Field Findings | April 2022

Last week I was able to escape into the field for a few hours to a local field site and in between counting trees, logging dbh, and estimating height, I scoped out some of the things going on in the area. This isn’t a place anyone would regularly trek, especially given a lot of the rubus and smilax thickets we had to navigate, but its fun to go into the urban/suburban natural spaces from time to time to see what’s going on.

Fork-tailed Bush Katydid, Scudderia furcata, nymph

Hoplitimyia mutabilis, a soldier fly!

Emerald Flower Scarab, Trichiotinus lunulatus, getting reallllly cozy on a thistle flower!

A lot of the herbaceous layer in this area was Florida Hedgenettle, Stachys floridana.

I’ve always loved the texture of River Birch, Betula nigra

Green Cliff Brake, Cheilanthes viridis – this fern is becoming/has become very problematic in the Houston area. I only recently became aware of it last year and since then I have started seeing and noticing it in a lot of natural area. It’s actually a cool looking fern from South Africa but it is clearly going to become the next problematic fern for this region. I found one plant and ripped it up, thinking I was at least doing something and then walked 10 feet and realized I was very wrong. If I hadn’t been working I would have tried to get more of them ripped up. If you see it and you are using iNaturalist, please log it. If it is a small clump, please rip it up and take it out and put it in the trash.

Rubus fun! (ouch, ouch, ouch!)

Lesser Centaury, Centaurium pulchellum – a non-native from Europe. There are several look-alikes that are native.

Common Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina. It’s always fun to come across one of these!

The stachys really made the scenery much more enjoyable. I was out at one of these sites last year but didn’t remember this blooming at that point in time.

Hopefully I can escape to the field again sometime soon!