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
Good birds on my first walk of the day this morning. Cedar Waxwings! Also today had a bunch of Pine Siskins, robins, sapsuckers, White-crowned, Harris’, Fox, and Field Sparrows, bluebirds, blue jays, a kestrel, chickadees, phoebe, meadowlarks, Turkey Vultures, and a scolding Bewick’s Wren. The Loggerhead Shrike found a new menu item…a Praying Mantis! This…
The sun highlighted these gorgeous brown polypore shelf fungus. Now that the leaves are gone, it is time to see where the birds nested. This one was a little worse for the wear. Keep looking!
Found this weird exuviae on a Hackberry tree attached on one end. There is an outer part that has all the black spikey things sticking out. You can pick out where the six legs would have been. The inner part mostly. Not sure what it was but for sure interesting! It was about 7mm long…
This little nymph, possibly a wheelbug, was crawling on my neck. I thought I had brushed it off, but a few moments later I feel this sting and there it was on my other hand. Ouch! The sting lasted about 20 minutes, but not that bad. Remember the Snailseed (Cocculus carolinus) from a couple days ago? Here…
Do you ever wonder where some of the common names for things come from? Yellow-rumped Warbler, Red-headed Woodpecker, Shooting-star (Dodecatheon meadia) Snake Herb (Dyschoriste linearis) or Texas Bluestar (Amsonia ciliata var texana) all seem to be obvious to me, Sometimes you might think the person was crazy such as is the case for Bastard Toadflax (Comandra…
This band-winged grasshopper (Oedipodinae) caught my eye with yellow wing showing! Poison ivy leaf (Toxicodendron radicans) in case you were itching (groan- LOL) to see its leaflets. It is a show stopper in the fall. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker makes horizonal holes on trees. This is a Cedar Elm tree. This is a good sign that you have…
When you are traipsing around on the grasslands, the woods, or most anywhere, a good thing to know is what does poison ivy look like in the winter. You can get still get contact dermatitis even in the winter if you are allergic to the oils. And all parts of the plant have the oils….
FOS – first of season Northern Harrier for me! Hope one sticks around this winter in our field. Last winter they were scarce in our field. Also got nice looks at a meadowlark and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. This is what is left from the mushroom that was on the dead Blackjack (Quercus marilandica) log a few…
All the leaves are gone on my Common Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana). I have been waiting for them to get ripe. Unfortunately, most of fruit is out of my reach ;-( But finally the fruit is ready to eat! It is so deliciously sweet. However I will warn you that before they are ripe, the fruit makes…