Exploring the foliage for crawling, flying critters in one of Austin’s most beautiful nature preserves, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
The prey is already dying when the hunters arrive. The sky is dark gray, the air thick with the threat of rain. But that hasn’t stopped over a dozen from gathering. They’re mostly, but not exclusively, older folks—frequently retirees with the ability to take a weekday morning off—and they’re armed with Digital SLR cameras and macro lenses.
Every Thursday for 13 years, naturalist and author Valerie Bugh, far left, has led volunteers in counting and photographing animals at the wildflower center.Bugh is the author of 10 short fold-out pamphlets with color photos, with titles like. That’s just one of her jobs: She’s also second clarinet in the Austin Opera. She’s modest about these accomplishments when asked—Bugh is too busy searching for bugs to brag about herself.
Every Thursday from 2010 to the present, Valerie Bugh leads the Fauna Project at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.The bug hunters move in a little cluster, calling out when they find something new for Bugh to examine. The salt marsh moth , another caterpillar present in the day’s fauna count, subsists almost entirely on passion flower vines.
“Aha, here’s where the bumblebees are,” Bugh declares with delight as some are pointed out to her. “These are workers and look how docile they are, they’re barely moving.” The ecosystems are moving east, including tornado alley. It’s not great for the people in the way, and not great for us on the edge of deserts.
Later, when I come home from the center, I pore over her very detailed homepage, which features a searchable spreadsheet of every creature identified by her team since 2010. I email Bugh to ask what changes she’s noticed over time.
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