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
More good stuff! And lots of sunshine today. High temperature today was 80 degrees for us. We got a nice amount rain from yesterday’s storm…1.30″ Indian Blanket with a tiny beetle! Southern Purple Mint moth (Pyrausta laticlavia)! Snake Herb (Dyschoriste linearis) has an awesome throat! Texas Bindweed (Convolvulus equitans) has several colors from white to white…
We have gotten .39″ since yesterday. It was a nice rainy day eh! And I can’t believe I still need my knitted chicken hat! Thanks Claire! I wondered if this might be a tarantula burrow? It was fairly big. Let me know what you think. The Bewick’s Wren family is growing! A top view of…
Here’s the chronicle of the Carolina Chickadees with the dead bluebird built into the nest. March 25 – nest with dead bluebird, mosses, fur, and grasses. March 29 – 7 eggs! April 11 – Very fresh! Fourteen days after all seven eggs laid. April 11 – angry bird! April 15 – Mom sitting on nest….
The leaves on a thistle tied together with silk. It is the Painted Lady caterpillar! Thistles are its host plant. Frass of the Painted Lady caterpillar! Buprestid beetle on Prairie Verbena! Thin-lined Owlet (Isogona tenuis) is a common moth in our Post Oak woods. Baby Bluebirds growing fast! Found this pretty green cat on an…
This girl was into something with an orangey pollen! Really tiny on a Post Oak leaf. I believe it may be a type of Crambine Snout Moth (Subfamily Crambinae). This is the Green Soldier Fly (Hedriodiscus binotatus). Close up the wings. It is a beautiful critter! And it looks like it has been doing some pollinating…
It was cold this morning. We got down to 37 degrees…brrr. But maybe even colder the next couple of days. I wonder if it will be the last frost. My Mom used to say, it was needed for the blackberries to set. Our Tharp’s Spiderwort is blooming nicely. The Buprestid beetles (Acmaeodera ornatoides) are enjoying it too….
While sittin’, sippin’ tea, and watchin’ out my shop window this morning, I saw Lark Sparrows (FOS), White-crowned and Chipping sparrows, cardinals, mockingbirds, a Lincoln Sparrow, crows, a Turkey Vulture, and two flocks of hundred plus each of Franklin’s gulls. The Black-chinned hummers were at the dining room window. This is what I…
Oh my gosh, the Dangelmayr Prairie is so beautiful! Thank you so much to Denise and her daughters for showing us your special prairie! The Shooting Stars were amazing! The land has been in the family since 1893! These were really dark! And then there were a couple of white Shooting Stars. You don’t see…
In the creek we have been exploring, I have shown you the iron oxidizing bacteria. Today I will show you what I found in the reddish foam that is in the creek. This is the large picture of the foam in the creek. Closer view! Closer still! So what is it really? It could be…