Field Survey Week

I am back at the Caddo NG this week. So that will means lots of fun! On Sunday afternoon Jeanne and I took our walk on the Bois D’arc trail at our base camp at Bonham SP. We were not disappointed…good stuff. πŸ™‚

One of our first treasures was this interesting beetle. What a rectangle on the front! My tentative ID was the Small Mulberry Borer (Dorcaschema alternatum)! No mulberries in sight but BugGuide said Bois D Arc was a fav! There are plenty of Bois D’arc.

A Thelia species of moss looked like eye lashes to me.

A close view of a crustose lichen!

The Leucodon moss had black fungus fingers protruding. What do you think, dead trees in the forest? That what it looked like to me. πŸ˜‰

A Rusty Blackhaw berries!


A dog on its side? Perhaps the rock was tipped over. Who knows.

Banded Net-wing Beetle (Calopteron reticulatum) is another beetle that I always enjoying finding. And Calopteron means ‘beautiful wing’. So of course I would like it. LOL.
This was such a cool looking sawfly larva. The Common Sawfly (Tenthredinidae) family has over 900 species in 100 genera in North America. Most larvae feeds on foliage.

Love its locomotion!

One more thing. While my favorite person was holding down the fort at home. He found this yesterday afternoon while checking on the chickadee nestlings.

None were more than two inches! Crazy, eh!
Consulting with Jeanne’s favorite person and an avid fisherman, he told me this. First he said they looked like bream, a type of sunfish. Then he reported we exceeded the daily limit. Wayne explained he had seen cormorants deposit fish like that on a shoreline or on a dock. They are so efficient at catching the fish that they can be wasteful. However we have never seen a cormorant land in our field. So the theory is that they washed down from the neighbor’s pond that overflowed in the heavy rains. Very interesting and a new one for me. πŸ™‚

Thank you Wayne and Jim!

Tomorrow will be the start of the Caddo NG treasures!

Oh, the chickadees did fledge! πŸ™‚

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Keep looking!

The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know

13 Comments

  1. That moss looks like a fern clinging to that tree. Wonder why anyone would carve dog on a rock. Strange. And weird fish

  2. That beetle is so cool! And Suzanne has convinced me that I really need a rusty blackhaw in my yard somewhere.

    1. Diane, if I find a small volunteer RBV in my yard, I’ll dig it up for you. I’ve given away two others with good relocation success.

  3. Agree with Judy – that moss looked like a fern and why would someone carve dog.
    We had similar 2 inch fish, that ended up being Green Perch, show up in our creek. Our creek only has water in wet seasons and no stock tanks above us. So we assumed they swam upstream from the river while there was water running down our creek. No cormorants here either.

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