bioblitz – The Hermits' Rest

All By Myself

I’m all cozy in a hotel very close to a University campus. So it’s not quiet. I’m pretty tired from all that bleeding and stitching yesterday, so you’re not getting much to read tonight.

I did do a BioBlitz at Lick Creek Park in College Station today, but it was very low key because I just wasn’t ready for big crowds (auto correct made the word “crowds” into “briefs”) and talking. So I wandered around and looked at the saddest collection of wilted plants I’ve ever seen in the wild.

It’s hard to find diverse plants when everything is brown and droopy.

I found a few things and would have seen more if I’d been in the guided botany walk.

There were irrigated pollinator gardens around the nature center. I hoped to get lots of pollinator photos, but the butterflies seemed more intent on mating than sipping nectar. And the mid-afternoon sun makes phone photography hard. You can’t see the screen, so you miss a lot. I tried taking distant photos and cropping, with poor results. So the four types of skippers and the many Queens remain uncaptured.

I only heard four birds, too. But, it was a day outdoors and I did chat with a few like-minded people. No complaints.

Thanks to all who checked in on me. I will endeavor to not fall this weekend.

Still Having Nature Thrills

My idea of a thrill may not be yours. For me, seeing a new natural environment with new flora and fauna is often thrilling to me. Today’s field trip was to Ringtail Ridge Natural area, west of San Marcos. What an interesting spot!

We did a Bioblitz as part of the Texas Master Naturalist annual meeting set up by the Nature Trackers staff. The park was big enough that we could all disperse and not be on top of each other. I ended up with three excellent birders, and a good time was had by all.

We heard and saw warblers, a Kestrel, and many Black-crested Titmice. Finding interesting plants was a little harder, because it’s so dry right now, but we could tell this place is beautiful in spring and early summer. The topography was interesting, with many berms and old stone walls.

This velvet-leaf mallow really has velvety leaves.

Most of the thrills came from insects, which we found plenty of. There were so many common mestra butterflies that in one place it looked like fairies having a convention. There were also many goatweed leaf wings and caterpillars galore. One caterpillar was huge. It looked like a big ole hotdog chomping on a vine. It’s a future Vine sphinx moth. Spectacular!

We also found nests and not just bird nests! There were many turtle nests, too, with little eggshells. We had fun.

Eventually we returned to the hotel, where I did two normal conference sessions, one on how to have difficult discussions as Master Naturalists and one on nightjars (like Chuck-will’s widows and nighthawks. Such interesting and little studied birds.

The dinner presentation was by Jeff Gessas, one of the leaders of the leaders of yesterday’s moving session. I loved watching him talk, as he reminded me so much of my estranged older son, also a philosopher. Geez. They’re the same age. Still, I learned a lot that resonated with me.

It was a fun day, and I even got to hang out with folks from my chapter a bit!

Our little contingent managed to get together.

I Took a Break

Yes, I took a break from many things I do constantly, and it felt good! I skipped two days of blogging and knitting, and I am just fine, thank you.

I don’t particularly look fine with one dark lens and one light one!

While it wasn’t a voluntary break, it was blissful to have a lot of time to meditate, listen, and rest for the past few days. You see, I took a blogging break starting last Friday because the place we’ve been all weekend is like most Texas State Parks, and light on cellular connectivity. Once I fired up my hotspot, I was able to do things like upload images to iNaturalist slowly and post a few photos to Facebook.

The knitting issue was my own dang fault. I had forgotten to bring along the two shades of blue I needed for the cold front last week. Indeed, it got cool enough to require blue yarn. So, I had to stop. That’s not the end of the world, since I was almost caught up to the present in my squares. Blah blah blah, knitting talk.

Anyway, Lockhart State Park is a little jewel of a place built by the CCC and WPA, two government programs that provided employment in the Great Depression. Today it would be labeled handouts and frowned upon, no doubt.

There are only 20 camping sites, but the circle we are on has 50 amp electric and sewer hookup, so it’s snazzy. Our view is of a woods and the second hole of the only golf course remaining in a Texas State Park. I doubt they have to mow it very often, judging from the sizable herd of deer that shows up every night.

You may recall that our television antenna was knocked off poor Seneca’s roof. We have a new one but haven’t managed to get it up there, so this was also a television-free weekend, other than watching The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan last night on BlueRay.

Who needs TV? Plus we got the bedroom slide out! Yay!

So, what have I done? Mostly I walked. I have gone on all but one hiking trail here, madly taking photos of plants, bugs, and such for the 2023 Pollinator BioBlitz. I knew I’d do well on this one, because I had one free weekend at home to record observations, most of a week in South Texas, then this long weekend in Lockhart. At one point this weekend, I was #3 out of over 5,000 people in numbers of observations (this will change as people who use real cameras upload their photos, I’m sure).

There were a few plants that I really enjoyed seeing. New to me was the Texas Feathershank Schoenocaulon texanum. It a beautiful plant, especially when the sun shines through its blossoms. I wish it grew at our place!

Two other wonders are the Texas Kidneywood Eysenhardtia texana and the Bearded Swallow-wort Metastelma barbigerum, two plants with tiny white flowers that I learned more about on this trip. Lockhart is at the northern end of the area these are found in.

Kidneywood is used for dye, as it apparently glows underwater! It also has blossoms that smell intoxicatingly wonderful and are very attractive to pollinators. With its teeny little leaves, it’s a cool small tree to find.

The swallow-wort I saw in south Texas. Here, though, there were huge vines of them, just abuzz with bees and wasps. I think it may be related to milkvines, because the leaves look similar and the seed pods look just like climbing milkvine. Plus, look at those seeds. Sure looks like milkweed! The flowers are teeny-tiny, though, so if they have a cute little pearl in the center, I couldn’t see them.

I did finally find a blooming milkvine, after spotting many with no blossoms. I do love milkweeds.

The most common plants here are the ubiquitous straggler daisy, Texas Indian mallow, and Turk’s cap. There were some lovely vistas of Turk’s cap in the woods, even though you could tell a lot were lost in the drought.

Here are some other plants and insects I found:

My side quest was to see how many birds I could identify. I actually saw quite a few, with the most obliging one being this lovely black vulture, who just grunted at me a couple of times.

Mostly I heard birds on Merlin. There were a couple of obvious errors, but most I could confirm by seeing them. There was even a screech owl! In all, I identified 42 kinds of birds, thanks to the varied terrain here (water birds really like the lovely creek that flows through the park).

I also saw lots of deer in the woods, as well as on the golf course, and one happy armadillo. There was evidence of MANY armadillos here, along with coyotes and raccoons.

The most fun I had (fun is a weird thing for me) was going into the trails at sunset and finding a quiet spot. Then I’d just listen. Sadly, you could always hear traffic way in the background, along with airplanes and a really annoying bulldozer that messed up my listening this morning. But when it was quiet, you could hear the leaves falling off the cedar elm trees, cardinals flying (they are loud fliers), distant crows, and what I figure are deer walking around or armadillos digging.

Of course, in the mornings, it isn’t silent. The wrens, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, and woodpeckers make quite a racket. And one hawk about burst my eardrums it was so close. Pretty cool.

Back to work, dogs, and horses tomorrow morning! I think I have enough Internet to get work done while Lee gets ready to leave! But we both will remember this quiet, restful respite.

Tired, but a Good Kind of Tired

It was a fun day with a good balance of exploring the hidden corners of the ranch and being a people person. But I’m so tired I’m afraid this will end up as one of those typo-filled collections of gibberish.

I really enjoyed the coolest morning so far after the horrid summer. I went all over the more inaccessible areas of the Hermits’ Rest Ranch. I was looking for butterflies and certain specific plants. I succeeded in finding monarchs, a few other butterflies, and passionflowers (plus passion fruit). That’s a lot of beauty. Ooh do those passionflowers smell nice.

I’ll share more later. But I made good contributions to the iNaturalist 2023 Texas Pollinator BioBlitz. That felt good. I even got observations at the place where I went this afternoon!

I found the most interesting insect, the large-tailed aphid eater, or bird hoverfly (*Eupeodes volucris*)

And where I spent the afternoon was being a vendor at a showcase at the Little River Event Center, one of the two nice local venues that recommend our short-term rental, the Red House on Fannin. Anita joined me partway through the event.

We met some very nice folks, and I really enjoyed the young woman with a Photo Booth next to me. There were all the usual wedding vendors like photographers, event planners, florists, and caterers. They were mostly younger women with small children, but not all were.

The first thing I learned was that colors should be neutral. We were the only red thing in the venue. The second thing was that I need a sign. Otherwise it was lots of fun and we made good contacts, along with visiting with some friends.

This beautiful ranch is just outside of Cameron.

I appreciate the opportunity to get out and introduce people to our little house. It’s working out pretty well! I’m glad there are places like these event venues that will promote us, and we can return the favor.

Now to crash. Sorry if there are more typos than usual.

Change of Mind, Change of Weather

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

I was going to be flip and answer this one with “golf.” I thought it was boring and elitist when I was young, and getting my head cracked open by a golf club in bad ole 8th grade didn’t help (when I mentioned this earlier I forgot to add that as I stumbled my way alone and bleeding to the school nurse, I rubbed blood all over the exterior of Plantation Middle School, to express my disgust with my situation. They never did golf again in middle school PE. However, I’ve come to enjoy watching golf on television and have fun at Top Golf.

No golf photos, but here’s a painted lady.

My more serious answer is that I’ve changed my mind about Christianity. I have gradually come to realize that I am not fond of institutional religion in general, not just Christianity. Also, I realized that what upsets me most about certain Christian sects is how bizarrely they’ve distorted the message of peace, kindness, and caring that the historical Christ preached into a war-mongering, cruel, and disdainful way of enforcing power over the masses in favor of a privileged few.

It turns out that there are Christians with whom I agree very much and whose ideas I’m happy to incorporate into my life, along with wise people from other traditions. So, I am still quite unimpressed with many versions of Christianity, but I’m very comfortable with the teachings of Christ (not Paul’s version).

A bee I’d never seen before. ID not confirmed.

Enough of that. Huzzah! Today was the day! Pleasant weather arrived! I even had to wear a sweatshirt getting Drew ready to go to a horse clinic. I just basked all day and couldn’t make myself stay inside even after I got home. I wandered around taking pictures for the pollinator BioBlitz that’s going on.

Texas nightshade (*Solanum triquetrum*) is a pretty plant that only grows in one spot on our property.

The nice weather made the clinic lots of fun, even though Drew was not on his best behavior much of the time, because he was very distracted by a beautiful mare (I don’t know what makes a mare beautiful to a hormonal gelding, but she is very pretty.

Eventually he settled down, but not after I had to trot him in a circle so many times I was getting dizzy. He was distracted. Once we switched to obstacles, he did better. We jumped! And we went around a corner backwards. There were challenges due to my lack of skill, but I got through the day.

It was funny that all three horses in my group were gray. Drew’s the tiny one that doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars. But he is just fine.

Brilliantly, we separated Drew from Luna for the photo.

Hanging out with the horse gang again was just great. I’m glad summer is over so we can have fun and learn more. There’s lots to learn!

Sara got this picture of Drew not grasping the concept of sharing space with Aragorn.

Tromping

Whew, I was tired by the time I got home from Fredericksburg. I went home a new way, though, so I got to see some different scenery and avoid Austin traffic. To keep myself awake I tromped around the ranch on my breaks, taking pictures for the pollinator BioBlitz.

I especially enjoyed our remaining water areas. I spotted lots of fish in here.

I just wandered and wandered, bearing in mind what I learned at the conference this week. I noted there were more fish where there was no cow poop, but there were fish even in what’s left of the creek, where I found one of the old mama cows having a quiet bath.

As I checked out the riparian areas, I also looked at the pastures. Yeah, they are rather over-grazed. The only plants left are what cattle don’t eat: broomweed, milkweed, and silverleaf nightshade. This made finding things to add to the BioBlitz a challenge.

I did find lots of insects and documented every tree variety, so I feel good. My goal is to ID 100 species as my contribution, and I think if I get some at Tarrin’s, where there are different plants, I’ll pass that goal. I did hit another goal today, and that’s 600 different species here on the ranch. Hard to believe!

Even if all I see is cedar elms and greenbrier, I can’t complain. Being able to get outside is such a privilege. The variety of life that’s still thriving in this drought gives me hope for us tenacious humans, too.

I didn’t see many birds other than this coy mockingbird and a cardinal that hid completely. I did hear hawks and crows a lot.

I’m hoping the weather will turn. It actually rained a few tiny drops when I fed the horses, and there was lightning in clouds at sunset. More hope!

More photos, mainly because Barbara looks at them all.

What’s in the Creek!

Today’s Bioblitz adventure took me and the faithful canine companions over by the creek again. I was trying to see if there are any different plants in the woods and creek side. Also, I wanted to let the dogs have fun. That they did!

Mostly Penney and Carlton enjoyed the windy, sunny day by running, smelling and splashing. It was a good distraction from staring at plants.

I crossed the creek! (Also, check out that soil layer with all the big rocks.)

The dogs running in the stream inspired me to check it out, and I found some slimy algae.

It reminded me to check the water for plants. I found two cool things I never saw before today!

I’m not sure if it’s one kind or two kinds, but crowfoot is a cool name, and cursed crowfoot is a GREAT name!

All afternoon I looked for birds. I got a vulture photo, but all the other ones hid…until I was just about to walk through the gate back to the house. Suddenly, a bird was right in front of me. By the time I got the camera up, a little ruby crowned kinglet was right in front of me! It’s the first one I’ve seen here! A good day.

It was a good day all around. I also had a great ride on Apache. I think he’s having fun, too.

Knitting on Hold Due to Online Shopping Fail

Darn me. I thought I had ordered more yarn for the table runner I’m making for Lee, then wondered why it had not arrived. Sigh. The website I used had such a long and convoluted ordering process that I missed one last “finalize order” button on the bottom of a screen, because the text was so long that the button required scrolling to see. Let me just say, “Grr.”

It’s looking pretty, though, other than my ugly decreases (for which I blame the yarn texture, not my sterling technique.

So, I now have a 28-inch long piece of knitted fabric and no more yarn. The purchase HAS hit my credit card, so now I’ll just wait until next week for the rest to show up. The good news is that Lee wants the runner to be 50 inches, so the two more skeins I ordered should be enough, but not too much. That makes me happy!

I made a mistake in the last light brown section, but it’s not bad enough to rip out. With all that crazy color and texture, who’s gonna look that hard at it, once it’s on the stereo cabinet? It just shows I’m human!

Once again, I am really glad to have a backup project! The blue shawl will get longer today, though I must admit categorizing all my Bioblitz photos takes away from my knitting time.

Still Blitzing

No one I know actually logs ALL the hours they spend on iNaturalist. For me, the time just melts away as I try to figure out what kind of plant or animal I’ve seen. Yesterday I even got a couple of bird photos, nasty, blurry ones, but yay! I actually love this one, which really doesn’t show the bird species, but looks artsy.

And I got these beautiful closeups of henbit, the omnipresent wildflower of February.

And here, I just had to take a photo of the entrance to the driveway that leads to the cabin and barns. It’s pretty to me.

How’s your weekend going? I hope better than this dead hunk of fish I found. Yep, a good place to stop blogging.

I don’t think there’s enough of this to identify on iNaturalist, but the fish does have cool teeth. At the top is a fin.

Blitzed and Hit 2000!

It’s been a heck of a work week, giving me little time to think or write about. We’ve been doing real estate stuff, but I hesitate to write about that anymore. So, I’ll tell you about the highlight of my day, which has been participating in the Winter Bioblitz for our Master Naturalist chapter.

I made 62 observations today, which was a feat, since I only did it on breaks and at lunch. It’s also a feat, because the vast majority of the plants I can identify right now are henbit, chicory, and clover.

The highlight of my morning was reaching 2,000 iNaturalist observations. I’ve been going more slowly lately, so this meant a lot to me. I enjoy contributing!

It was good I knew where a lot of things are, so I could confidently say, “This is poison ivy!”

Other chapter members got out and took some pictures, too. Carolyn took a picture of a cat and uploaded it, which gave me a chuckle. I know lots more will join in!

Anyway, I’m enjoying my nature pause and finally able to get Master Naturalist hours for my iNaturalist work around the ranch. That makes up for whatever challenges I’m facing.

Have a happy evening. Time to knit.

How Many Invasive Species Did I Find?

Last week I had a lot of Master Naturalist fun participating in the Texas Invasive Species BioBlitz 2020 that got set up by Texas Nature Trackers. You may remember I talked about it a bit last week. The idea was to see how many observations you could get from a list of invasive species found throughout the state. I knew I had easy access to a few, so I figured I’d try.

I got a good number of invasives pretty quickly, since I knew right where there was some Arundo donax (river cane), Johnson grass, and a lot of nandina on my own properties. I must have spent 3 hours the first weekend looking for invasives (and observing lots of other things, too).

Arundo donax
Common dandelion
Common lantana
Johnson grass (with prickly pear)
Glossy privet
Nandina (heavenly bamboo)
Bad photo of common hedge parsley

By the time I went to Austin on Tuesday, I was doing okay on the leaderboard. Just a few walks around the neighborhood of Bobcat Run produced more “goodies” like Japanese honeysuckle and privets.

By the time the week was over, I was proud to be in the top twenty of number of species observed, and doing okay with number of observations as well.

Here I am, number 17, and Linda Jo number 2 (I couldn’t fit number 1 on the screen, darn it.)

Of course, my fellow Chapter member Linda Jo Conn was in second place in number of observations and first place for species. Some other guy had way more observations, because he had multiple photos of some of the species. I did a few, like things I saw both in Austin and Cameron, or ones in distinct locations. However, I could have ROCKED the numbers by just walking across the lawn and taking pictures of Bermuda grass (I would NOT do such a thing, of course).

Regrets

Darn the luck! The day after the bioblitz was over, I drove down a street I don’t usually go by, and there were a whole bunch of mimosa trees taunting me with their fluffy pinkness. Argh!

Beautiful invasive mimosa tree, just one block off of where I usually drive every day.

Then, yesterday I walked to the horse barn (I’d been driving our utility vehicle because I have a sore tendon), and right on the side of the driveway was a cheerful annual bastard cabbage/ wild mustard plant. I’d been looking and looking for one, because I knew they were there! So, that’s two more I could have found if I’d been a bit more diligent.

What Did I Learn?

I think the project did what it was intended to do: it got me much more aware of invasive species wherever I saw them, and because I kept talking about it to friends and family, I raised awareness as well. That’s exactly the kind of thing I want to be doing as a Master Naturalist.

Oh, and also, I had fun. What have been your fun projects while we’ve been not gathering in large groups and such?