Hummingbirds at Baytown Nature Center

                                  Beautiful and very busy Hummingbirds
                                  this morning from Baytown Nature Center.
                                   -- Marilyn

Sedges have edges and violets are blue

During the first day of Wetland Plant Identification class we learned a poem.

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses are hollow from node to the ground.

The rhyme is supposed to help me get a grip on the distinctions among Cyperaceae, Juncaceae and Poaceae, with emphasis on the plants used by the restoration team at Sheldon Lake. 

Everything that I learned in class each Wednesday was a jumble two hours after I got home. So I was pleased that at least I remembered the poem.

Then I learned there are different versions. Oh, no!

This one is in our notebooks:

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses have joints, when the cops aren't around.

A simple search turned up:

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses have nodes where leaves are found.

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses have joints that your friends pass around.

Sedges have edges and other things. White-topped sedge: Rhynchospora colorata / Dichromena colorata

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses have joints where elbows are found

What the what?

Here's my version:

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses have nodes, moron.

- Lana b.

Recycling trash as yard art

The lost fishing gear I find along the water's edge becomes yard art.

How do you display your found art? Send me a pic: slapoutgully@gmail.com. -- Lana b.

.......................

Here is Marilyn L.'s work

You asked for it.

The components of this "fine art" were gathered from the mountain of debris washed up along our washed out rock groin bulkhead after Hurricane Ike. 

I suspect the countertop, decorative border above the hole and the picnic table or bench leg (?) had floated across the bay in the surge and may be from Smith's Point or even Bolivar Pen.  Who knows? 

The pieces all had a history and a part of people's lives unknown to me.  I cut and pasted the debris-art over an image of bay water from a calm, hot day...yesterday. 

It may become part of our pier, now that you've inspired me to drag it out, clean it up and display on the blog. 

Leaving the nest: a Mississippi Kite

Mississippi Kite tests its wings.

David and Jan H. have been watching a Mississippi Kite chick grow up in their Chambers County back yard.

David writes:

OK, this is probably the last pictures I will post because the chick is no longer changing in appearance, and I finally was able to get some flying pictures the last two days.

Its forays into the sky are already getting a little longer. Still not strong enough to leave yet, I don't think.

Yesterday I saw its longest and highest spin around the skies above the yard I had seen yet.

It was fun to watch this bird grow up and now it is starting to perform some maneuvers in the sky testing its wings. I actually think we saw it catch an insect yesterday afternoon while flying around.

Chicks grow up so fast. Photo taken July 22, 2013.

Chick surveys its domain. Photo taken Aug. 20, 2013.

Magnificent Frigatebird soars

Saturday afternoon (8/24/13) I spent a few minutes on the Smith Point Hawk Tower with Tony L., and the Magnificent Frigatebird flight was worth the price of admission.  -- David H.

What a nice pistil you have

Seashore Mallow (Kosteletzkya Virginica)

What's that?

A Seashore Mallow, Jan H. identified.  Marilyn L. shot a photo. Jo M. and I named some parts of the plant. That is what happens when you walk along a trail with classmates from a Master Naturalist class.

We were at the Baytown Nature Center where the showy basket flowers that have been dominating the trails are going to seed, and the browning plants now provide a backdrop that allows other bloomers to get some attention.

Can you name that pink morning glory in the ditch? It's a Saltmarsh Morning Glory ("Ipomoea sagittata"). -- Lana b.

Gator with a taste for cats

The suspect.

This alligator is an accused cat killer, and it doesn't want you to find the evidence.

About two months ago the alligator, which is close to 5 feet long, moved into the small pond that is kept filled at Texas Parks & Wildlife Department's State Park Region 4 headquarters.

It is unusual for an alligator to move into such a small pond, but not unusual to see stray cats or dogs on the property, said Kelly the warden.

Recently a dead cat was spotted in the pond. There is speculation that the gator killed the cat and has stashed the decaying cat body underwater near the walkway for later meals. The cat was too big for the alligator to eat whole so it is munching on bits of the cat as the carcass deteriorates.

I want to believe it.

During a wetlands plants class, about 20 of us were standing on the walkway when the alligator surfaced under a couple of duck decoys to hiss at us.

When I went out after class to check on the alligator, I couldn't see it. But while I was chatting with a couple of wardens and another classmate, the gator crossed the pond to return to the same spot.

It lifted its head and gave a hiss.

I think that's gator talk for: "Get away from my dead cat." Or, maybe: "I would like to bite off your fingers and hide them down here with my dead cat." -- Lana b.

That's close enough.

Wetlands Plant Identification class instructor Andy points out some live specimens in a pond inhabited by a couple of duck decoys and a very live alligator.

I am glad this coyote was not so wily

 I heard the animal coming through the brush and look around to see a coyote face looking up at me. I froze, and it took off.

"Did you get a picture?" the housemate asked.

No, it happened too fast.

Downed trees block my old path to the gully.

There is a sliver of wildness behind our house. At one time I had a path to the gully so I could tease the fish and crabs, scout for turtles and watch for snakes. I could even put in the kayak when the tide was high.

Now it is overgrown. A paradise for the wildlife, I guess.

I tramped back there shortly after dawn because I would like to reclaim a piece for me. It is a mess and kind of scary. It feels as if I could get lost although I know if I walk 100 feet, I will be out of the trees.

We often hear coyotes at night. The yips and howls sound like a big pack, but there is not much space back there.

I didn't expect to see a coyote after daylight. I went out early to beat the heat. Near the water's edge, something ducking into a hole caught my attention. Then I heard the brush rattling from the other side of the tiny hill I claimed for a view.

This coyote was not very wily. It came within 10 feet of me.

We locked eyes for a second.

Then the coyote was gone. -- Lana b

Moth vs. butterfly

Art by Liz Climo.
-- Lana b

A peaceful perspective

 Sunrise in Beach City along Trinity Bay.

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry
b. 1934

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
.................

Berry's poem reminds me of how I feel during a walk along a footpath in the wood in the afternoon or sitting on a pier along the water's edge in the early morning. 

All the elements of nature brings a peaceful perspective to a day's beginning or end; everyday worries seem to melt away.  -- Marilyn L.

Creature feature: This is a bee eater

Who are you calling ugly?

Here is a photo of a vicious, ugly thing that I caught eating one of the bumble bees at the studio field near Beach City.

I've looked on the web to try and identify it but haven't seen anything close. The assassin bug isn't as big as this creature. -- Marilyn L.

Update: Master Naturalist Emmeline D. quickly identified this as a robber fly.

August bird count and tiny toads

Sometimes you need to look down when you are on a bird count. Lots of tiny toads were crossing the trail between two ponds on this overcast day following an evening rain.

Highlights from today's bird count at Baytown Nature Center.
* A one-legged Willet hopping among about 10 Black-necked Stilts in a pond.
* Dozens of tiny Gulf Coast Toads hopping across the trail between Duck Pond and Wooster Pond.
* Correctly identifying a Neotropic Cormorant hanging out with four Brown Pelicans along the shoreline.

However I learned that I shouldn't get too cocky about the Neotropic Cormorant ID until I can distinguish the Neotropics from the Double-crested Cormorants. I guess I will have a 50/50 chance if I continue to guess: Neotropic!

The guys I walked with saw 48 species. -- Lana b.

Bird Count Results
Baytown Nature Center (UTC 039), Harris, US-TX
Aug 15, 2013 7:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Protocol: Traveling
4.5 mile(s)
48 species (+3 other taxa)

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck  11
Mottled Duck  3
Pied-billed Grebe  1
Neotropic Cormorant  14
Brown Pelican  46
Great Blue Heron  6
Great Egret  2
Snowy Egret  11
Little Blue Heron  6
Tricolored Heron  6
Green Heron  4
Black-crowned Night-Heron  1
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  19
White Ibis  31
Roseate Spoonbill  2
Northern Harrier  1
Accipiter sp.  3
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Clapper Rail  1
Killdeer  13
Black-necked Stilt  18
Spotted Sandpiper  6
Willet  2
Lesser Yellowlegs  2
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher  1
Laughing Gull  82
Gull-billed Tern  2
Forster's Tern  9
Royal Tern  2
Rock Pigeon  2
White-winged Dove  65
Mourning Dove  11
hummingbird sp.  1     We saw this bird perched in a tree at a considerable (ca. 75 to 100 yards) distance. It appeared too large to be a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
Red-bellied Woodpecker  5
Downy Woodpecker  1
Least Flycatcher  1
Eastern Kingbird  1
Loggerhead Shrike  4
Blue Jay  21
Purple Martin  6
Barn Swallow  14
Carolina Chickadee  2
Carolina Wren  10
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  6
Gray Catbird  1
Northern Mockingbird  16
European Starling  11
Northern Cardinal  5
Great-tailed Grackle  14
Orchard Oriole  2

Tagging a monarch butterfly

Logging tagging information. My Monarch is 429.

Here's hoping Monarch butterfly No. SGS 429 makes it to Mexico.

Tagged Monarchs

429 seemed unhappy after I picked him up for OE testing and tagging. Being warned not to let our butterflies to get loose in the high ceiling building, I held his wings tight while his legs squirmed in all directions.

He also may have been miffed because at first I identified him as a she until the dots on the freshly emerged Monarch's wings were pointed out.

The workshop at La Marque's Carbide Park was preparation for Monarch tagging season, Aug. 20-Dec. 1. The monarchwatch.org program aims to get data on Monarch migration by recapturing the tagged fliers.

The delicate-looking butterflies are tougher than I imagined they would be. When one Monarch's wing was bent during the tagging, the instructor made a splint with Scotch tape.

While resilient after careful handing, Monarchs are susceptible to a killer parasite that is easily spread. The OE testing program begins in December to help track the parasite's progress. -- Lana b

The release.

Dog and toad are not friends

Toad's hole. The blue splotch is from slopping paint on a trellis.

The toad eyeballed me when I pulled away the St. Augustine grass and weeds to make way for new planting beds. I eyeballed the toad.

I went back to work, and the toad stayed in its hideaway.

Then Freddie the dog, who had been on squirrel patrol, found the toad. And although the toad disappeared underground or through another exit, for the next hour that hole was the most fascinating hole in the world for Freddie. -- Lana b

Where did it go?

Monarch butterfly zooms in for Milkweed

Tropical Milkweed attracts a female Monarch.

Butterfly watching

Hello, little egg.

Yesterday morning while doing some chores outside Jan and I saw a female Monarch landing on our Tropical Milkweed flowers.

At first I though she was just feeding but then we watched as she landed on several different leaves and slid her abdomen under the leaves. This morning I checked one of those plants and found at least two eggs without looking very hard.

This morning I saw either her or another one doing they same thing on a different clump of the Milkweed. Hopefully in a few days there will be caterpillars. -- David H.