Several summers ago I was riding my bike along the Buffalo Bayou Hike and Bike Trail, nearing the Sabine Bridge, when two guys flagged me down for a camera emergency. Neither had one and they were desperate to get a picture of a log in the water. It took me a few seconds to recognize that log, floating leisurely, and to my eyes amicably, in the bayou, was a large Texas alligator heading towards downtown.

Unfortunately, my camera phone at the time was about as ancient as species Alligator mississippiensis, so the resulting green blur of a photo might as well have been of Bigfoot. I was left with no proof of what was an extraordinary sight for a city dweller, though perhaps an mundane one for the alligator.

After the first minutes of wonder, I moved on to a general curiosity about what my gator-acquaintance’s plans were. Did he have business downtown? Was he going to catch a matinee at the theatre or cinema? Was he meeting friends for a duck lunch near the Wortham Center?

Years later, I still think of this cosmopolitan gator whenever I’m faced with Houston’s unique mix of the wild within the urban. Though our forefathers and foremothers began building, rather haphazardly, this city 175 years ago and everyday we add another layer of cement and steel construction onto their foundation, I can still never shake the belief that Houston is always just one Cat. 5 hurricane away from reverting back to its watery, swampy origins, its perhaps true self. And I kind of love the city for that true self.

All around us the nature world finds ways to maintain its own claim on Houston, no matter how hard we plan and develop. While at first glance we may think Houston’s wildlife consists only of squirrels, grackles, and 1a.m. bar-hoppers on Washington Avenue, nature manages hold its own and together we create a city with a kind of wild urbanity and spots of urban wilderness.

On the bayou

Buffalo Bayou is my favorite source of those odd places of nature and city détente. I love the Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade both before and after the renovation, where freeways appear to grow out of the bayou like giant concrete mangroves. I love the wild rabbits that make their way out of the trees and brush to forage in the grassy fields between Memorial Dr. and Allen Parkway at dusk, before the raccoons and opossums come out for their late night shift. I find a kind of meditative solace standing on the Waugh Drive Bridge to watch snakes swim against the bayou current as rush hour traffic rushes onto Memorial and Allen.

One of the most beautiful sights I beheld last year happened one early evening in October about a week after that rainstorm break in the drought, when that blessed rain brought a plague of hatched mosquitoes onto our house. Out for a bike ride and just by happenstance, I found myself near the Waugh Dr. Bridge for the sunset.

I heard that chatter right on the edge of human hearing before I saw our little superheroes. Then, without pause, thousands of our Mexican free-tail bats — year round Houstonians all —poured from under the bridge into the air. For several minutes they traced some complex flight pattern back and forth over the bayou until, all bats accounted for, they flew into the coming night. And all I could think was: Fly you magnificent mammals, fly, and may you gorge yourselves until morning.

Of course the large parks, like Memorial Park, and their acres of land set aside for both recreation and wilderness serve to keep the urban in a semi-wild state, but I also have great affection for those little stretches of woods and trails that many Houstonians pass by everyday unaware.

Yes, as soon as we spot an unused stretch of trees, there is perhaps something in our character that needs to put a grocery store or freeway atop it. Yet, where one person sees a potential Starbucks another sees a Nature Discovery Center (like the Hana and Arthur Ginzbarg Center) or Nature Sanctuary (like the Edith L. Moore Sanctuary) and sometimes the Starbucks and protected woods all exist in peace within blocks of each other. Houston’s no zoning laws seem to apply to both human, animal, and vegetable alike.

And even the most refined of enclaves are not immune to wild urbanity.

A nest of herons

Two springs ago, I took a tour of the historical Broadacres District with members of the Professional Tour Guide Association of Houston. The tour touched on much of the historical and architectural significance of the William Ward Watkin master-planned neighborhood, but the event was a times literally overshadowed by the hundred yellow-crown night herons nesting in the beautiful, enormous oaks that line the center esplanade.

The houses might be multi-million dollar architectural masterpieces, but the herons, making themselves at home in the trees, were the real show for me. Looking up at the majestic adults and chicks looking down upon us, I was both awed by their number and at the ready to zig or zag whenever drops of guano rain fell.

So which came first? Has our wildlife become as quirky as Houston or did the city grow up to be a quirky as the natural world it shares? I have no answer to this question. But when pondering the equally philosophical riddle: Why did the wild peafowl of Nottingham Forest cross the road? I know the obvious answer is because they’re Houstonian commuters too, and so they’ll hold up traffic anytime they damn well please.