Part II…Continuing on with yesterday grasslands adventure!

Part II…Continuing on with yesterday grasslands adventure!

  Crustose lichen with moss. Some crustose lichens have their fruiting bodies embedded in the thallus (the pale white-green warty crust in this case) that are called apothecia. The apothecia can either be cup or disk-like. There are many variations to thallus and fruiting bodies which can be pretty confusing. Another pareidolia…wood debris that looked…

Sunshine is back!

Sunshine is back!

 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…

Did you guess…

Did you guess…

 Armadillo? That is what it was. It had died about a month ago. Gracie did try to gnaw on it then. It was not stinky enough to roll in at that time. But she decided to bring the tail over to the path yesterday. Only thing left of it now is the tail and the…

Brazos Bend State Park

Brazos Bend State Park

 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…

A slow start

A slow start

  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…

Found the head waters!

Found the head waters!

 Today, we went back to find the head waters of this unnamed creek we had been exploring for the last few weeks. You know, the same one in “up a creek” post, but ran out of time to continue that day. Success today! Barely got going and came across several of these beautiful Lecanora species…

Chocolate Tube Slime

Chocolate Tube Slime

Harvestman(Eumesosoma roeweri) Notice the red mites on its several of its legs. Mites do this to get a lift to a new place. I had read about this sometime ago so I was so excited to see this! The difference between true spiders (Araneae – order) and Harvestmans (Opiliones – order) are that Harvestmans have…

Wake up!

Wake up!

Sleep Daisy (Xanthisma texanum var drummondii) not awake yet. They woke up around 11:30am But some still are sleeping The morning dew highlights this Bowl and Doily Weaver or Cup N Saucer spider (Frontinella pyramitela) web. Only two species in North America and the other one is only in Arizona. The spider is about 4mm…