Seeds, Seeds, Seeds

I went out for a short walk this morning. With the daily highs above 100, the best times for a hike are in the morning or in the afternoon. Nicely though, that is also the best time for photography with a soft, diffuse light which eliminates harsh shadows.

Usually on my hikes, I'll notice common patterns. I think this is due to my mood or mind-set, but whatever the cause, the theme that I picked up on this morning, is that various plants are putting out fruits or seeds. After the spring rains and before the peak of summer, these plants are producing fruit,  perhaps as an insurance policy for the future.

There's a patch of bristlegrass right in our front yard. I've seen it many times before, so why did it catch my eye this morning? It was something about the beautiful way it waved in the breeze. The seed heads are about 2 feet above the ground and they are turning a yellow color as they mature. I'm not sure exactly what species it is, but I'm pretty sure it's a native.

A little further along, just outside our gate, I saw a Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana) with many berries. Most of them are still green, but you can see a ripe, black one. The berries are edible and quite sweet. I've tried them before. The only drawback is that the dark juice can stain your fingers, mouth, and clothes!

And finally, many of our Prickly Pear (Opuntia engelmannii) cactus are bearing fruit. The deeply-colored pears are also edible, but I've never tried them. They too have spines, so you have to peel them carefully.

A Brief Break

I'll be traveling for work for the next ten days, so no blog posts for a couple of weeks.

See you again on July 8th!

Water Dish Visitors

The game camera caught some nice shots of visitors to our wildlife water dish recently. The game camera doesn't seem to bother the animals although I think some of them do notice it, because they appear to look right at at.

In any case, I enjoy retrieving the image card every week and the Christmas-morning anticipation of looking through the typically hundreds of images to see what we caught.

First is a nice white-tailed (Odocoileus virginianus) doe. She looks young to me, but I'm certainly no expert. Speaking just from what I've observed over the last few years, the older does appear heavier than this one. This one looks sleek and graceful.

Next is a young white-tailed buck. You can see his fuzzy antlers coming in. They're covered in velvet which is a living skin-like tissue which provides the growing antlers with blood, oxygen, and nutrients. The antler starts as cartilage and becomes mineralized. Once the antler is full-size, the velvet sheds and the antler bone dies. Male deer re-grow their antlers every year. We frequently find discarded ones on our property. Interestingly, about 1 in 10,000 females have antlers and this is usually associated with hermaphroditism.

Lastly, we caught an elusive gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) in daytime. This photo was taken at 4 pm. We've caught gray foxes before but always when it was dark. They're nocturnal and very shy. It's a rare treat to see one in person.

Odds & Ends

I went for a  hike today and even though it's not officially summer yet, it was HOT! I declare summer here, not matter what the calendar says.

The black-eyed susans are still out in force and the Texas thistles are past their peak, which is a good thing. They are nasty.

A few weeks ago, while checking our nest boxes, I spotted this prickly pear heart. More appropriate for Valentine's Day, but it's a reminder that all you need is love.

Our game camera caught a doe and her fawn walking by.

We keep our glass and cans for recycling in plastic tubs behind our garage. A few weeks ago I took the recycling to the local place in San Marcos. I tossed the containers in the pickup bed and drove into town. I emptied the tubs and threw them back in the truck. When I got home and was putting them away behind the garage, I noticed something hanging from one of them. It was a monarch chrysalis!

The butterfly was almost ready to emerge. The chrysalis was turning transparent and you could see the butterfly inside. I checked it the next day and the chrysalis was cracked open and no sign of the butterfly.

I learned several things. First, the chrysalis is attached with something approaching "crazy glue" in strength. I remained attached and survived a round trip to San Marcos and fairly rough handling, since I didn't see it until after my return. Second, the monarch caterpillar is not picky about where it decides to metamorphose. The female butterfly is particular and lays her eggs on plants that will be a food source to her caterpillars. Where the transformation into butterfly takes place is apparently not critical.

Walk Softly And Be A Big Stick

Following on the steps of the red katydid outbreak is a walking stick invasion.

They belong to the Phasmatodea order of insects. There are four families in North America and many species in Texas. They are also known as stick insects and stick bugs. They are herbivores, so their increased numbers are not to take on the red katydids. I think that for both the red katydids and the walking sticks, weather conditions were favorable for them earlier this year and now their populations have boomed.

They excel at camouflage are are quite difficult to see unless, like these two, they're on our driveway or house.

This one is on our driveway and it's displaying a defense posture because I annoyed it. It's curling its abdomen and trying to look like a scorpion. I don't think it can actually sting, but I didn't take any chances. It's funny that it doesn't know that all I want is a photograph so it's not taking any chances either!

Like all insects, it has six legs, but only four are obvious. It's holding its front two legs together and ahead. I think this is to make it appear big and scare me off. As far as it knows - it worked!

This one is resting on a post on our front porch. They will sometimes stay in the same place for hours; longer than I'm willing to track them, anyway. It's also holding its forelegs in front.

These specimens are both about 6 inches long but you sometimes see smaller ones.

Mike Quinn, a local entomologist, has an excellent web page with more information here.

Bambi's Close Calls

I had a couple of close encounters with two white-tailed fawns this week. By close, I mean that in each case, I was able to approach within two feet. This is rare indeed.

The first one happened earlier this week as I drove onto our driveway/road on my way home. I saw a white-tailed doe and a small fawn with her. The fawn's legs were rickety and I think it might have been only a few hours old. They were both standing in the middle of the road and didn't move as I drove up.

I think the fawn couldn't move quickly and the doe wasn't leaving her. I stopped the car and got out. The doe moved off about 20 or 30 feet but did not run away. The fawn walked about 4 feet and into a prickly pear cactus patch and laid down!

I took this photo with my cell phone camera. The fawn is lying still and trying to look inconspicuous. I don't think the prickly pear needles are poking it because its fur offers protection. I also don't think it walked into the prickly pear because it would prevent a predator from going after it. I think it was just the first place it could try to hide.

I've seen fawns do this before. It's their only defense mechanism. It reminds of a line in the movie A Christmas Story, after Ralphie and his brother Randy encounter some bullies - "Randy lay there like a slug! It was his only defense!"

The second close approach happened this morning. It all happened very quickly so I didn't get any photos. I walked into the kitchen and looked outside. Gus, our Doberman Pinscher, was at the fence and had something in his mouth. He was thrashing his head about. I thought it might be a rabbit but it looked bigger. I guessed it was a fawn and ran outside and shouted at  him to drop it, which he did. Good dog! Mary helped me by taking all our dogs inside.

I walked up to the body with dread, thinking I would find a bloody, dead animal. As I got close though, I could see the fawn was breathing hard and its eyes were open. I couldn't see any wounds or blood on it or on the ground. I wasn't sure what to do and was about to pick it up to examine it, when it jumped up and ran off. It ran to the fence and went through the mesh in the field fence. I hope it finds its mother and makes it.

Gus is known to jump our fence and wander our property, but I don't think he would have brought the fawn back inside. I think the fawn came into our fenced area and Gus got it. It must have happened just immediately before I saw him, because if he had been thrashing and shaking it for long, he would have broken it's back or neck.

I know fawns are killed by predators all the time and it's not like there's a shortage of white-tailed deer, but I feel responsible when my dogs are the killers. I'm glad this one got away and might make it.

Intrusion Of The Cowbird!

Last week it was a red katydid outbreak. This week we have a cowbird intrusion. Nature is endlessly fascinating and this is another example.

When we checked our nestbox #4 last week, it was empty except for a lone bluebird egg which had not developed from the previous brood. We only recently learned that you should remove the old nest so we had left the nest and egg alone. This week, during a bird species survey with my friends and bird experts, Jesse Huth and Jaci Kroupa, we checked the box as we hiked past. The old blue bird egg was gone and in its place were five small, whitish eggs. Jesse identified them as cowbird eggs. He removed the eggs and destroyed them. We looked around the box to see if we could find the blue bird egg, but weren't able to.

Brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) are nest parasites. They construct no nests of their own, but instead lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species. This behavior evolved because the cowbirds evolved to follow the large bison herds that roamed the prairies and would feed in the short grass left behind by the herbivores. The adult cowbirds would not remain in any area for long and left their eggs behind to be raised by others. The cowbird young hatch sooner and are larger than the host species young and either actively expel the other chicks or out-compete them for food.

The other bird species adapted to this periodic cowbird parasitism, but now the scenario is very different. The great bison herds are gone, replaced by fenced-in cattle which remain in one area. The cowbirds are doing what they’ve always done, but their constant presence is now a significant threat to other bird species.

Texas Parks and Wildlife has a cowbird trapping program which tries to address the problem. We may have to put some cowbird traps on our property if the situation gets worse.

In this case, the cowbirds did no harm, since the blue birds had already fledged and only an old egg remained. We may not be so lucky next time.