Bird Sightings – Page 32 – The Hermits' Rest

What Time Is It? Hiking Time!

I managed to get a few good walks in today, around pockets of work. Palmetto State Park is very beautiful and a joy to hike. You should visit, especially if you’re near Austin, since it’s an easy drive.

The first hike I went on today covered the Mesquite Flats Trail. It goes to the edge of the park and as promised, takes the hiker by some mesquite trees. I also walked part of the interpretive trail through the beautiful palmetto swamp. Let’s go…

Around lunch-time I had to go to the park office to get a sticker for the Jeep. After getting my magnet and shirt, I decided to go look at the oxbow lake that’s near the tent camping area. There are lovely ponds fed by artesian wells built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. There’s also a very interesting trail around the lake, where I enjoyed cliff swallows and interés plants.

Later in the day, Mike and I walked the San Marcos River Trail. The river sure was flowing! We found immense old trees, mostly cottonwood, and saw plenty of interesting/scary insects. I made it hard for him to keep his heart rate up. I’m just too full of curiosity. We checked out the Civilian Conservation Corps Rectory building and a cool low water crossing where we found a beautiful damselfly, the American Rubyspot. It is crimson when flying.

San Marcos River

You’d think that would be enough. But no, in the evening I went out on a night hike sponsored by the park. The hike was actually a half hour later than I’d been told but that’s ok, because my wish came true and a painted bunting decided to hang out near me where I could get pictures. Yay!

The hike was led by a park biologist and the park host next door to us. Since we were all Texas Parks and Wildlife people, we ditched the program and just walked. It was great. We got to know each other and shared many nature tales. We investigated poop, spiders that look like moss, and many deer. At the end, we were serenaded by hundreds of frogs. Wow.

Ending the evening around the campfire with friends was perfect. Today was great, and I’m very grateful to those taking care of our house.

Childhood Memories Revisited

I owe y’all a more cheerful post, so I’m glad this dreary day produced some happy thoughts.

Look at these tiny margined calligrapher wasps!

The day started out looking like a tornado was going to hit. Long after the sun theoretically rose (couldn’t see it for the clouds), it suddenly got pitch black dark outside, like it was night. Then it turned that scary pre-tornado green.

Luckily all we got was some wind, heavy rain, and brief power outages.

It stayed drizzly all day, but I figured out ways to be outside with the animals and nature as much as I could. In the early afternoon I took a walk to the creek, where I heard a sound. I looked down at my phone and, YES! It was a bobwhite quail. Wow! That brought childhood memories back.

When I was a girl in the 60s, I lived in Gainesville, Florida. It was a town of 25,000 surrounded by beautiful farms, cattle ranches, and lakes. Everyone my parents knew had little lake shacks or hunting cabins (not fancy) or had family out in the country. Hunting and fishing happened most weekends (except for us – dad played fast-pitch softball on weekends).

A thing that happened I guess fairly often was that guys would get together during the appropriate season and hunt quail. They wouldn’t go get a few. No. They would bring bags and bags of them home, at which point women-folk would clean them. Then they’d invite all their friends over and eat quail (I think other people brought side dishes).

My memory is dim, but I remember the bags of quail and the deep fryer they cooked them in. It was huge. You’d go get a couple of tiny birds, carefully eat them to avoid shot, then get more.

I assume beer was also involved. In any case, the couple of times we were invited were quite unusual to me and my brother, who weren’t exactly country folk (one generation removed).

Now quail are no longer even there to hunt. That’s why hearing one got me so excited. I kept hoping some of our woods edges and the pond hill might be good for quail (they need a specific habitat, which the northern Florida scrub fit). Yay, right?

The other thing that took me back to childhood came later, when I went out walking at dusk, hoping to hear a nighthawk, my second-favorite nightjar. I did hear and see them, plus heard another bobwhite, so I know I wasn’t imagining it.

But also, I saw some fireflies! I’d lamented to Anita that I hadn’t seen any out here at the ranch, though I had in Cameron. But, there they were on the side of the road by our house. They are another childhood sight I miss.

When I was a girl in the 60s (same as above), we didn’t have fireflies at home. That meant I really looked forward to our yearly visit to my grandmother’s house in Chattanooga, because each summer her yard filled with fireflies.

My brother, my cousins, and I must have spent hours and hours chasing fireflies to put in jars, which we hoped would act as lanterns. I learned later than after we went to bed Dad let the poor creatures out. Aww. I guess that was better than cleaning up dead bugs.

My kids enjoyed them when they were little, too. I’m glad the pesticides haven’t killed them all yet.

It’s nice to see biodiversity trying to come back. I feel like I live in a hotbed of it here. Maybe there’s hope! After all, I saw or heard 48 different bird species yesterday and 44 today. I’m trying to keep as many native plants happy and healthy here as I can. And I want the fish, frogs, turtles, snakes, and mammals to have their own niches. That’s a positive goal!

If I Could Do a Job for a Day

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

The first thing I thought of on this topic is something I’d probably do for many, many days. I’d like to work at a State Park as a nature interpreter and do guided hikes to help people see what they don’t realize is all around them.

I have to admit it. Most of this blog is me doing just that.

Look, a sad ground crab spider, purportedly!

Well, it’s my blog, so I might as well do what I enjoy. I’m sure you’d rather read about birds and butterflies than about my self confidence issues and internal struggles, of which there are many right now. Zzzzz.

The best Nature news today is that it didn’t rain much. Maybe some of the water can head down to the aquifer. After removing much mud and hair, I tried to walk Apache some today, but everywhere we went had standing water. But, hey, we walked briskly and he was fine with it! He’s better at last!

No horse picture, so look! A green heron!

Same deal with Drew, sans grooming, but we at least spent time together and bonded. He bonked his head on mine in an unfortunate gate/wind incident, but we both handled it well. He did get Fiona’s leftovers out of the deal. She didn’t eat because I’d wormed her. Everyone else took the wormer just fine.

Look! Something shaped like a worm! It’s a checkered white caterpillar. Those guys have been busy.

I thought I’d share with you what I encountered after getting the mail today. Dozens of snout butterflies. The soundtrack is dickcissels.

A few butterflies

And that’s it for today. I hope we all get to do our dream job, at least for a day.

It’s Like Riding a Bicycle – Information, Not Advice

List the people you admire and look to for advice…

Okay, I’m not going to list everyone I admire! Some of them do t want to be blogged about, anyway. And advice? An organization I used to work for had a catchphrase something like, “Offer information, don’t give advice.” I rarely ask for advice these days. But I appreciate information from trusted sources.

That said, I have always found doing tarot card readings to be a way of providing information and perspectives without giving advice. You get some ideas from archetypal images and let the person you’re reading for draw their own conclusions. Ideally.

Celtic cross with significator, using Babylonian Tarot.

I hadn’t been reading cards much. The reading above was years ago in a previous post. Since 2018, I haven’t really wanted any insights into things around me, sort of feeling like ignorance may be bliss. But I’ll read if asked.

So today I was asked. I then realized my favorite Robin Wood deck was hiding somewhere in my Austin house stuff. And I was feeling rusty, especially since the only deck I could find that wasn’t overly cutesy was one with alternative names for suits, and worse, had labels on the cards giving them meanings I didn’t necessarily want to hear.

This cheerful card did come up. The good news is no one can stab you any more. They’re out of swords.

However, the reading went fine. Like riding a bicycle, it all comes back. I just love looking at what is laid out and seeing a gestalt of what the cards are hinting at before looking at details. That is FUN. And helping people with problems look at things from a new perspective is rewarding. (Plus I got to talk to an old friend.)

Maybe if I locate one of the decks I’m more comfortable with, I’ll do more, just not for me or my family. I have a friend who’s a professional tarot reader who doesn’t do family readings.

(I’m sure somewhere in this blog I talk more about out tarot and how I use it, so in a few words, no I don’t predict the future and no it’s not a parlor trick. It’s intuition and archetypes.)

I’m glad I was home and able to spontain a tarot reading, since not much else happened today. More rain and wetness! 100% humidity means I had big hair. I did get to see a big ole jackrabbit, which is pretty rare here, and continued to get the buntings more comfortable with me. I enjoy both the painted and indigo ones singing and flitting around.

You can practically tell that this is a bird! They’re getting closer!

I hope you have trustworthy advisors, but even more, I hope you have the wisdom to make your own decisions based on good information, and if you get a tarot reading, don’t take it literally. That’s my advice.

Pretending I’m Camping

We aren’t at a state park tonight, because Lake Livingston was getting flooded today. Plus, Lee didn’t want to drive the big vehicle towing a small vehicle in hard rain. It’s rainy all over our area, but a lot worse to the east. Maybe we’ll go over tomorrow.

Looking at the bright side (though it was a dim day), I needed to get a lot of work done today, and I had plenty of time to do it AND have a S’mores brownie with Anita at the bakery. That was one good brownie. And it was sort of camping food, right?

After work, I indulgently sat in the back yard with the birds. I even got a recognizable painted bunting picture!

But the way I turned my day of disappointment into a day of joy came when I decided to go for a late-afternoon walk and pretend I was on one of my nature walls, in search of new and exciting things, and maybe encountering someone interesting to talk to!

There! Pitcher’s leather flower! (Or bluebill, *Clematis pitcheri*)

Finally finding the coolest wildflower in my exotic county road made my pretend hike more exciting right away. It’s hard to spot these native clematis, so my heart swelled up a wee bit.

Then I got to talk to someone interesting, my son, who stopped to chat in his way home. We always have fun telling each other our latest cool nature discoveries. He had a bee swarm near his place and also saw a huge toad. I told him about the scorpion and crawfish from yesterday.

Funereal dusky wing, another exotic find.

I went a bit further, listening to birds and looking for turtles, when another familiar car drove up. It was Buddy, who lives one house further than my son. He told me about a skunk he saw and showed me the rattles from a big rattlesnake he found at his house, which is our former rattlesnake house project. Fitting.

Dickcissels listened at each of my stops.

I got all cheerful after sharing tales with my neighbors and didn’t even mind when I could hear no birds at all for a while, at the top of the hill (which technically is a ridge).

I love looking down the hill at the creek and our house.

My nature hike got interesting again quickly, though, when I heard some interesting hours or squawks coming from the creek. Merlin told me it was wood ducks. Really? You mean, those really pretty ones? This was going through my mind when all of a sudden two pair of genuine wood ducks flew right by! I could even sort of tell they weren’t blue-winged teals, mallards, or even whistling ducks, which are the usual suspects.

They aren’t uncommon in Texas, it’s just that our ranch isn’t ideal duck habitat. But today it WAS a flooded woods.

This last encounter sent me into full Nature Girl joy mode. I was grinning like a child and getting more thrilled with every sight. Look! The kingbird is back! There’s a big hawk, so they’re not all gone! There’s something loud! That was the other man of our house coming home from work and trying to make me jump. Ha. I heard the truck.

Yep. I managed to get exercise, see interesting plants and birds, and talk to folks. That was as nice as camping, practically! We will try again tomorrow, maybe. You can’t wish away rain here, knowing the scorching heat is coming soon enough.

Innate Direction

What gives you direction in life?

After the hiccups this week, I’m ready for a shift in direction, but I don’t really need one. Little challenges help keep me focused on the big picture, not the tiny dots that make up the totality.

It’s like the temperature blanket, which I need to look at like this every so often, to see the winter flowing into spring. Mostly I look at individual squares.

Today’s challenge was getting stung by a scorpion, even though I’d checked my boots before putting them inn(from now on they don’t stay outside, even if they got all muddy in the stuck-in-the-water challenge earlier in the week). And hey, the intense pain makes me forget the hurt of my big-ass hoof-shaped bruise from Tuesday’s challenge! And I feel the itching from the chigger bites I got in the woods yesterday celebrating May.

It rained a lot, and we kept seeing crawfish crossing the driveway. I almost stepped on the one trying to disguise itself as a leaf. I avoided a crawfish pinch!

It’s all pretty funny at this point, and it reminds me that my direction is shaped by my innate desire to learn how things work. Mostly I want to observe life around me and determine patterns. Today I carefully noted all the different vireos and warblers that have appeared in the last few days. There was even a rose-breasted grosbeak, not common here. I’m curious as to how long they’ll visit during migration.

Yes, this is my best warbler photo. No idea which one it is.

Where I hope I’m headed is to even more internal peace and calm. Watching the seasons repeat yearly with variations but an overall consistency grounds me more and more. I think I’ll need that in the coming months.

I’m driven to try to understand people, as well. Like many of us, some of the things groups of people are saying and doing confuse me, but I’m doing better at seeing how much of it stems from humans needing to belong. Tribalism is not pretty when one feels threatened. I like it much better when it’s about football teams.

Did someone say threat? I better get hopping!

I’m wandering, so blame the Benadryl I took. But I want to recommend a television show we’ve been watching that has been very good for my soul. It’s A Brief History of the Future, which is streaming on PBS. The show looks into where humanity is headed in positive as well as negative ways. I’ve learned a lot about ideas that can heal the planet and make life better for all people. It celebrates differences and commonalities. Worth watching!

Like floods, it all passes. The green in the pond is the usual shore, and the shiny area in back is water pouring in.

I hope you’re enjoying the direction in which you’re headed. I love the daily surprises, both fun and painful. My hope is that they balance out so there’s never a dull moment unless we want one.

Getting Productive on a Challenging Day

When do you feel most productive?

I was not productive during my usual most productive times today, because we had a couple of waves of rainstorms come through. But generally, I do best between around 9 and 2 pm. I’m a little slow when the day starts, and by mid afternoon, I hit a slump. I think that’s pretty normal.

Today being Sunday, I’d planned to spend my productive hours exploring the more distant parts of our ranch complex for the City Nature Challenge, then I’d hoped to ride Drew for the first time since he got back (I’ve been exercising him, just have had vet visits, birthday dinners, and such getting in my way). But, I was determined to get my observations in and my exercise accomplished, even if it meant dodging raindrops.

I was also determined to photograph a dang dickcissel, which I did.

I felt like I sat on my rear end a lot today, but I also crawled under electric fences, climbed muddy embankments, and walked a few mikes, some of it briskly. I think the rain may have given me more opportunities to see things, so it all worked out.

Crawling on the ground helped me spot this excellent stinkhorn, for example.

I had hoped to photograph more birds today, and I did, though many were pretty bad photos. I was so excited to finally see an indigo bunting this afternoon that I didn’t care how bad my photo came out, as long as I could tell it was blue. Now I’ll believe Merlin when it says it hears one.

The rain smooshed most of the flowers, but I did see a good number of insects. I don’t think I realized we had so many kinds of butterflies before I started recording them. I think that’s a good sign we have left enough native plants around.

Whew. But wait, there’s more. I observed lots of interesting water snake behavior today. In the morning, while looking at the heron, I saw at least four snakes traversing the pond behind the house. I got blurry images, so no ID.

Later, around 6 pm when I decided to get the rest of my exercise goal accomplished, I noticed a snake near the shore of Walkers Creek. As I watched, I saw two more. The creek was quite still, so I could see them real well. Then they obliged me and swam up to the bridge. That let me ID them as nonvenomous diamondback water snakes. What a sight!

All this makes me more firm in my decision to not swim in the ponds or creeks here. Interesting aside: when I came back from my walk to the cemetery, the creek was rushing and gurgling. It was at least three inches higher. That’s what flash floods are all about!

I got a lot done in my non-productive hours!

Spontaining

Today Lee and I spontained, which is our cute couple’s word for doing something on the spur of the moment. He needed to get out of the house, so we did. We ran off to Waco (because any iNat observations I made there would count for my City Nature Challenge totals).

We went to the Waco Mammoth National Monument, which neither of us had ever been to before. I hoped to get lots of iNat observations, but it didn’t matter much, since I’d already gone out in the morning and got sightings of crawfish, a turtle, catfish, and Ssssindy the snake.

Wow, Suna, that’s a great photo of a crawfish.

We enjoyed the monument very much. The actual mammoth dig site is preserved with a cool roof and walls system that protects it. The walkway people go on in tours is suspended from the ceiling, so the bones are safe.

You can see the walkway and the site here.

I don’t think I realized before that this site has lots of mammoth fossils (and a camel). It’s the only such “nursery herd” site ever discovered in the US. Many bones are in a museum at Baylor University, but the ones we saw have been left in situ, and work is still ongoing with them.

It’s incredible that this mass death of mammoths happened, apparently more than once, when the Bosque River suddenly flooded. I’m amazed that these animals were here only 10,000 years ago, too.

Anyway, we enjoyed talking to a college student who was there with her archeology club, to another young adult who helped me get my National Park stamps going, and to the park rangers. I know that helped cheer Lee up.

And after looking at the dig site, we walked on some trails and found some plants and insects. Mostly it was hedge parsley and more hedge parsley, but we found other stuff.

It was nice having Lee help me. He spotted a few bugs! I must be rubbing off on him.

Back at the ranch, I found many interesting bugs and spiders on prairie parsley. If you want more butterflies, grow this! I also got a great look at a kingbird. The buntings and dickcissels are very loud but are also good at hiding.

It was so windy that I gave up on birds. Tomorrow I’m going over to Sara’s to see if she has any interesting plants. I’d probably win the challenge if I was able to go to Tarrin’s, but she’s out of town and I wouldn’t want to impose on her family. Maybe next year!

A little broken, like many of us, but this goatweed leaf wing (*Anaea andria*) was a beautiful find.

All in all, a little spontaining was good for us both.

My Favorite Topics

What topics do you like to discuss?

Why, regular readers know this:

Nature
Horses
Dogs
Knitting/crochet
Home renovations/rehab
Personal growth
Spirituality (not religion)

Speaking of dogs, we sprung Carlton out of the Cameron pound 6 years ago! This is where he is as I write.

Today I got all my work items done and had plenty of time for fun. Some even involved human beings! Anita and I enjoyed a pastry break, followed by an afternoon wine break (Cameron: a place where there’s now stuff to do). And in the evening we had a birthday dinner with one of the people who live here. It was fun, because we’re getting pretty relaxed around each other these days.

Highlight: the bakery has a mixer almost as tall as Anita! Is it from Tasmania?

Most of my fun, which is probably only fun to a naturalist, consisted of taking photos of practically everything that lives on the ranch natively. It’s the City Nature Challenge on iNaturalist, and we’re trying to beat some actual city, or something like that.

Most of my photos were not this good. (Gray hairstreak on white clover)

The challenge started off with a surprise, as the guy who refills the propane showed up but did not get to fill our tank. It had a beehive in it. I hope we have encouraged them to move in by removing the tank cover.

I went all over the property finding plants, birds, insects, and fungi to record. I put on thick boots, but didn’t see any snakes or other reptiles. There are still some places to check, but after finding 161 organisms, I may have nearly exhausted this ranch. I still need to locate the silky evolvulus. It was hiding.

I wish I could go walk in Tarrin’s woods and down her road. There are completely different plants only 30 miles away!

I did stop and enjoy the scenery occasionally.

I’m glad the rain held off so all of us in our area could get our observations in. I’ll keep looking until Monday!

Most populous butterfly to day is the little phaon crescent.

Thanks for reading along as I go on about my favorite topic! I have more thoughts, but it’s been a long day. Your reward is a sampling of insects I saw, without the extra blurry ones.

Animals Are a Luxury Item

This week I’ve spent more on horse care than I earned. The mobile vet came to give the horses all their immunizations and Coggins tests. And next week the equine dentist comes, so I’ll just have to find away to finance that. Next year I’ll try not to get the annual vaccines, dental care, bodywork, and a final rehab installment all at the same time! Oh, and there’s $400 in Apache medicine getting charged next week.

Take a deep breath and think of hummingbirds, Suna.

Yep, pets and livestock are expensive, when properly cared for. And we want to properly care for our animals. perhaps I’m better with their care than mine.

Blurry but pretty. Flapping its wings like me trying to get all these things done.

Proper care isn’t easy! Poor Lee was in charge of the dogs, most of whom have to be sedated to get them still and calm (just Goldie is calm enough to get through her exam unmediated). Alfred became a barrier so we couldn’t use the front door until he woke up.

Penney fell asleep on the vet tech, so she couldn’t be very helpful for a while.

As for the horses, I was in charge of them. I spent a long time cleaning Apache poop from the dry lot since it was past due (I’d done half yesterday). Then I haltered them all, as requested by the vet. All went well, and I managed to separate Drew out, since I got him taken care of at his $2K vet appointment in Bryan. It was hard, because they’ve all been sticking together like glue since Drew came home.

Don’t believe her. I’m the one they all stick to.

Well, all went well except for Mabel. She got nervous. So I spent 20 minutes calming her down using all the horse whispering I could muster. But it worked! She settled pretty well.

She’s in such great condition now. She shines.

She had to get drugged when it came to the strangles vaccine. She’s not font of things going into her nose. Dusty, on the other hand, was quite enchanted with his nasal spray. He even insisted on doing his Flehmen response right into the vet’s camera! He made it to her Facebook page with this.

It was determined that Dusty has pinworms so all the animals will next get wormed. So many fun medical things for these guys! And wormer ain’t free, either. But they need it!

Apache, of course, was fine. I was happy to see his rain rot is getting better after his bath. And he is so calm now.

Or he’s still embarrassed by his leg wear.

We decided to get Fiona vaccinated, too. She didn’t like it much. I also realized she was a big mess with flies and burs all over her. So she got prescribed pour-over fly repellent. I should have thought of that myself. I’m going to try it tomorrow. She is also stuck in the “dry lot” with Apache now. Maybe that will help her. I have big plans to get her all groomed tomorrow, since everyone else is looking spiffy.

Yeesh. That’s a lot of medical stuff. But, the vaccines and tests plus the dentist are just once a year. Break it down by month and it’s only sort of expensive. I guess.

I’ll just have to squirrel away some funds.

At least hummingbird watching is free. These red salvias the pool guys put in were a good investment. I know the pictures are blurry, but I enjoyed the shapes. These are black chinned hummingbirds, by the way.