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
The Rain Crow (also known as the Yellow-billed Cuckoo) was yakking about all the rain! Glad the sunshine returned this afternoon. Well, it was the perfect day for seeing what FUN-gi had popped up. On the morning walk, this caught my eye along the path! What a beauty eh! Jim took this angle of…
These photos are all from the Prairie Seekers field day in Collin County. Candlesnuff fungus or also called Stag’s horn fungus (Xylaria species)! Apparently you must look at the spores to get a definite answer for the species according to the MushroomExpert. Border Patch caterpillar on Saw-tooth Sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus)! We saw quite a few of…
Now I know some of you will want to skip part of this post, but I found both of my subjects quite interesting. The Gulf Coast Tick (Amblyomma maculatum) and the Common Bird’s Nest (Crucibulum laeve) fungus are the my subjects today. I brought both of these ticks home with me in a container from yesterday’s NPAT…
Today, I went on the Prairie Seeker field training over in Collin County. It was a great day! Only got misted on a little bit and the only shower came when we were getting back into cars to leave. Good karma! I will share tomorrow what we found. Tapioca slime mold (Brefeldia maxima) is interesting!…
The weather has brought out some mushrooms! And I told y’all yesterday, I was going to share one of the tiniest mushrooms I have seen. Here it is! They are amazing! This is them in the leaf litter! I have not clue what species it is. When I first noticed the tiny white specks…I thought…
It is a tad chilly today, but tis nice to see the sun again. Our low this morning was 41 and the high was 61 degrees. Our four day total was 1.32 inches. I think the plants are happy! Here are the last of the grasslands photos from the April 13th. This was a cool…
Here are some more of the grasslands finds! Interesting to see how the beavers gnawed on the tree and how the tree is healing. New Cedar Elm leaves are colorful! Back of a new Post Oak leaf. If you have a chance, take a close up look at the hairs on the back of the…
More photos from the grasslands… Eastern Red Cedar with fungus where a limb had been cut off. Closer view. Gnarly oak! Can you find the dragonfly? Closer…sometimes even when you know where it is, they can be hard to spot. It is a female Common Whitetail. Greenbriar is starting to flower. This is a…
Oh boy I finally got the Cedar Apple Rust (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae). It has been on my list to see and photograph and today was its day at the grasslands. “On juniper, galls appear about seven months after infection, and they form gelatinous masses of spores after 18 months. Golf ball-like depressions form on the gall…
I saw my FOS towhee on the grasslands yesterday! I could not see which towhee species. Tiny and FOS spiderwort! This looks to be where the hogs bellies rub as they step over the log. At least that is what we thought. Jeanne should know. She has too many at her house. I can see…