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
Slip and slide is what I did when I tried to go up an embankment at the grasslands to look at moss today. Lucky for you I do not have a photograph or maybe it is lucky for me LOL. We had a nice rain last night. Here at the house we got 1/4″ but…
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….
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….
The Eryngo looks like fish skeletons. Especially if you turn it on its side. Three earthstars! Not sure why this is red, blood or fungus? I don’t know. It is on a dead Live Oak. I found this cool white fungus when I turned over a fallen branch. Closer view. Black finger fungus. At least…
Poor girl hit our sliding door. Jim got the first photo. This is a female Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker. You can see that she does not have a mustache like the males. The mustache is black (for a yellow-shafted) that starts at the base of the beak and runs under the cheek. She has the yellow-shafts…