Insect Sightings – The Hermits' Rest

Nature Overload

Today I probably went overboard with nature photography, since I drug/dragged both the camera with the telephoto and the camera with the macro lens all over Lake Corpus Christi State Park and took as many pictures as I wanted both distant and very close.

This White Peacock butterfly is one of the most beautiful natural objects I found.

I got up early to go to the birding area right after the birds were fed. However, conditions were not ideal. It was so foggy that it sounded like rain falling on the RV roof, and certainly was not great for bird photos.

I do love the effect of this Cardinal swooping in through the fog, though.

I got lots of sounds on Merlin, though it was acting up, and I did manage to get photos of many species, less foggy as the morning progressed.

The most interesting birds to observe were the Red-winged Blackbirds. At first, only females were at the feeders. That gave me lots of time to really admire their plumage. The stripes in various rich browns are quite striking.

At least 45 minutes after the females showed up, males made their appearance. There were many juveniles, too. Much mass feeding then occurred.

Later, after the sun came out some, I got photos of the birds near the lake. The Great Blue Heron and Great Egret were entertaining, as usual.

In between, I walked around with the macro lens camera and found many tiny things. I’m going to just share butterflies in this post, because I’m really tired!

Yeah. I’m too tired to write more. I’ll be back tomorrow for an all-nature Christmas.

Rambling Along

Yep, we fired up good ole Seneca, hooked the Jeep up, and left on a journey —during the work week! Well, the company I am contracted to takes two weeks off at the end of the year, so the contractors do, too. Other than not being paid, it’s nice to have a break. So, no complaints over what I can’t control, and I’m ready for fun.

I now have a rock as a birding station sign. My idea of fun.

Before we left, I got all the plants and animals cared for. They have my son to watch over them, so all is well for them. I just miss them. I enjoyed the birds, as usual, and got 52 species before we left! The variety of sparrows, warblers, woodpeckers, hawks, and waterfowl astounds me.

On the other hand, the sheer number of grackles by the restaurant where we ate dinner also astounded me.

But wait, before we left I got pictures of what Lee and I thought was a broken tree limb. That’s what it looked like from a distance, but when I got closer it was clear that it was a sapling with just one branch, covered with yellow leaves. I will try to get closer when we get back, to figure out what kind of tree it is. Many species have yellow autumn leaves here.

We were happy to get that figured out, and were able to make the familiar trek through the Eagle Ford Shale region, which is full of oil wells and wind turbines. Texas is big on wind and solar as well as oil! Eventually we got to Lake Corpus Christi State Park, which I chose because I figured it would be quiet at Christmas. It’s not a “destination” park like some of them.

We managed to arrive before dark, which made setup easier. It’s a pull-through site, which is also convenient.

I got a little walk in and got to see some butterflies, plants, and a nice group of young deer at dusk. I can’t wait to try other trails.

We went to dinner at our favorite barbecue place, Smolick’s Smokehouse, where we ate last time we were here. The staff was still overly friendly and the history of Mathis, Texas all over the walls is fascinating. I enjoyed pulled pork with braised cabbage. Yum.

Lee told me to quit remarking about the grackles, but they always crack me up in big groups. Note the ghostly grackle in the upper middle. Spooky.

I’m looking forward to a few days of rest and exploration. Getting to explore is the best gift Lee could give me. I bid you good night as I listen to coyotes in the distance.

Birds, Butterflies and Bliss

Yesterday was a lot of fun,but it tired me out so I fell asleep and didn’t have a chance to blog. Sorry about that. I also took hundreds and hundreds of pictures. It seems I will only share a few.

Lee took this with the Canon EOS Rebel T7 and the macro lens.

In the morning I walked over to the jetty near where we are staying at Goose Island State Park. There I was delighted to see many different kinds of birds, especially herons and egrets. I enjoyed watching a tricolored heron and a snowy egret having a little battle over some kind of morsel. Those are some beautiful birds.

One of the cutest sights I saw was a little group of Dunlins, which are shorebirds and a new lifer for me! They were all huddled together with their little heads tucked under their wings like they were trying to get a nap in before something was supposed to happen. I did finally get one picture of one of them with its head up and it’s such a beautiful little round brown birds. Of course, there were others, too. Check it out!

Over in the marshy area there were many egrets. I saw a beautiful little blue heron, many great egrets and a ruffly looking great blue heron.

There were also ibises. There were a number of white ibises, but the most amazing part were the juvenile White Ibises, which are gorgeous brown and white little speckled birds. Well they’re actually big birds. I really like some of the pictures I got of themwith the brownish foliage all around them, I think that’s very artistic.

Later in the day, Lee and I got in the Jeep and drove around to find more birds. The first place we went was the famous big tree that is part of this park.

We weren’t there very long however because Park staff told us that there were a whole lot of whipping cranes and sandhill cranes together right around the corner so we sort of flew off to go see those running right past my friend, Cindy and her husband. Oops.

I was watching you like a hawk, says the Osprey.

The cranes were beautiful as always, and it was very nice to see the sandhill cranes right next to the whooping cranes to compare their size and coloring. It makes it a lot easier to remember, which is which.

They were joined by some lovely Roseate Spoonbills, and you can’t complain about pink birds ever. We met and talked to a few people and enjoyed that as well and took some pictures of extremely friendly seagulls.

After that, we made a fruitless trip over to where the great blue heron rookery is forgetting the fact that it is not great blue Heron breeding season so there weren’t any great blue Heron there I did see a Caracara, Osprey, and some other birds. Of course, the trees are still beautiful, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

We drove down the road a little bit and found a very nice place called the Linda S.Castro Nature Sanctuary, where there were so many butterflies. It was rivaling the national butterflies center. I’m not kidding. We found a lot of butterflies mostly Gulf Fritillaries and southern whites. (Golf rivalries, golf ferries, golf fiddle Aries—I would like to point out that the dictation software does not understand “Gulf Fritillaries).

This is cool. The fruit of the scarletfruit passionflower

There were lots of paths through some beautiful native plants and we got some good pictures of the scenery around that sanctuary. The people who made it did a very good job and it’s quite a nice place to go. I recommend it to anyone even though it’s sort of hiding we met a nice couple (the guy is a Master Naturalist) there and talked to them about different places to go and look at birds and plants and I think they’re gonna have a good time, the rest of their visit. Everyone is so dang friendly here.

We then headed over to one final place which is the thule sanctuary. I went there before with Linda Jo and Ann and it was a nice place to walk around though. There weren’t very many birds. I got a lot of plant photos and Lee got some very good ones using the macro lens.

By that time, we were tired of walking around and looking at birds and plants so we went to find some food. after all it was our anniversary and we needed a nice anniversary dinner. We found a nice place on a bay next to a harbor we sat outside to eat and got to watch many, many birds while we were waiting for our food, including belted kingfishers, ospreys, and many terns and gulls. I got to eat oysters and fish, and Lee enjoyed his bacon-wrapped shrimp.

That’s a cucumber margarita. I liked it!

It was a successful day of fairly good weather and lots of fun. Happy 17th anniversary to us!

Mountain Girl Wannabe

Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?

I grew up near beaches and I like them okay, though I prefer marshy land near beaches, which have more interesting birds.

Beach sunsets are pretty fine! I do love Hilton Head.

But I really love mountains and always have. I looked forward to visiting Chattanooga, where my paternal grandmother lived, each summer so we could look at streams, go through tunnels, and drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains.

As an adult, I’ve treasured my visits to other mountains in all weather. There are really good birds, too, and each area is so different! if I were rich, I’d head right over to Breckenridge and hike and snowshoe and be just fine. Or maybe Ruidoso, since it’s in another state I love.

Just dreaming. I’m here in Texas looking at a small hill. At least I have all these birds!

Look. I finally took bird photos you can identify as birds. Eastern Phoebe.

Off topic, but I enjoyed watching a huge flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds roosting and then departing en masse this morning. I had the good camera (Cameron EOSR5 Mark II) and telephoto lens in the birding area. Distance shots are from the phone camera.

I also dragged the camera to the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary to practice close-ups. I got lots of chickadees and titmice at the feeders and a few others. I think a couple are pretty good. At least you can see details on them. I’m gonna practice this week so my camera muscles will be all strong for next weekend. Anyway, here are cute titmice.

And here are just a few Carolina Chickadees. They pose well.

I also got a couple of nice shots of water dripping into the birdbath. Look carefully and you will see many honeybees from the nearby hives.

I took lots of photos of new Wildscape plants, but that will be in a Master Naturalist blog. But here are a couple of insects!

So, whee. Mountains are great, but no matter where you are, there are birds, insects, and plants to explore.

My Favorite Place in Cameron

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

Okay, it’s not a city; it’s a small town. And I no longer go into town very often. I’m avoiding humanity. Plus many of my favorite places are no longer there, sigh (probably because I stopped going anywhere optional).

But there are still a few places I like in Cameron, Texas, so I must choose one. It isn’t very hard, basically because I truly love pecan sticky buns. The only place you can get them is at the local bakery!

See, I even have a dusty sticker in my office.

Shirley Mae’s has a cute playroom my son built, many upgrades done by Chris, and it’s where Anita and I used to get coffee and snacks together before she stopped taking any time off work. Lots of good memories there, and the owners are also great.

Where the sticky buns live (photo from their Facebook page)

I really could have used a baked item this morning, since I drove all the way to the courthouse for jury duty, only to have it canceled right as I arrived. I’d called the jury duty line before I left, and it did say I had to show up. So, 99 people and I drove from around the county just to be good citizens.

It’s typical for all the cases to settle before trial here. It costs a lot to do jury trials, so they try to plea bargain everything. I get it. And apparently this kind of thing happens often in other places, too. So, I just wish the bakery was open on Mondays for sad potential jurors.

On another note

I’d say all is well that ends well, but I have to admit I feel mentally unbalanced. Last night I started having severe anxiety symptoms, the chest pains that you hope aren’t really a heart attack. (Watch said my pulse was fine.) Then last night, I had a horrible nightmare that had me screaming for my mom and woke Lee up.

I wonder what’s bothering me? Not this wheel bug!

Today I have continued to feel anxious and pained in my chest. Of course I have no more Xanax, because I haven’t felt really bad since this time last year. What’s weird is I haven’t felt no frightening new/old President to concern me. Things are fine as far as I can tell.

I hope I figure this out!

And don’t worry; I’ve dealt with anxiety my whole life, just less in the past few years. I can handle it with all that breathing and meditation and stuff.

Outdoor Projects Moving Forward

I didn’t write last night because I was chatting with my family. This makes me think blogging is what I do when there’s no one to talk to. Perhaps two occasions of that happening in one week aren’t enough data for such a sad interpretation. It is not the case that I have so few people to talk to in real life that I chat with an unknown audience. I have both friends and readers, many of whom ARE friends or step-sisters.

The weather is probably making me weird(er) today. It kept acting like it wanted to rain, then just displaying attractive clouds to distract me from the projects I was planning to talk about.

Before the projects, I’ll share a story of mama cows who are brave. There was a new tan calf this morning and I saw the vultures heading over to the pond to bother the mom and baby. Vultures look beautiful in morning light with dark clouds behind them (last tree photo above was the setting). The mother cow was looking unhappy and let out a weird short moo.

In response I hear hooves. The new white calf is running toward the new family. That calf is quite the zippy little thing. Her mother was right behind, mooing loudly. Mama walked right up to the vultures, lowered her big bovine head, and shooed the birds away. So much flapping! After that, everyone settled down for peaceful nursing and grazing.

Okay, so I did leave the ranch in time to do some volunteering over at the Wildscape project with some of the Master Naturalist chapter. There was a large pile of dirt to spread over a weed barrier, and there was also some cleanup to do as the team gets ready to plant new pollinator-attracting plants for the H-E-B pollinator grant we got.

I was not very helpful, but I did take some unofficial photos of everyone working.

Then I ran off to the bird sanctuary, which is hanging in there without our help. I wandered off to the area where prairie is being restored and found myself all alone and unable to see signs of humanity other than fences. That was good energy for the new year (Samhain and Día de Los Muertes).

I did go back and interact with people, plus get to connect with my friends Ann and Donna, who have been dealing with health issues that annoy them.

I’m glad I got to go help a little, even though it meant I missed a funeral. Lee was able to attend and convey my condolences, though. I always feel a lot of sympathy for spouses who are left alone after many years. I’m glad our friend who lost his wife has a large supportive family.

When I got home from my errands, I got to watch more work being done on my birding station. They had to go back for more wood again—I think the design has been refined. I was told the project just eats wood. Anyway, it now has siding along the bottom, so there’s just top and roof left, I think.

Exciting stuff, huh.

Yeah, Genie, Do This

You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?

Everyone will wake up one day and realize we can all live together in peace if we spend as much energy trying to work things out as we now do on trying to divide each other.
Everyone has what they need to be healthy, contribute to society, and love who they love.
The non-human life in earth can thrive and heal the planet.

That will do.

It’s not hopeless. Lilies came back after the rain. Just south of here, migrating monarchs are everywhere. Sandhill Cranes are reaching their wintering grounds. A cold front is coming.

Happy to Stay Right Here

How much would you pay to go to the moon?

Nah. I have no need to go to the moon. I like it where it is and me where I am. All the lunar romance, metaphor, and legend falls away when you view the moon as a large cratered hunk of rock. I do think it’s amazing that our moon is the exact right size to create eclipses, though. That is one thing that makes me wonder if there’s an intelligent designer of the universe. Maybe the only thing…

…meanwhile, back in my little spot on Gaia, Mother Nature has taken on a benevolent aspect, at least for a time, and graced us with rain not just one, but two nights in a row! Yesterday’s total was over two inches, and tonight it’s rained hard for quite a while. There was a little water in the creek today. I look forward to seeing how our tanks look tomorrow.

But during the day, it was pleasant, which enabled me to get my eyes examined right in Cameron, Texas (what a luxury), which included interesting conversations on current events where I just listened. I rewarded myself with a visit to the bakery for a nice sticky bun. Mmm.

No photo of a bun, but here’s a Great Egret in a tree.

I’d thought my next task, getting Apache ready for a lesson, would be quick and easy. I was mistaken. I now have all dark gray horses, the exact color of our dirt. Apache had really been getting into his mud spa treatment and was concentrating particularly on his mane. He was encrusted. I regret not photographing it, but was pressed for time.

He looked like me, only bigger and more horse shaped.

I did my best in the limited time I had to wash him off, but it was not successful. At least he was clean enough to put a saddle on and did well even with the distractions of gunshots and frolicking foals. He’s sure come a long way.

I’m sure he will enjoy the mud these clouds have created.

That’s about all I have to write about today, because rather than contemplating wasting my money going to visit a cratered rock, I spent the rest of the day contemplating the value of life, the importance of friendship, and how we need to enjoy every moment we have on this planet, even when things are more than a little wonky.

I enjoyed the moment I saw this Nuptial Scorpionfly today!

Please know that if you’re my friend, you matter to me very much. And even if I don’t know you, I wish you a good life.

I’m Prejudiced – Insect-wise

This just dawned on me today. While I enjoy watching butterflies, I’m pretty darned uninterested in moths. You know, there are way more species of moths than of butterflies, because they developed long before butterflies did.

My most recent moth sighting is this Green Cloverworm or Black Snout moth (*Hypena scabra)*

And there are numerous beautiful moths, many of which live right here in Texas.

Twin-spotted Sphinx moth (*Smerinthus jamaicensis)*

And I’m not prejudiced against moths just before many of them look so similar to human eyes. Heck, most deer look alike but I still find them beautiful.

I had to ponder for quite a while, but when I walked into my office and looked around it hit me. Butterflies never mess with my sh**. Moths do. First, they show up at night and flutter in my face. I hate that.

Second, those nasty pantry moths have ruined my food repeatedly. I’m so glad I discovered those pheromones in boxes that cause them to die out.

Pantry moth or Indian Meal moth (*Plodia* *interpunctella*) grr.

Third, and worst, is the fact that clothing moths infected my house (before moving here) and ruined probably thousands of dollars of wool yarn and handmade clothing that took me hours and hours to make. Yep. I don’t like those mofos.

I’m not even sharing a clothing moths photo. This one is kind of pretty in its drab way. Brown-shaded Gray (*Iridopsis defectaria)*

I should probably just be prejudiced against certain moths and not generalize, right? Like I don’t condone how a large percentage of white American humans think, but I don’t feel annoyed at all of us. Hmmm. An analogy.

We all look alike anyway. Photo from Pixels.

I’ll work on loving the benign moths. And understanding that the ones who make me upset aren’t doing it directed toward me. They’re just being moths. Perhaps it will do me good to try to remember that humans who upset me are just being humans, and that it’s human nature to upset “the other.”

At Least There Were Clouds

I miss rain. There was a trace while I was out of town, but otherwise no rain since early September. Today the weather toyed with me.

Some nice clouds rolled in early this morning. It got very quiet and the air felt encouraging. It was oddly warm. The birds and I were hopeful.

Alas, the beautiful dark clouds drifted away. Sigh.

On the positive side, it was a great day for birds. I declared it to be the start of Ornithological Winter, because a White-throated Sparrow appeared (more than one, actually). Combined with Chipping Sparrows, Pipits, and passing Sandhill Cranes, I’m confident the season has changed, bird-wise. It will cool off and rain soon!

I’m admittedly tired of having my head feel weird every time I try to do anything more strenuous than walk. Horse grooming and exercising got me worried the cut would re-open, so lucky horses are just getting Bur removal. Yes, as hard as we tried to eliminate them, horses can still find burs.

I’ve been enjoying watching these pretty katydids fly around this week.

Ugh. I’m just not feeling 100% so I’ll write more when I’m more myself.