A Midsummer Hike

Here are a couple of photos from our bluebird nestbox walk last week.

We've been checking the nestboxes every Sunday evening, around 6 pm and it's been getting hot! The bird activity seems to be tapering off - the end of July is the end of the bluebird nesting season. I'll summarize our first year's results in a future post.

Early in the hike, we saw a large rat snake stretched out in a shady spot in the grass. It was about 4 feet long and didn't move as we walked up. However, as I reached for my camera, it slithered away. How does something with no legs move so fast?

A rare bit of red in the landscape caught my eye! It was some agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata) leaves, beautifully backlit by the setting sun.

Almost at the end, I saw a snake skeleton scattered in the debris-filled ground under a live oak (Quercus virginiana) tree. This snake was quite small - the skeleton was around a foot long, but in several pieces.

Spotting the skeleton at the end of our hike formed a nice bookend with the sighting of the live rat snake at the start.

Nature Abstracts

The Hill Country Photography Club's critique theme this month was Nature Abstracts. I kept putting off doing the assignment because I'm not familiar with abstract techniques and felt it was forcing me outside my photographic comfort zone.

I've tried to accurately represent the scene in most of the nature photography I've done. The thought of intentionally turning it into an abstraction just made me uncomfortable. Finally, a couple of weekends ago, I decided I needed to get it done. The technique I was going to use was to set a slow shutter speed and allow the image to blur as I moved during the exposure. I went for a hike looking for suitable subjects.

The first one is a different view of one of our native shrubs, agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata). We've got them all over the property. I like this image because it reminds me of a star field or a fireworks burst. I'm not sure if one could tell it was an agarita just from the image, so perhaps that's abstract enough!

Agarita Starburst

I noticed some of the agaritas already have flower buds. The combination of rains and warm weather are tricking them into an early spring.

I took the second image right in our front yard. We have a several rose bushes in our home's landscape and they are all blooming.

Rose Impressions

I liked the results of the nature abstract assignment and think I'll do it again. One of the goals of my Master Naturalist work is to increase public awareness and appreciation of nature. I think producing nature abstracts might be one way to accomplish that.

Agarita Spring

This photo of an Agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata) branch was taken in May of this year.

Agarita Spring

This native is a member of the barberry family and is an evergreen shrub about 3 - 6 feet in height. The wood and flowers are a bright yellow and, as you can see, the berries a bright red. It has holly-like leaves, and in fact many people mistake it for a holly. The leaflets are lobed and end in sharp spines.

Agarita is widespread on our property and the flowers are fragrant and quite beautiful, especially in a year of good rain, like this was. The berries put on a great show and jump out as they dot the landscape.

I just learned this year that the berries are edible, so every time I was walking on our property and came across one, I would taste the berries. They are quite sweet when ripe.

One of my fellow Hays County Master Naturalists made agarita jelly this year since the berries were so plentiful. He found a recipe on the Internet and got to work. Here's one recipe I found. He reports that picking the berries can be quite painful. He then read about a different method: spread a canvas or plastic sheet around the bush and then shake it! He was able to gather about 3 pounds an hour with this method. He collected a total of about 5 pounds of berries which resulted in 14 1/2 8-ounce jars of jelly.

I donated a framed print of "Agarita Spring" to the silent auction at the Texas Master Naturalist State Meeting which was held last month in New Braunfels. The silent auction was a great success and raised funds for the state organization. I'm glad I could help.