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
What a delightful morning with 16 species of birds while drinking my tea. Taking the opportunity to observe them, I watched the Red-breasted Nuthatch take its seed from the feeder head down. However, it drinks its water right side up. A chickadee ate ice crystals in addition to drinking the water. Blue Jays were given…
Sometimes when taking photos of stuff, I see things that will remind me of paintings. Maybe you too? 5 Extreme Times Tardigrades Proved Themselves to Be Incredibly Resilient NASA Satellites Help Scientists Track Staggering Wetlands Loss in Louisiana A study of polar bear paw papillae shows how they maintain traction on ice Keep looking! The…
Dec 19th was not as cold as today and yesterday. However, we still had to bundle up on that outing. Photos from today below. Of course, I had to sit and watch the birds from inside the warm house today. Climate Change Will Result in More Rainbows Glass Frogs Turn Transparent When They Sleep… By…
Today’s (Dec 22) clouds, flurries and cold blew in like the Polar Express. The Polar bears would love it. I didn’t mind it too much because I had plenty of layers on. Seemed like a good day to do some baking and making a pot of chicken noodle soup. Stay warm! Understanding the Mystifying Function…
Today’s post features a guest author. Jeanne wrote Mossy World for the Elm Fork Master Naturalist’s December newsletter. So I thought that y’all might enjoy it as much as I did. All the great photos are Jeanne’s as well. Imagine a walk in the woods or among rocks and boulders or meandering ravines without their…
A few more treasures from the Dec 15th outing. Indeed, a wonderful day! Male Wasps Have Been Seen Using Their Genitals as Weapons Against Predators Keep looking! The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know
On the outing Dec. 15th, Michael came along with us. Michael is a Range Specialist for the Forest Service. And he has only been here since August. Michael, I wish you much success in new career with the Forest Service! Why Los Angeles Fell in Love With the Mountain Lion Known as P-22 Keep looking!…
In yesterday’s post, you saw we were sticking as close as we could to the creek. It certainly was not easy traveling on the north side of the creek. What a nice find, the Woolly Lip Fern! Another one checked off my bucket list for the grasslands. 2-meter-long arthropods dominated the seas 470 million years…
On Dec. 15th, Jeanne, Michael and I headed to the other NEON site on the grasslands. In fact, NEON has two sites on the grasslands. We are special. 🙂 The Terrestrial Site was in the NEON post. It was more accessible. So the Aquatic Site, I knew was going to be trickier to navigate with…
Of course many of you know that fungi and lichens have a lot in common. The main difference is that lichens have learned to “farm”. Meaning that the fungus part of a lichen uses the algae or cyanobacteria to help with its nutritional needs. The fungus has been lichenized. The scientific names refer to fungal…