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
Wow, what good birds I had this morning! Red and Yellow Shafted Northern Flickers, Western Meadowlarks, Spotted Towhee, Song, Savannah, White-throated, Harris’, Field and Vesper sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, chickadees, cardinals, crows, Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Blue Jays. Obscure Bird Grasshopper (Schistocerca obscura). Such a beautiful grasshopper! A round nest out of a square hole. I pulled…
November 2020! Hang on! Had my first of season Fox Sparrow and Yellow-rumped Warbler today. Also saw a Lincoln’s Sparrow and Dark-eyed Juncos. No photos ;-( The phone really is not much good on bird photos except to perhaps get an ID or proof. Cottonwood trees are showing their fall colors. Fiery Skipper Parasitic Flies…
Pleasant day eh! Wispy cirrus clouds form between 16,500 and 45,000 feet. The ant and the Darkling Beetle (maybe Eleodes tricostata). Both went their separate ways. This ground beetle was making a meal of the leftover pecan. Maybe in the Pterostichus genus. Milkweed fluff. Gayfeather (Liatris mucronata) standing tall! Not sure what plant this is,…
We had some patchy frost this morning. Our recorded low was 31.6 degrees. First frost of the season! When it warmed up, the bugs came out. This is a Little Yellow (Pyrisitia lisa). White Checkered-skipper (Pyrqus genus) Zabulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon) on the Fall Aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides). I believe this little red spider might be in …
Yeah, for the sunshine I say but of course grateful for the rain we got. The wood of a dead Live Oak (Quercus fusiformis). Kinda of an oxymoron, eh. A few scales left on the armadillo tail. Snake skin in our garden pond. The Loggerhead Shrike has a new item on its menu…the field cricket…
It was a bit nippy today and the rain has stopped. We got almost 3/4 inch of much needed rain over the last several days at our house. The rain really brings out the colors of the lichens on this Bois D’arc (Maclura pomifera). Beautiful fungus at the base of a Post Oak (Quercus stellata)….
On October 27, 2017 we had sleet (at least at my house). Glad it is not a repeat performance today. Thirty-three degrees is the lowest we have had today. That is cold enough for me. Sure makes Gracie frisky. Drips on honeysuckle vine. Drips on Frostweed (Verbesina virginica). Drips on the grasshopper (might be Chortophaga…
The eggs I found on the Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) took about 16-21 days to hatch. This is what they looked like when I collected them back in September. Closeup of the eggs hatched. I identified them to the superfamily Chalcidoidea because they do not have any venation in their wings. I could not…
It was a birdy day. Saw some very nice birds! Some of my “first of season” birds were dark-eyed junco, white-crowned sparrows, and red-shafted northern flickers. Also saw chipping sparrows, vesper sparrows, cardinals, blue jays, red-tailed hawks, mourning doves, meadowlarks,black vultures and turkey vultures. Got a great look at the Red-shouldered Hawk. Meadowlark Multiple Loggerhead…
Are you on the fence? I’m not and I have voted BUT this is not about that. The following is about stuff on the fence, my barbwire fence! The Loggerhead Shrike was quite busy storing its cache on the fence. This beetle was still twitching so it was very fresh. Maybe the Loggerhead Shrike’s poop?…