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
It was fairly foggy this morning and stayed damp to wet all day. I thought the temperature was fairly nice in the 51 to 55 degree range all day. And no wind. The heaviest the fog we had here was about 1/4 mile. On dreary days, the orange jelly fungus is always a bright spot….
So today (Jan 23th) was National Pie Day. This is the eating kind of pie, not the number π that is a mathematical constant. So I made a chocolate cream pie because I was thinking about the droplets that form on fungus. Remember in the post Feathers from a couple days ago that had the fungus…
Turban Lichen (Cladonia peziziformis) was still hanging on. It was there when we were there back in the summer. Purple Cliff-brake (Pellaea atropurpurea), mosses, and Turban lichens. Hanging roots and a hole in the side of the ditch. This nostoc was laying on the ground. It was partial dry and wet. The black part is…
That’s how far Gracie went on the grasslands yesterday. Humans went only 2+ miles in the three and half hours. A good part of the day was in the gullies and the creek bed. The side of some of the gullies were this red sandy/clay loam. Roots and red sandy/clay loam were beautiful! From the…
With the rest of week with rain in the forecast, I just had to get out. And today was just beautiful out. So off to the grasslands we went! The leaves of Pin Clover (Erodium cicutarium) were this colorful red. And it was blooming. It is a non-native plant. According to Wikipedia “it is native…
Greenbriar (Smilax bona-nox) in the winter loses a lot of its leaves, but some hang on. Some are subtle. Others do the camo-like thing. Others are like a rainbow of colors. And then some hold onto there green. As a famous frog once said it is not easy being green and that is especially true…
This caught my eye in the driveway. A baby pine cone must have blown off in yesterday’s wind. It was about 15 mm (1/2″). So pretty. Closer yet. I wonder how far this fluffy down feather got blown yesterday? Leaf beetle (Chrysolina auripennis) was a surprising find today. Host plants for it are Beebalm (Monarda)…
Here are the rest of the photos from yesterday’s grasslands adventure. Not sure why this orange tack was there but sure was bright. Maybe a surveyor or a researcher or maybe someone just had time on their hands?? The tentacles look like a snake skeleton. Blackland Thistle (Cirsium engelmannii). Burl on Bur Oak. Crust fungus….