
The redwinged arphia grasshoppers begin to crepitate.
Avocets and stilts leave
As Wilson’s warblers pass through.
Windscorpions dig burrows for eggs
And thief ants swarm
While preying mantids foam egg cases.
Orioles leave
And ducks, soras, and harriers arrive as
The fall horde of miller moths
Come from the dusty grass of sundown.
Painted buntings leave
As prairie falcons and white-crowned sparrows return.
Paper wasp reproductives lounge at the nest
And stillwater mayflies live as adults for a day.
Next year’s wildflower begin germination
And mesquite twig girdlers invade
While pronghorn males frantically round up harems.
October
The cold-blooded ones end their year
As bird migration slows
The first morning fog of fall
Hints at winter’s kill.
Monarch butterflies turn trees gold
Telling the buzzards and bullbats it is time to go.
Box turtles go underground
When scissortail flycatchers leave.
Robins and cedar waxwings arrive in town
Pronghorn shed their antlers as
Packrats add to their roofs
Paperwasps swirl in mating swarms.
Horny toads go underground
As spotted towhees arrive to dance
On ground greened by the rosettes of next year’s
wildflowers.
Young raccoons disperse
When rescue grass gives a promise of spring and
Carpet the shade of mesquites dropping leaves.
On foggy mornings the lacy drapery
Of thousands of spiderling draglines festoon
Every golden grass stalk.
The late fall mayfly swarms
When the diving ducks (goldeneyes and mergansers) arrive.
Pairs of sharpshinned hawks indulge
In chase-flights
Startling migrant bluebirds
Away from junipers twinkling with berries.
December
Snow might come
As a fine dust
Or a downy blanket and
When it melts the sweet smell of moisture
Fills the morning.
Cattail fluff soars on stiff breezes and
Visiting woodpeckers brace themselves to drill while
Nuthatches circle tree trunks.
Golden eagles set up winter hunting grounds
Over prairie dog towns
Overseeing white tail deer in rut
And pronghorn gathering in mixed sex bands
Foxes court
Quavery yelps
Make the longest nights of the year
Shiver.
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