Plant Sightings – The Hermits' Rest

I’m Truly Glad I Read That Beaver Book

What an adventure I had today with my fellow Master Naturalist! We escaped to the wilderness known as her property outside of Cameron and searched for a rumored beaver dam on the spring-fed creek that runs through the land. It was a beautiful warm day for exploring.

At first we looked in the wrong place and got attacked by much greenbrier and dewberry vines that tried very hard to trip us. I did determine that the water was not out of its banks and was very clean.

My friend called the folks who’d been on the property monitoring their deer lease or something, and they redirected us upstream. There we found what appeared to be weird flat areas with brown vegetation.

That was actually duckweed on a big ole beaver pond! To say I was excited would be an understatement. The dog was also excited and immediately went swimming.

I enjoyed investigating the dam construction and listening to the water trickling through the spillways. It’s hard to believe animals can do this, even though I read that book all about beavers recently.

Also they dig big tunnels. Here’s an entrance.

We found trees that had been gnawed by beavers (some from the previous dam a few years back). There were also trees whose bark had been gnawed.

We moved upstream some more and found a second dam, which has created a magical pond full of fish, butterflies, and plants. It was hard to pull myself away from the tranquility.

But, I wanted to see if there was a third dam below the first one we found. Sure enough, following the cool beaver trails led to another one that my friend thinks is a reconstruction of the original dam.

Here I located the tunnels they dig for entrances and exits, which is fascinating. I even found some beaver tracks in ant beds, but my pictures weren’t great. That’s okay, just seeing evidence that the amazing mammalian construction workers was a bucket list item for me.

Since we had time and a truck, we went off exploring other parts of the property, which are mostly hay fields. We stopped and got to see a spectacular Northern Harrier fly right in front of us when we both had our binoculars. They’re beautiful hawks with a white patch just above their tail.

We then explored a ravine that lead to the big creek and observed how it is slowly moving northward. I did not fall down when I clambered down the embankment. I held onto trees.

We ended our exciting afternoon doing some more birding back by my friend’s house and enjoying each other’s photos. I’m so pleased to cross another mammal off my list of Milam County sightings, even if I didn’t see an actual beaver. All my beaver knowledge really helped me see the signs of them. I’m sure they’re glad the prowling humans and dogs are gone!

The Good, the Bad, and the Stinky

We had some little adventures getting out of the campsite, but all was not lost, because I did get an hour of birding in this morning and got photos of birds I wanted to see.

And plants! The heart leaf hibiscus opened up and I got photos!

I also found out from the birding volunteer that there used to be a roller skating rink at the park during the years between when the Rectory was built and when the land became a State Park. There are no signs of it now, but a 92-year-old visitor described it to the Lake Corpus Christi State Park folks. It turns out the water tower was from when the land was a farm. So many changes!

And now the park has the nicest bathrooms ever.

Anyway, I was very happy to capture the elusive White-eyed Vireo and Great Kiskadee today, even though the lighting wasn’t perfect. At least the sun came out!

That was one of the good things for the day. The worst thing I have no photographs of. Be glad I can’t transfer smells through the blog, though. I’d broken the kitchen faucet on the way down (improper bungee cording) and we’d used our “nice” (from Target) rug to mop up the mess that happened when the water was turned on. So, I set it outside to dry, but every morning the fog would wet it again, then I’d forget to bring it in when it dried back off.

Allow me to interrupt with a picture of one of those lightweight flying things I saw yesterday.

The upshot was that the rug was still outside last night. When I went to put it in the storage area to take it home to clean it, I thought it smelled bad, but put it in, anyway. When Lee opened the bin later he nearly gagged. It didn’t smell a little; it smelled a lot. Like some virile woodland creature had decided to mark it as his territory with extra-musky urine. Not good. We will replace the rug, because there’s no way we’d take it home. The dogs would have gone crazy. I felt bad putting the odiferous parcel in the dumpster, knowing people would be opening it to add refuse.

The next stinker came when we went to leave and Lee had forgotten to release the hand brake. That also was very loud. But we quickly fixed that!

The other good thing that happened was that I finally found my previous phone. It had been hiding in, of all things, my phone holder I use when riding in the motorhome. Well, now that it’s charged up, I have a better phone camera again.

We made it home just fine, and of course I immediately went to check on my livestock. The horses were quite insistent that they were starving, as were the fowl. I fed the birds, and discovered that Darryl had done his manly duty so well that Connie started laying eggs again! No one has told her or the hens that they are supposed to wait until spring.

It was good to be back home with all the buddies. I was happy to see my gift from my son—it’s a new door for my tack room. It’s too heavy for him to lift it by himself to install it, though! It looks good where it is, though.

Happy Kwanzaa to all who celebrate!

Little Holiday Gifts

I promised some plant photos, and I’ll add them here, but first I wanted to share the gifts I received on this Christmas morning. Now, my family is only exchanging handmade gifts, which we will exchange later. So my gifts today were experiences.

I set out for a morning hike with just my binoculars (arms are tired from hoisting the telephoto lens). Of course, I later wished I’d brought one of the Canons. I just decided to enjoy what I saw without worrying about recording it. And I received so many beautiful gifts.

Three Queen and one Snout butterfly on Mexican Winged Crownbeard.

The butterflies were magical, especially around these nondescript plants with tiny blossoms, Narrowleaf Forestiera (Forestiera angustifolia). The blossoms may be tiny, but butterflies, bees, and even flies love this source of winter nectar.

I knew they were blooming because I heard a plant buzzing with pollinators, then I saw dozens of butterflies covering the bushes like ornaments. There were the Snouts I saw yesterday, joined by Queens, Monarchs, and Red Admirals. What a gift to see this reminder that something is blooming all year round here.

The other gifts of the morning occurred while I was at the bird blind area. First, I was able to help three families understand what they were seeing by pointing out the birds and telling about the plants. I enjoyed the thanks and getting to share some of what I’ve learned as a Master Naturalist and Merlin fan.

My reward was spending enough time at the blind to see fun bird behavior. For example, the birds decided it was bath time and I got to watch four Orange-crowned Warblers splashing and splashing in the puddle made by the drip waterer. They were then joined by Cardinals. The blurry photo shows where they were.

Right after that a chubby little Yellow-rumped Warbler took a bath right in front of me. It was so fluffy and scruffy and wiggly. If I had the good camera, there would be some charming photos. Instead you get this.

Geez. You can’t even see the bird. This phone camera is a mess.

But the thing is that I saw all this, which is what matters. Between all this fun and talking to my friends and family, Christmas morning was wonderful. I hope you can find beauty and joy wherever you are today. Who needs presents when you have nature and the meaning of the season.

Now, as my gift to you, here are a few of my favorite plant and scenery photos from yesterday and today!

Go enjoy your day!

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.

The Dead of Winter Is Not Dead

I had the loveliest day of bird and plant watching here at Lake Corpus Christi State Park! This is a great place in southern Texas, where many plants and animals native to northern Mexico mingle with organisms from farther north. This makes for fun observations!

An example of the beauty here. Pink cenizo (Texas sage) with gorgeous shrubby blue sage, both native to Texas and northern Mexico.

On my morning hike through a shrubby woodland I was delighted to see many blooming plants and others with interesting seed pods. It even smelled nice to walk through the misty woods listening to the “exotic” Great Kiskadees and Green Jays (plus an Audubon’s Oriole).

I even left some out. It was fun to see what grows down here, like palm trees and giant reed. I enjoyed the winter scenery.

After my long walk I came back so Lee and I could get vital supplies (coffee creamer and blackberry cobbler). We enjoyed looking at the town of Alice, Texas, then came back just in time for some rain showers. When they were over, I went out to the other part of the trail to enjoy the sunshine.

I looked at the very nice birding setup they have here, then made it to the CCC Rectory on the lake. It’s one of their nicest structures.

I discovered the volunteer who leads the bird walks waiting for someone to take out, so I said I’d go. Then a French-Canadian woman bicycled up and joined us. It was a challenge teaching her bird names in English, but she liked the Green Jays and shiny Great-tailed Grackles. I showed her some plants, then headed back to our campsite.

As if that wasn’t enough for one day, I had my monthly tarot group this evening. It was interesting, as always.

No tarot photo, so here a butterfly on dog poop (Vesta crescent)

Tomorrow I’ll get out the good cameras and maybe get some better photos. If I can rouse myself.

My Weird Way to Cut Down on Social Media

It’s only kind of weird, but it works for me the problem is that my phone thinks I look hours and hours at it, when, in fact, I’m not even near the phone. It’s hard to doomscroll if your phone is nowhere nearby and the computer you’re using is only connected to LinkedIn (and honestly, ten minutes is plenty to determine who’s been laid off lately).

I still enjoy social media, but do a quick Facebook check in the morning, play with my Finch self-care app for 20 minutes, see if I got any personal email, then walk away.

Also doing my nails creates at least an hour of phone-free time.

That’s because I leave the phone outside listening to birds once I have to stop birding with my own eyes and ears. The phone may think I’m staring at Merlin Bird ID, but no, I just check in periodically. Any texts or other messages just have to wait.

Today’s bird was this Ruby-crowned Kinglet, as photographed on the phone. blurry.

I can work undisturbed by my online social life except in breaks. That’s helped me from going down rabbit holes and letting myself get upset.

In the evenings, I read other people’s blogs and news sources that don’t try to get me all upset. This all works for me. I can still stay informed and keep up with friends without it consuming my day. This gives me time for horses, birds, domestic fowl, and wildflowers, not to mention friends and family!

She’s talking about us. We are domestic fowl.

So, my social media trick is to get your phone all busy doing something for you and ignore it for a good chunk of your day. It makes checking for messages and updates a fun interlude, not the whole day.

Morning fog on the window screen. It got very foggy this evening, too.

Today I enjoyed many things while the phone was ignored. I took some autumn photos, for one thing.

Pretty day! The yellow is a willow trees.

I watched a new run for the chickens and Connie get worked on. Connie was not impressed and tried to scare away the noisy dudes by gobbling and displaying her magnificent feathers. I didn’t even know hen turkeys could do that!

I also ended up with time to work with horses a bit longer than usual, so I picked out all the burs in Drew’s mane and tail. He was a true gentleman during the process. I think he’s feeling better.

In the evening Lee and I got a new coffeemaker, which is exactly like our previous one, only not worn out. We look forward to coffee tomorrow. I also got a slightly better toaster that should be less likely to burn my thick bread. These are our holiday gifts to each other.

We treated ourselves to dinner in a “real” restaurant and made our server very happy by forgiving him for not realizing we were his table. I had a magnificent beer and some salmon, which means I had a great Saturday with little phone time…until now, when I’m writing this.

That Windblown Look Isn’t Fun to Get

Last night the wind blew so hard that I felt like I was on a boat again, but this time the boat was in a major squall—not a typhoon but pretty bad.

Nonetheless, I got up early so I could go on a birding walk with a man named Kelly, who’s recently moved here in Rockport, who really knows his stuff. I was glad that Bernice, who works at the park office, mentioned it to me. But whoa, the temperature in the 50s, combined with cloudy skies and biting winds, made for mighty unpleasant circumstances.

I’m as cold as I look, and glad for the borrowed hat.

We started out on the big pier near our site, where nothing blocked the wind. I was glad for the railings and that I didn’t bring the big camera! We did see some interesting birds, though it was hard to see them well due to shaking hands holding the binoculars.

Mercifully, Kelly took us away and we went to the jetty I visited yesterday, when it was balmy at just slightly cloudy. There were some gorgeous Roseate Spoonbills flying around, and I have to tell you all that pinkness flying around with the dark gray background was striking, even in the wind. I was too cold to take pictures, so use your imagination.

We then caravanned back over to the Whooping Cranes, where Bernice and I got to see some flying overhead and whooping! We were like two little kids in our excitement! We no longer cared about the cold and were very happy to share our joy with others who were there. The birders here are very collegial.

While that was all fun, I had gotten a chill and didn’t get myself warm, despite tea and a warm meal, until I’d had a little nap in bed. Yow. Still, I dragged myself back outside in the afternoon, and went on a walk around the trail in the other part of Goose Island State Park.

Ooh, they have nice, large campsites with large trees in that part of the park. I enjoyed a relatively wind-free stroll through a coastal oak woodland full of beautiful understory plants like sweet bay, wax myrtle, and beautyberry. I felt a lot better when I got back to the motorhome.

I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to on this trip, so we will be back. I really like it here. At least there are birders in enough numbers to balance out the air boaters and duck hunters. And seafood!

We waited to leave until tomorrow to avoid traffic today. I’ll figure out how get some work in tomorrow. There will be lots of time before we leave.

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.

I Like Naps

It’s a good thing I like naps, since I’m very good at falling asleep at this point in my life. I had a very nice nap on the porch this afternoon with the sun keeping me warm and a breeze to keep me from being too warm. Other than waking myself up snoring from being in an awkward position, it was great.

And the good news is that I still had time for horse activities before sunset.

I did have a pretty busy morning after a leisurely birding hour and a little walk. Lots of bluebirds were out competing for grasshoppers, which is always a joy to watch.

I can’t say my morning project tired me out, because after Chris did the hard work of pounding the hanger into the ground, putting up this cool solar birdbath was very easy. And the best part is the bubbler is quiet and doesn’t interfere with bird listening. I hope birds use it. This evening the sparrows were eyeing it.

It turns off at night and when the water runs low.

I spent the rest of the morning doing volunteer work at the Wildscape and bird sanctuary projects. The Master Naturalist volunteers I have done a great job clearing out the space so new plants can go in.

I enjoyed the sights, including a shy kitty and a chicken who laid an egg right in front of me.

I had a great time at the bird sanctuary, where there were at least 20 species out and about. Just the chickadees and titmice were at the feeder, but I saw and heard many more.

After chatting with others at the benches, I went to lunch with the group and had a very good time. I’m glad a was brave enough to do a group thing.

Jackie pretending to investigate a feeder while Debi looks on.

All the mice were out of the chicken feed box, so I can clean it out tomorrow. I guess I’ll need another nap then! Less rodent worry meant tonight’s sunset walk was calmer and I could enjoy listening to the Great Horned Owl and friends for a while. All is well.

I Found Heaven

Oh, you’d suspect I found metaphorical heaven here on the ranch in the beautiful sunset light.

That is a nice thought! It was a beautiful day, and my sunset walk was pretty darned heavenly.

However, the Heaven I found was not for me. It was for Lucky here.

You see, I went to feed the chickens and noticed the feed bag was rather well chewed. So, I picked up the bag. I was not surprised to see that there were little creatures in my sealed food bin. At least four tiny mice running around on a layer of chicken feed. That could be Heaven for tiny rodents!

I had trouble getting mouse photos. I was kind of grossed out.

That’s when I saw that the mice weren’t alone. Lucky was in there with them. Now, being in a safe warm box full of tasty morsels is any rat snake’s idea of heaven! Lucky is young, but climbed well enough to get in!

Well. Yuck. So, I took out all the food the mice hadn’t gotten to yet. One big bag I took out and emptied onto the ground. That’s where Lucky was hiding. That’s when I picked her up and took her over by the hay bales and let her go (former caregiver for a rat snake, so I have the skills).

I was able to go back to my violated storage container and create an exit for the mice. If they are still there tomorrow I’ll eject them when I clean and disinfect my storage box. I sure hope it hasn’t developed a hole in it. I’m pretty sure all these creatures got in when I had the lid up.

I’m outa here. Thanks for the hay and food!

Anyway, this was all kinda icky. Heck, I was a suburban band mom not all that long ago. I’m not always the tough rancher gal I’d like to be. That’s why I went on that sunset walk. I needed to breathe fresh air.

Ah, a beautiful clasping coneflower that thinks it’s spring.

I did discover multiple spring flowers starting to grow. I assume the next freeze will slow them down, but right now it’s spring-like.

Ah, before I forget, I got my “furniture” set up in the birding station. Two low stools are a table and footrest. They were a pain to put together because the legs are slanted, so I had to smoosh them together to get the bottoms to fit into the tops. I just about didn’t have the arm strength. But I prevailed.

I also got another weatherproof storage box that was easier to put together because it was cheap plastic. I will not store mouse food in it, just my binoculars and cushion in case of rain. It also can serve as visitor seating. So far, the only visitor has been Harvey.

I need to figure out what to do with the leftover wood. I’m not sure if there’s a plan to use it.

Notice that the inside walls are also finished. This is one classy outdoor folly. My friend Tandy says it looks like the stand where Lucy in Charlie Brown comics used to dispense her mental health advice.

I need a sign that says, “The birder is in” perhaps.

Thinking of all of you, especially those dealing with health challenges.