Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🦉 Great Horned Owls
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
🚙 Adventures just beyond Austin
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
PS. Some of us meet outside IRL together. I host monthly events. My goal here is to create a community, which means, you know, talking to each other. Come join the fun:
SUNDAY, APRIL 26: Family-friendly and bring-a-friend-friendly trip to the Wildflower Center. This was meant to be an owl-looking + wildflower stroll. Circumstances have changed, and it’s taken a heavy pivot toward primarily wildflowers. Grab your spot.
TUESDAY, MAY 12: In collaboration with ATX Art Club, we’re visiting Mayfield Park for an evening of beginner-level charcoal nature drawing. Plus peacocks. Plus the 2009 Small Tree of the Year. Grab your spot.
To get first dibs on event tickets and join our tighter circle, join here.
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
There’s a batch of owl-adjacent people who’ve had a hell of a week this week.
There’s tragedy. An empty nesting archway. A live cam offline well before schedule. And a pulse of hope.
Today we’re taking a look at the roller coaster of Athena the Owl’s nesting journey.
In an ideal world, we’d have the piercing gaze and hyper-neck-mobility of two owlets gracing the Wildflower Center archway, from egg to fledge, with a live cam and an uptick in Wildflower Center attendance for this peak owl season.
But we live in the real world. And in the real world, nature is nature.
ATHENA THE OWL
Athena started nesting at the Wildflower Center in 2012. With one or two eggs (and one outlier 3-egg year in 2015), Athena has chosen to nest at a sotol plant up in an archway at the entrance to the courtyard.
It usually goes well.
This year it did not.
We were on pace with Athena’s March 4 arrival to the nest, with eggs March 5 and 9.
April 5 was the last time Athena’s mate made an appearance on camera. With a strict division of labor/males as primary hunters, this absence, in hindsight, may be what we call foreshadowing.
There was excitement April 8, with the first owlet hatching. Again April 10, for the second.
There was grief April 17, with an owlet declared dead.
A false alarm April 18 re: death of owlet #2.
When Athen abandoned the nest April 19, it seemed like that was that. But with monitoring and a call to the Austin Wildlife Rescue, executive director Jules Maron climbed the ladder for a site check and found owlet #2 alive.
Cue rescue mission.
Cue local news eruption.
Eyes on the verge of opening to a fuzzy world
Tee up: Eddison, a surrogate owl parent, who raises about a dozen orphaned owlets per season to acclimate owls back into the wild. It’ll be several weeks of Wildlife Rescue direct care before Eddison takes over, but Eddison is described as “nice and grumpy” and quite capable of executing this fledgling goal.
Grumpy is a feature, not a bug—owls are wild animals, it’s the Austin Wildlife Rescue policy to keep awareness of the wild, so they 1. don’t name animals in a way that might blur the lines and 2. celebrate each time an owl is quite rude to predators like humans.
2017 owl cafe encounter, where the menu item is clearly human fingers, and the owl care ethics are questionable
ABOUT GREAT HORNED OWLS
While there are over 200 species of owls, making steady appearances in pop culture from Tootsie Pop commercials to wizard communication enablers, we’re zooming in on Great Horned Owls.
From the order Strigiformes, Great Horned Owls are strictly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey, noted for their upright stance, large broad heads, sharp talons, excellent vision and hearing, and feathers adapted for silent flight
Named for their ear tufts, which are actually feathers, not ears
Non-migratory. Great Horned Owls hold their territory year round, which is why Athena’s called dibs on that sotol planter
On the early end of nesting birds in North America
Incubation is 30-37 days, with a clear division of labor: the female broods, the male hunts. He feeds her while she stays on the nest
Average clutch size: 2, but occasionally up to 4
Hatchlings are helpless. Brooding mom is essential for warmth as they learn thermoregulation
Owl pellets are a thing—these are compact bundles of fur and bone an owl regurgitates after digesting its prey, and owlets start casting them out within their first week
2024 Travis Audubon event at Braker Preserve: owl pellet dissection
Apex nocturnal predators. For real top-of-the-food-chain. Think rodents, rabbits, skunks, other raptors, the occasional neighborhood cat, maybe the person in Criminal, episode 1, circa 2014 podcast emergence
Their specialized feathers have had millions of years of engineering to break up turbulence mid-flight, eliminating the sound of approach. It’s an unfair advantage, but the rodent community has lodged no successful complaints
It takes 3-4 months for owls to go from first flight through hunting training to their solo debuts in the world
Lifespan in the wild is around 15 years. Our girl Athena is force.
My pal’s winter visitor, and another reason to get a bird feeder with a camera
TO SERVE AS WITNESS
That we, the collective, know about Athena, is fascinating. We had unprecedented access into this particular owl family unit, a way to observe how these animals navigate resources, share responsibility (without even using a Fair Play Deck), and to see the very real consequences when the system has a breach in efficacy.
Despite the Cornell cam, installed in 2024 about 20 feet from the nest, Athena has no want for performative survival. She takes up the space she needs.
It’s a study in how to take incremental steps, hope for the best, embrace the process, and keep showing up. Even when the camera is off. Even in the aftermath.
EVENT ALERT
The original plan was to see the owlets + take a stroll.
Now we’re going to take a look at the empty nesting spot + take a stroll.
Join us at the Wildflower Center on Sunday, April 26.
PSA
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ April 24: Friday Co-Work: Pull up a seat on the patio to round out the work week
🗓️ April 24: Arty Party at Laguna Gloria
🗓️ April 24: Pitch & Run: Feed two birds with one scone
🗓️ April 25: Austin Ruck Club: Post-ruck Barton Springs dip encouraged
🗓️ April 25: The Board Walks Five miles of connection
🗓️ April 25: Painter Hall Telescope: Final public viewing until fall!
🗓️ April 25: Watercolors by the Water at Zilker
🗓️ April 25: Sunset Valley Artfest SW Austin is going big
🗓️ April 25 Eeyore’s Birthday Party It’d be hard to get more quintessential Austin than Eeyore’s
🗓️ April 25-26 SPRING 1 @ Austin Art Park
🗓️ April 25, 26: Austin Blues Festival
🗓️ April 26: Group Gawking I’m hosting this! Originally owl-oriented, but we adapt.
🗓️ April 26 Tree of the Year Kickoff Walk Visit some local tree legends
🗓️ April 27: Mothing at Pease Park: Wrap up your Monday with some citizen science
🗓️ April 28: Tuesday Twilights: think of the date night potential
🗓️ April 28: Late at the Lake: Open Mic at Mozarts for creatives
🗓️ April 28: Bike Night at COTA
🗓️ April 29 : Astronomy Department: Physics, Math, and Astronomy Building: this is the final Wednesday night viewing of the semester
🗓️ May 1 Muther Rucker Walk & Talk: Monthly movement for women. Moms, execs, founders, creatives are all welcome.
🗓️ May 12: Charcoal in the Garden- I’m co-hosting this with my pal Lara from ATX Art Club + the resident peacocks. Zero artistic talent required.
JUST OUTSIDE OF AUSTIN
🚙 April 24: UV Night Hike with the Central Texas Mycology Society
🚙 April 25: Edible Plants Walk Forage for free samples
🚙 April 25: Fire Through Our Forest- Guided Hike The good kind of destruction
🚙 April 25: Cactus Walk, led by a Master Naturalist
🚙 April 25: Composting Workshop: Scraps → soil
🚙 April 25-26: Fall In Love with Nature Day at McKinney Falls
🚙 April 26: Great Texas Birding Classic: help Birds Gone Batty count the migration
🚙 April 26: Intro to Fly Fishing You get a line, I’ll get a pole
🚙 April 26: Live Music: Sunday Under the Oaks, specifically one very large oak
🚙 May 1: Flower Moon Wildflower Wander 1 mile of bloom potential
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope you find the care you need, even if (especially if) it’s not at the threshold where people expected you to find it.
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
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