pollinators – The Hermits' Rest

Heading South Like a Bird

Not that I want it to be warmer; it’s plenty warm still where I live. Nonetheless The plan for today was to head down south for a repeat visit to Choke Canyon State Park. I accidentally rebooked this park, perhaps I had a subconscious plan.

This very anxious cow had both me and the dogs concerned during birding time.

But first we had to get there. The farrier came early, which messed up my careful plans for getting both my work and my travel preparation done (and photography of pollinators for Texas Pollinator Week). Then, of course, work needed me and that got me more out of sync. I kept up my planned work/prep until I went to feed the chickens and give them water.

Of course I stopped for pollinators. This clouded skipper was diving into a flower.

As I turned the water flow on, I saw a brown lump in the grass. Was it something else Vlassic had dragged in from the pasture?

Oh my gosh, no! It was a newborn calf! On our side of the fence! It was doing the classic baby calf thing of laying low and not moving. I knew it was just born, because Tyler V tags new ones as soon as he finds them and he’s looking at least twice a day right now.

No wonder that cow had been mooing so hard this morning! And her milk bag was very full. I got in touch with Tyler then finished working and getting ready. Just as we were finally leaving, Tyler arrived and I showed him where the calf was. The poor thing was getting hot and breathing hard, so I’m glad it got rescued. All it took was for Tyler to walk up to it and it scooted back through the fence. I hope there was a family reunion and the baby got tagged.

That made me as happy as I assume these bee flies were when I took this shot.

Four hours later, we arrived to the familiar sight of Choke Canyon’s scrubby beauty. I quickly realized why I subconsciously rebooked a place we had already been—this time we are just two spots away from the bird blind! The really good one! And there’s javelina poop on our site! Yes! This place has its own beauty and excitement.

Bonus: the leveling system worked and my bedroom slide went out. I can get to my pajamas and art supplies! It’s like we have our motorhome back, though the generator still won’t start.

I did get to walk around just a little bit, and found a lot of climbing milkweed, lantana, and cow pen daisies. I hope these will convince some of the beautiful butterflies I’ve been seeing to stop and pollinate. So far I have a dead queen butterfly and a brown moth. I must do better!

I figure I’ll enjoy a few more birding hikes this weekend as well as take a lot of insect and plant photos! Enjoy scenes from my sunset walk.

Pollen, pollen

It’s everywhere right now. People always think of spring as prime time for pollen and pollinators, but at least around here the season lasts until it freezes. Autumn brings lots of flowers out for hungry insects over here in Milam County, Texas. I’ve shown you lots of tie vines, or wild morning glories.

In the mornings these clouded skippers cover the vines.

Another popular plant is the southern annual saltmarsh aster (Symphyotrichum divaricatum). They will be blooming until frost. Many tiny insects flit around them, probably wasps. I can’t get them to hold still. But I can catch a few butterflies (these are from today).

Today I spent a few minutes on my way to the mailbox dawdling around the big pollen producer of the moment, goldenrod. We have a patch of tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) on the dam that creates our driveway. It’s literally buzzing with activity right now, predominantly bumblebees and wasps, but there are also a few honeybees, butterflies, and bonus insects. It’s fun to watch them darting around.

I can see why Texas has its Pollinator Week in October each year, because even though it seems late, there’s still pollination to be done! I enjoyed focusing my time outside on these fall plants and insects (and arachnids). It takes my mind off how little it’s rained lately, current events, and the warm air rising to our bedroom every night.

In my opinion, you should focus more on how amazing garden spiders are.

But wait, there IS good news! The electrician people came today and got our big fans installed on the screened porch. It was a bit of work, especially putting the fans together. I had planned to take some calm fan photos, but instead got to record a rare sight, our usually dignified Alfred being playful with Penney. I’ll treasure these images!

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.

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.

I Found a Spring! And Pollinators!

I started out my morning nature break trying to find pollinators and check for damaged flowering plants for a survey of pollinators and plants used by monarchs on iNaturalist. I was very happy to have found bees and a butterfly, and was watching the water flowing in the stream with the dogs.

Then, Lee showed up, wanting me to help get the dogs back up so he could feed them. I said, okay, but look how well the stream is flowing! He noted that the runoff from the pond did not seem to be flowing, but the place where it dumps into the stream WAS making nice little waterfall sounds. So, where was the water coming from?

The stream is flowing so nicely and consistently that actual aquatic plants are growing.

Lee pointed out to a new puddle or marshy area that seems to have (no pun intended ) sprung up since the snow event happened. I’d been meaning to check on it, too.

The newly wet area. You can see it doesn’t have any water plants yet, so it’s new.

The puddle was very full, not like all the other ones that have dried up. Then, lo and behold, I spotted a little hole. That little hole was full of clear water, and it was bubbling up! I finally found the source of one of our intermittent springs! I was pretty excited.

Not much to look at, but it is full of bubbly water!

So, water is coming up from this hole (perhaps from the pond, who knows?), then flowing to the marshy puddle, then heading to join the pond runoff water, and on into the big hole that starts the stream.

I labeled the new spring’s path, since it’s hard to see for the grass.

Yay! Farther down, the water is running really fast, thanks to at least two other springs. We had heard that there have been springs all through that area, but most of them have not flowed since we got here, which was when the big drought of 2011-12 happened. I guess the aquifer has finally recovered! Wow!

This springy area has been holding up since last year.

Anyway, I was happy to find a Sulphur butterfly, a hairstreak and lots and lots of bees outside. They were pollinating the henbit and dandelions.

Also, one of the young willows in the small pond has started sprouting, plus I saw a bullfrog in that pond (and heard another one jump). I found one wolf spider and another insect that got away. That means some of them lived. This all makes me very happy.

Frog is peeking from the center of the pond shore

I do hope to see turtles soon. I am worried about them. But, wow, so happy to have found a spring!