Welcome to my nature blog! I love sharing my photos of North Texas! I will keep looking out and hope you do too.
Comments welcome. Thank you, Mary
Here’s the chronicle of the Carolina Chickadees with the dead bluebird built into the nest. March 25 – nest with dead bluebird, mosses, fur, and grasses. March 29 – 7 eggs! April 11 – Very fresh! Fourteen days after all seven eggs laid. April 11 – angry bird! April 15 – Mom sitting on nest….
More Beavers Bend State Park… This is Cream Wild Indigo (Baptisia bracteata). We took locations of the plants we found for a researcher friend of Claire’s that is looking for Frosted Elfin caterpillars. For a moment, we thought oh boy! But it was not. The caterpillar is a yellow caterpillar, the size of a grain of…
More from Beavers Bend State Park… This moss was awesome! It was like giant pine trees! Gracie and Briar enjoyed the park too! This has several different Cladonia lichens! This is Usnea strigosa, another Fruticose lichen (the shrub-like lichens). Claire and I decided to draw. Look, I drew a fly LOL! Bess Beetle (Odontotaenius…
More from Beavers Bend State Park… This Luna moth was really wet. Poor thing. Awesome moth! I put it over in the grass and it started to vibrate its wings. So maybe it was going to fly another day. This plant brought back memories of seeing it when I was a child. We called them…
More from Beavers Bend State Park… A view of Broken Bow Lake. We got over 3 inches of rain last night. This is Jim, Claire, Gracie and Briar. Love this snail on the moss covered tree. In this shot you can see its foot too! Another view. This flower is called the most beautiful violet in…
More from Beavers Bend State Park… This a plant that Kathy gave me once. Of course I killed it. There a quite a few of them at the park. Also called Blue Houndstooth…Andersonglossum virginianum Close up! The flowers are easy to miss. They are rather small. Crustose lichen and moss on a quartz rock. Keep…
Beavers Bend State Park in Oklahoma! We are here for a few days. It is hard to load photos so I will try to get at least one photo a day. This was a new species for me…Monarda russeliana! Very cool flower! Keep looking!
The leaves on a thistle tied together with silk. It is the Painted Lady caterpillar! Thistles are its host plant. Frass of the Painted Lady caterpillar! Buprestid beetle on Prairie Verbena! Thin-lined Owlet (Isogona tenuis) is a common moth in our Post Oak woods. Baby Bluebirds growing fast! Found this pretty green cat on an…
This girl was into something with an orangey pollen! Really tiny on a Post Oak leaf. I believe it may be a type of Crambine Snout Moth (Subfamily Crambinae). This is the Green Soldier Fly (Hedriodiscus binotatus). Close up the wings. It is a beautiful critter! And it looks like it has been doing some pollinating…
We got a total of .72 inches yesterday. I’m sure the plants are happy! We had about 60-70 Pine Siskins outside the window while we ate dinner! It is the most I have seen this year. Eastern Tent caterpillar was covered in dew this morning! Pink Evening Primrose! The Forest Tent caterpillar! The Eastern Tent…