Frontage road moons and dead end owls
No. 163
When I set out for home after my reading in San Antonio Wednesday night, I caught a vignette of the harvest moon rising over the frontage road of Interstate 35. I pulled up to the light just at the moment when the disc of our natural satellite was at its biggest and richest, emerging in the northeast behind some low stratus clouds. I wish I could say its majesty drowned out the over-illuminated noise of neon signs and billboards anchored by the Golden Arches.
Finding my way to the onramp from the bookstore, the digital navigator directed me to turn down Austin Street, which I figured must have been so named because it once marked the road to Austin in the days before the highway, in the same way that in South Austin you can drive traces of the Old San Antonio Road. Austin Street passed under an elevated section of the interstate, under which a couple was settling into their tent as darkness settled in. At dinner after the reading, my friends and colleagues who had come by the event talked about the ancient path I-35 travels, following the line of once-sacred springs along the edge of the Hill Country. I found myself wondering if the people camped behind the billboards and neon signs of the frontage road have to pay for water when they walk into the McDonald’s, water mostly pumped from the bountiful limestone aquifers beneath the pavement.
Thursday morning as I took the trash out before dawn, I spotted a barred owl perched on the telecom lines just outside our front fence. The owls are a regular presence in the forested floodplain behind us, but it’s unusual to see one hunting on the street. The hunting must be good there, though, in that Anthropocene ecotone where two side streets off a major thoroughfare suddenly dead end at a fenceline that divides the old factories from the urban woods. The foxes sneak out under the gate every night to hunt the dumpster-diving rodents, and in the daytime the red-shouldered hawks often perch on the telephone poles waiting for ground-crawling prey to scuttle across our rights of way.
As it stared back at me, I wondered if that might be a younger owl, descendant of some of the ones I’ve seen in these woods over the past 15 years, trying out new territory in the light of the moon that was now low in the western sky, shining over a city that had mostly gone dark.
We watched each other for a while, and it didn’t seem to mind mind me pulling out my phone to take the above picture. In the background, you could hear the sounds of the dudes on the 5 a.m. shift cranking up the door factory for the day. Then the owl was startled, turning quickly to look for the source of the noise: a welder lighting their torch. The owl settled back in for a moment, seeing no immediate threat, but then flew off to the woods, perhaps realizing the human commotion was killing the vibe and scaring off any owl food.
The moon had been full on Tuesday, and in the very early morning, between four and five, it was there next to Saturn in the southwestern sky. It’s easy to make out the planets in the city at night, because most of the stars are no longer visible due to light pollution, even in dark corners of the metropolis like our lot at the edge of the urban woods. When you see them in that moment of stillness before most human inhabitants of the city get up, and the owls and coyotes are out hunting a landscape mostly free from our gazes, you can almost imagine what a more balanced future could be like. One where we make room for the moon, and the other life that comes out at night.
The Roundup
Welcome to all the new subscribers who signed up for the newsletter this week. I’ve been writing these Field Notes since February of 2020. They started as an experiment in urban nature writing, mostly focused on experiences of wild nature and the Anthropocene uncanny in and around our home on the East Side of Austin, Texas, with plenty of wanders into other landscapes, and with plenty of photography to accompany the text. I try to post one of these every Sunday, as the schedule permits. You can find an archive of the most popular installments here.
My new book released this week, A Natural History of Empty Lots, draws from the same material, and works to synthesize the lessons of 20 years exploring wild urban spaces and learning how to rewild a brownfield home site.
You can get a pretty good idea of what the book’s about from this Cory Doctorow review that dropped on Tuesday, which I suspect is how a lot of the folks who just subscribed found their way here.
If you’re interested in reading in excerpt from the book, two were published this week: one at Literary Hub, about encounters with urban coyotes, and another at The Architect’s Newspaper, about the variants of wild urban spaces.
Thanks to the amazing crowd that turned out Thursday night for our launch event at BookPeople in Austin, and to the legendary Jesse Sublett for joining me in conversation. It was really wonderful to see so many readers and friends (150! according to the store staff), and to meet some of you at our more intimate gathering at The Twig in San Antonio on Wednesday evening—thanks to the amazing Jennifer Bristol for joining me there. Both stores now have signed stock of the book, if you’re interested—here’s the link for BookPeople.
This week I’ll be in North Texas, so if you’re around and available, please join us at one (or both!) of these events:
I’ve also been doing a ton of radio and podcast interviews this week, and will try to share some links as they become available.
Speaking of the Golden Arches, this weekend’s NYT has a fascinating article about the environmental impact of our meat consumption, and the arrival in earnest of the new industry in lab-grown meat.
On the subject of the Edwards Aquifer and the ancient trails that follow the springs through its recharge zone, the Great Springs Project is doing amazing work to protect that area and its natural bounties, and re-connect the springs through a network of public trails. Check out the details at their site.
And thanks to Bruce Sterling for passing along this wonderful Des Moines Art Center video of Andy Goldsworthy building the central piece of his “Three Cairns” in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Beautiful work, and a nice piece to contemplate on the autumnal equinox. I hope to see the Prairie Cairn in person when I’m in Iowa for a couple of events next month—details on that soon.
Have a great week, and enjoy the beginning of fall.
The last lines of your essay reminded me of that study that came out a couple of years back (I think) that showed a wide range of animals were shifting their behavior to become more nocturnal, to avoid us humans and our loud activity. I like the idea of re-meeting some of our old daytime friends, now after dark. I like even better the idea of quieting down during the day to make some space for those who like it less noisy. :)
I wonder where the full Moon gets its many names. As a kid, I remember hearing of the harvest moon, of course. But over the past few decades, it seems like I hear a zany new name once every 28 days. "Super Double Blood Wolf Moon," or something much like it, was one particularly verbose example. Who is the Moon's publicist? I'd love to know.
Glad to hear you had a good turnout for the San Antonio appearance. A friend of mine attended and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you're up for a road trip, can I suggest the Boulder Bookstore in Colorado?