M E R C U R Y
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Sunday, April 5, 2026
Saturday, April 4, 2026
Serengeti
A F R I C A N S A V A N N A
In this region of west Equatorial Africa
an ancient cycle of life has continued, unchanged,
over the millions of years leading up to now.
Played out on this stage is an endless migration,
vast in the scale of animal movement.
The grassland, covered with wildebeest, zebra
and gazelle, all on the move, trekking by
the hundreds of thousands to elsewhere...
someplace that exists only as a feeling,
shared by the individuals involved in
this Hollywood size epic.
B A O B A B T R E E
A giant, drought resistant tree stands much as it has
over the past 200 million years, a glimpse of life
that prevailed on this land even before
Africa became a continent.
Locals call it the Upside-Down Tree because,
when the leaves drop, the branches look like roots
to a tree stuck in the ground wrong-side up.
I M P A L A
This athletic antelope can clear a ten foot high obstacle
while its pursuer must go around. It's abilities such as
this that keeps a healthy Impala one step ahead
of a pursuing lion or hyena.
Moving from grassland to the woodlands
doesn't make you safe. Leopards and male
lions specialize in ambushing Impalas that
browse the brush, casually nibbling leaves.
Suddenly its neck is being crushed in a
vice-like grip. All hope for breath ends.
The feast begins even as the last embers
of thought leave the mind.
L I O N
A rare social cat that requires for survival a complex
family unit, ruled by a matriarch. Much of the time
males are on the outside looking in. The ticket to
fatherhood requires getting past some battle-scarred
male guarding his harem. The odds of success
are made better when young males band together
to take out the previously feared leader.
The victorious lions must now face-off among
themselves as to who is most worthy of
now becoming the new breeder in chief.
B L U E W I L D E B E E S T
The wildebeest migration never ends; a herd of
more than a million and a half strong, grazing on
the nutrient-rich savanna grasses that flourish
with the passing rains.
There is no opportunity to lead a herd that
stretches to the horizon. There is no decision maker
leading the way. Instead, wildebeest rely on
"swarm" intelligence. Movement is collective.
Everyone just follows everyone else.
S P O T T E D H Y E N A
A matriarchal society of carnivores that compete
with lions for ruling the savanna grasslands.
Hyenas organize into clans that can number
over a hundred. Adult females are larger than
the males. In fact, they look more like males
than do the males. Males are needed to
provide genetic diversity to the species as well
as delivering bonus seasoning to another
individual's life.
M A S A I G I R A F F E
It takes a twenty-plus pound heart to ensure blood
makes it up that long neck to deliver oxygen to
the brain. Giraffes can grow to 19 feet in height.
They consume about 75 pounds of leaves daily
to stay healthy. All those leaves are lassoed by
its 20 inch tongue. The tongue's pigment is very
dark, protecting it from sunburn.
What a rare and exotic beast.
There is no other animal like the giraffe.
What is it about the habitat of the Serengeti
that it alone could enable an animal such as this
to prevail?
A F R I C A N E L E P H A N T
The oldest female runs the herd. She best knows
the location of water and food in times of drought.
Her top priority being family survival.
Another Serengeti animal of rare and exotic
anatomy is the elephant. What other animal
relies on its nose to serve as its arm, one sensitive
enough to pick up a blade of grass, yet having
the power to uproot a tree.
Nature has truly engineered an out of the box solution
for overcoming the challenges an elephant faces
in life.
B L A C K M A M B A
If you don't have antivenom handy when bit
you have about thirty minutes to write your
last will and testament.
The mamba doesn't want anything to do
with you. Provide it a path to escape and
it will leave. Corner it and you are contending
with the most feared snake in Africa. It has
extraordinary speed and size. The mamba
bites you multiple times when it strikes,
injecting lethal doses of toxins that kill nerves
as well as toxins to attack your heart.
May your good-byes be speedy.
R U P P E L L ' S V U L T U R E
An aircraft stuck one of these birds flying at 37,000 feet.
Its exotic hemoglobin protein enables it to breath
in very thin air. What advantage would this characteristic
give to this savanna scavenger? They benefit from
their panoramic view of the savanna to spot carrion
but altitude quickly becomes counterproductive
when above a couple thousand feet.
A vulture flying at several thousand feet
is no longer looking for dinner down below
because they are searching the horizon for
evidence of something big.
The sight of vultures circling is like a dinner bell
for other vultures working the area.
Come join in on the feast.
Something found dead and big as a zebra means
everyone that shows up gets a full belly
for the day as its reward.
O L I V E B A B O O N
Females stay with the baboon troop they were
born into, inheriting the social rank of their mother.
Males leave around the age of six and take on
the challenge of establishing their position
on the pecking order totem pole of another
troop.
Elephants have a defensive alliance with
baboons around waterholes. The baboons
provide the alarm when danger lurks nearby.
In turn, agitated elephants ward off hungry
lions, hyenas and leopards - and anyone
else looking to have baboon for brunch.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Saturday, March 28, 2026
Pond
F R E S H W A T E R P O N D
A tight, interdependent little community sharing
a small body of water that doesn't quickly go away.
Each animal is both predator and prey, an unknowing
participant in a self-sustaining cycle of nutrients,
a cycle of life, first by devouring another and then
by becoming a meal for someone else.
This is not survival of the fittest.
This is simply fate for the living.
B L U E D A S H E R w i t h W A T E R M I T E S
This brightly colored male dragonfly should be at
his prime, getting fat eating all the tasty insects
arriving at the pond... as though they were
checking in to a resort for a five star makeover.
Sure, coming right up.
You're gone so quick
you don't know you're gone.
That's dragonfly normal. Just like the training manual
described. But your belly is festooned with a couple
hundred parasitic larvae. You're exhausted. Out of sorts.
And just sluggish enough to be snatched and devoured
by a patrolling perch. Your nutrients are passed along
to another. Crisp on the outside, thick and gooey
on the inside. It has a delightful larval topping.
Like caviar.
Y E L L O W P E R C H
Excellent flavor. We farm them by the tens of thousands.
They aren't going anywhere. They are a fish fry staple.
Gills and scales commercially farmed like chickens.
They aren't exposed to what lurks in the dark, still waters
of a grassland pond. Here the story gets even more
precarious.
Ponds are isolated patches of water that change
with the seasons. They are found where the ground
is too hard for the water to be absorbed or it dips
into the surrounding water table.
Water evaporates and ponds periodically run dry.
It could be months, even years, before rain restores
the ponds and life returns.
Who returns? How could frogs and fish
possibly survive this drought? No water.
No food. No oxygen.
It's amazing what a line of animals can adapt to
given a million years of trying.
B U L L F R O G
Up to eight inches long and over a pound in weight.
That's as big as any native frog gets in North America.
These guys are famous for their deep, resonate croak.
They work together with crickets to create that
good old country, nighttime melody.
This is a male frog. Look at that eardrum behind his ear.
It's huge. The female eardrums are about half this size.
They both sit like buddhas on a lily pad... motionless,
waiting. A dead bluegill floats belly-up nearby.
It's smell of decay is a delicious scent to a passing
fly. It pauses and hovers to investigate. Snap!
The frog's elastic tongue-like appendage snares the fly
in 0.07 of one second. Impossibly fast.
Faster than a speeding bullet.
The bullfrog spends his summer days
at the pool, sunning his pleasant self,
leisurely sweeping up insects as though
they were hors d'oeuvres, featured with
cocktails, in the lobby at four.
N O R T H E R N W A T E R S N A K E
No eggs. They give birth to their young live. A litter of
twenty or more squirming babies is not unusual.
They become hefty with size - big boned thick
as adults. They favor frogs, salamanders and
fish of every description for food.
They aren't poisonous and, unless cornered,
they prefer running over fighting.
You live longer.
It makes sense for a water snake to not lay eggs.
Where's the land? Eggs can't breath in water.
Eggs are food for herons and raccoons.
They wouldn't stand a chance left alone.
No, the strategy for this snake's young
are like that of the jackrabbit. From day one
its basically scatter and hide.
M A R S H W R E N
They kill the young ones of birds that dare to nest
near them. The male is always building new nests,
anywhere from six to over twenty, during the
course of the breeding season. The female choses
one, lining it with something soft and comfortable.
The remaining nests become bachelor pads
and places to strut about.
R A C C O O N
Trash panda. They love your leftovers.
And for greater convenience they can nest
in the attic. Masked bandit. You are a pest
to them. Always getting in their way.
The good news is they prowl around at night
eating mice and insects. They prefer living alone.
Raccoons have been introduced to other habitats
globally. Invasive species generally disrupt
the area as uninvited guests to the table.
They wipe out native species that better
fit the balance of nature.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Desert
J A C K R A B B I T
SURVIVAL BEGINS ON DAY ONE.
They are hares, born fully furred, eyes wide open
and they hop around just minutes after birth.
A rabbit, by contrast, is born blind, hairless and
helpless.
Jackrabbits have eagles, coyotes and bobcats
for neighbors. Everyone of these predators
rely on these hares as a staple of their diet.
The Jackrabbit hides in the spindly shade
of a desert creosote bush, its camouflaged form
difficult to detect, provided the animal doesn't move.
When seen, burst away full throttle for your life.
Adults can run nearly forty miles
an hour and leap twenty feet in a single bound.
Their eyes are positioned to see nearly 360 degrees
without moving their head. Their huge ears provide
keen hearing as well as serving as a radiator,
releasing the body's excess heat into the
surrounding air.
Their extreme environment requires they eat
their own stools, making double sure their
gut didn't miss some bit of nutrient or drop
of water that might have slipped through
their first go around.
It's a hard life having to snack on fecal pellets
like they are some daily probiotic supplement.
K A N G A R O O R A T
METABOLIZE DRY SEEDS INTO WATER. THEY NEVER DRINK.
Common to deserts of the American Southwest -
Sonora and Mojave. It's relatives are gophers,
not rats. They have fur-lined pouches outside
their cheeks to hold the foraged seeds
they will return to their burrow for storage.
Having the cheek pouches outside the mouth
prevents saliva from contacting these seeds,
causing them to later mold while stored.
Its skull appears almost half the size of its body.
Behind each animal's ear is a large, hollow chamber
that amplifies subtle sounds, like the faint whoosh of
an owl's wings in flight or the near silent glide
of a snake closing in. Keen hearing is the
kangaroo rat's best defense against predators
that make them their primary source of food.
R O A D R U N N E R
CAPABLE OF FLIGHT BUT PREFERS RUNNING.
Twenty miles an hour sustained speed,
twenty-five in a burst. And you don't know
whether it's coming or going, judging by the
tracks it leaves. It has two toes in front and
two in back. The footprint is the same either way.
All members of the cuckoo family share the
same curious feet.
They are known to kill rattlesnakes.
They might even eat it if it is small enough.
Mostly their diet is made up of mice,
lizards, insects, tarantulas and scorpions.
All you can eat.
C O Y O T E
POPULATION EXPANDS DESPITE ADVERSITY.
An animal once limited to prairies and desert
has now stretched its population from coast
to coast, New York City to Los Angeles, and
everything in between - forests and mountains
alike, in spite of efforts by ranchers and others
to eliminate them as pests.
Coyotes eat most anything.
Rabbit if they catch one, deer if it's already dead.
Insects will do. They can live on fruit if need be.
They are highly social animals and use a
number of different barks, howls and yips to
keep track of each other's location and to
maintain social bonds as well as mark
their territory.
S A G U A R O
THEY TAKE FOREVER TO GROW - 10 YEARS TO REACH 3 FEET.
Let's say your parents planted a one inch tall
saguaro cactus in the yard to celebrate your
birth. You would probably be middle-aged
and using reading glasses by the time it had
its first flower bloom. The saguaro would sprout
its first arm when you are over 75 and making
frequent doctor visits. Your grandkids will
celebrate the saguaro reaching its mature
height when they are all old enough to vote.
In Arizona, it is a felony to disturb these plants
in any way, shape or form.
G I L A W O O D P E C K E R
APARTMENT LIVING IN A SAGUARO. KNOCK, KNOCK.
If you are a woodpecker in the Sonora Desert
you settle for a saguaro in place of wood.
They excavate a cavity in a living saguaro
to make its home. It takes months of drying
before the pulp hardens to a leathery case,
and becomes suitable for raising a family.
This woodpecker likes to extract insects from
crevices with its sticky tongue, one that wraps
around its brain when retracted because it is
too long for its bill. Seriously.
Gila woodpeckers like cactus fruit, nectar,
berries and pet food left in a bowl out on
the patio.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
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