Hiking
-
The Big Thicket Solo Tract | May 2023
I first heard about the Solo Tract at the Big Thicket from Linda Leinen when she started a blog series called A Year of Going Solo earlier this year. Since seeing her posts, I have dipped into this tract myself twice, the most recent time back in May. It’s very close to the Big Thicket’s Interpretive Center which makes it easy to access if you are short on time but need to get into the Thicket for a few moments. Some highlights from that trip: Wooly rosemallow, Hibiscus lasiocarpos blooming. Tall green milkweed, Asclepias hirtella—I was very excited to see this one in bloom! I love when I come across…
-
Respite on Drakes Creek
It was oppressively hot this weekend, as it has been for the last two weeks. Spring, our wonderfully mild spring, went *poof* once the calendar hit June. I’m glad we had such mild temperatures for so long, it made being outside much more enjoyable. Now? I’m re-thinking my twice daily laps around the yard at work. Opening the office door this last week has been met with the feeling of the inside of a furnace. So much for the pleasant tour about the yard looking for wildlife–I’m now hurrying to get my steps in and stretch my legs and back inside to the cool AC. Even outside time after dinner…
-
Weekend at Ivy’s
A few months ago I was on the Texas Land Conservancy website looking into a property I wanted to get onto near Angelina National Forest. Unfortunately that property was closed to the public and so I went digging into their website a little more to find out just what public lands they had available that I could get onto. That’s how I ended up coming across the Spring Weekend at Ivy’s. I emailed the TLC first to ask if their $50 pricing included the entire weekend for the whole family and it did! I sent the link to Chris and after a brief conversation I officially paid the money and…
-
Butterflies at Medina River Natural Area
Little yellow, Pyrisitia lisa Dainty sulphur, Nathalis iole Orange sulphur, Colias eurytheme Gray hairstreak, Strymon melinus Reakirt’s blue, Echinargus isola Orange skipperling, Copaeodes aurantiaca Gray hairstreak, Strymon melinus Ailanthus webworm moth, Atteva aurea Vesta crescent, Phyciodes graphica We went to San Antonio for a weekend getaway back in January with no real plans other than going to the zoo, eat at La Gloria on the Riverwalk, and going to the Alamo. I hadn’t been to the Alamo since I was in high school and I don’t know if Chris recalled when he had been, and it was Forest’s first time. We had driven by it several years ago but now…
-
Big Sky Country
A week in the Davis Mountains, spring this time instead of our usual Thanksgiving. Which meant warmer, but much windier weather, and the beginning of spring blooms for plants we haven’t gotten to see bloom before. All the warm weather and early blooms will be dusted with snow this weekend as a cold front came through last night, our last night. The city of Fort Davis was preparing for the storm by salting the roads and brought out a big truck with some weird thing on the front, and after our southern sensibilities faded we realized was a snow plow! Hah! You certainly don’t see those around our part of…
-
Mahogany Hammock Trail at Everglades National Park (2007)
Let’s travel back to Florida and less depressing things like losing a state park—because nature continues on even while we fight to save it. I actually remember very little about this trail. I can recall part of the boardwalk and that there were mosquitoes but I don’t recall seeing some of these plants! The peeling skin-like bark of a gumbo limbo tree, Bursera simaruba The fruits of a Florida strangler fig, Ficus aurea A nurse log filled with long strapferns, Campyloneurum phyllitidis…a common scene in many swampy hammocks in south Florida. An orchid that has died, probably a butterfly orchid. Hammock viper’s-tail, Pentalinon luteum. This is one of the plants…
-
Goodbye to a State Park | Fairfield Lake State Park
Carolina larkspur, Delphinium carolinianum Rose bluet, Houstonia rosea Prostrate grapefern, Sceptridium lunaroides Trout lilies, Erythronium sp. Spiranthes tuberosa Carolina violet, Viola villosa—so many all over the park! I have never seen so many. Parlin’s pussytoes, Antennaria parlinii “One waxes pessimistic? Not so much … There is a pessimism about land which, after it has been with you a long time, becomes merely factual. Men increase; country suffers. Though I sign up with organizations that oppose the process, I sign without great hope.… Islands of wildlife and native flora may be saved, as they should be, but the big, sloppy, rich, teeming spraddle will go. It always has.” ― John Graves,…
-
Does Texas actually care about its land? The Pending Loss of Fairfield Lake State Park
Sometime in the fall I started a Substack newsletter where I was hoping to focus my writing efforts on Texas nature and environmental writing. I was going to re-purpose some blog posts here but also work on focusing on other important environmental news efforts in the state. It was a different kind of writing than what I typically share here, which is sometimes rambling and a lot more personal. The Substack was a way for me to stretch my writing skills and write for a different audience. If you haven’t heard of Substack, it’s a newsletter platform that allows writers to be paid if they want, so you can write…
-
Engulfed in Fungus – Attack of the Akanthomyces sp.
Forget COVID-19, it’s fungi we should be worried about! We stumbled across this moth covered in a fungus in Angelina National Forest last October and I knew it was one of the cordyceps family fungi as soon as I saw it, though I couldn’t quite place the name at the time. I had seen several people post their own photos of insects parasitized by this fungus or a related species in the few months prior and just never thought I’d stumble across my own sighting. So, the fun thing about these fungi is that once they parasitize their host, they cover the body with this weird growth so that it…
-
Insects Lurking About
One of my favorite things to do when I have the time while hiking is to move slowly and see what insects and arachnids may be lurking about on a plant. There’s a good chance one is hiding in plain sight, like this American nursery web spider, Pisuarina mira. Common boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum, the perfect haunt for that spider as it waits for insects to come nectar! This unassuming goldenrod looks devoid of faunal life but… you would be wrong. I’m unsure which bee this is and I may not ever get an answer because I only have the one photo, but it may be one of the leaf cutter…
