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
On this morning walk, the spider web is what caught my eye first. The funnel spider webs were most interesting to me on the thickness and where they put them. I wondered how spiders catch something when some have such visible webs. At least a lot of them are so visible to us. Then I…
Early start to the day which is the only way to go now to beat the heat. The spiders were the stars of the first part of the hike. The dew was heavy and soon our shoes and pants were wet. Not a bad thing on a warm day. Watch the video in the article…
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…
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…
Bewick’s wren nest with 4 eggs. After the size and color of the eggs, the twigs seal the deal for a Bewick’s. The Bold Jumping spider! Don’t the white spots look like eyes and a mouth. I think the “eyes” look like they have eyelashes. I saw this grass blade folded and wondered what did…
Back to the Garnett Preserve! The Ambush Bug and the Crab Spider on the Green Milkweed. I could not tell if one of them had nabbed the other. New orange growth on the Prickly Pear cactus! I love this look on the Prickly Pear too! Ratany (Krameria lanceolata) is a beauty, but the seed heads…
First find of the day was this bright yellow larva on a piece of grass! The Eastern Tent caterpillars are growing! Getting more colorful every day! Last year we put up new nestboxes after our original boxes fell apart. We used regular zip ties and they deteriorated after one season. This year going with old…
We went to the grasslands today, of course. LOL. It was a cool start that made Gracie a bit more perky. It was about 55 or 60 degrees when we started at 9:30am. So many things are starting to come out. The Goatweed Leafwing and Dainty Sulphurs are the most numerous of the butterflies seen…
On Friday, I went out to Judy’s farm south of Decatur. We looked in her creek to find these wonderful fossils. Judy spent many childhood days in the creek and even found an arrowhead one time! Here’s what was found on Friday. The formation is in the Cretaceous Period which is between 145 to 66…
I have divided up the rest of the grasslands outing photos into two posts, one for today and another for the next post. This was cool gnarl. I see a head with arms wrapping around in a cloak. A nice knot hole. It was completely see-thru! This was my favorite tree roots of the day!…