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 cloudy start on the grasslands this morning. The prairie was looking good! Our first exciting find of the day was the Nodding Ladies-tresses (Spiranthes cernua). Closeup. This species of orchid a lot times is self-pollinating (another word for it is androgyny) and the flower never opens. Update: Oct 25, 2020 I have since learned…
This cool and cloudy day meant the insects were not moving much so easy shots. American Bumble Bee (Bombus pensylvanicus) was right where I left it when I returned four hours later. And again it was still on the gayfeather at 3pm. Harvestman (Leiobunum vittatum) was cooperative as well. Pearl Crescent (Phycoides tharos) Common Meadow…
The Blue-faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum ambiguum) is a colorful fellow. The male sports the blue eyes and the red with black rings on the abdomen. The female has brown over gray eyes and the abdomen is tan with blackish incomplete rings mostly. A delightful find! This Crab Spider (Thomisidae) waiting for a meal on Eryngo (Eryngium…
This Texas Spiny Lizard decided it was warm enough this afternoon to be out and about. Closeup Five-banded Thynnid wasp (Myzinum quinquecinctum) on the Fall Aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) Cardinal feather weirdly stuck on the tree in this upright position. Mint-loving Pyrausta (Pyrausta acrionalis) Found this little guy (1cm or 3/8in.) hiding by my backdoor…
Not so windy today and such a wonderful temperature. The Nodding Ladies-tresses (Spiranthes cernua) have started to bloom. Love the way it spirals around the stem. Two-striped Grasshopper (Melanoplus bivittatus) impaled by a Loggerhead Shrike. The shrike is also known as the Butcher bird. The shrike will come back later for its cache. I have…
Our high wind gust yesterday was 32mph! So maybe a rock in the pocket might have kept someone from blowin’ away? What I have always called tickleweed was blowing up against the fences. On the way to town, I saw a six strand barbwire fence covered in the tickleweeds. This photo was from yesterday when the…
Brazos Bend State Park is worth the trip. We have been there several times. We did not see the alligators this time. It was too hot for Gracie (our dog) to walk that far, but we have seen them plenty of times before at this park. We actually took a two mile trail early in…
I know there is a lot of frass in the national news these days, but this frass (frass is insect poop) I have been waiting for this fall. This is under two of our Bois D’arc trees (Maclura pomifera). The fatter one is a sphinx caterpillar’s frass. The host plant for the Hagen’s Sphinx (Ceratomia…
It was a slow start to this morning, literally. LOL The common garden snails (Cornu aspersum) can move at a lightning speed of .029mph. Not sure if the above two snails are that species but they were not moving very fast. Correction: The one without a shell is a slug not a snail. Snails…