A rattlesnake Thanksgiving in West Texas

Although I live in Baytown, my roots are in West Texas. I spent my first 12 years on a cotton farm near Big Spring and Stanton.

Here are few photos from a Thanksgiving visit.

There are few touches of green on the landscape.

Look closely for the eye of the rattlesnake peering at us. It was the first warm day after an ice storm, so it was sluggish.

You can see for miles.

In the draw, wild hogs are hiding.

At dusk the sandhill cranes add their night music.

Look closer for the Juncus scirpoides seeds

The Wetland Restoration Team working indoors Wednesday started with three lunch-size paper bags filled with stems from Juncus scirpoides aka Needlepod rush.

The goal was to collect the seeds.  That's when I learned the seeds are about the size of a period . . .

No sneezing allowed while working on this chore.

We ended up with about two tablespoons of seeds. Success!

The dried capsules . . .

. . . are deconstrusted over a white paper plate.

With a small brush, the seeds are swished in a collection sieve.

What you see here is mostly litter. An extreme close-up would show the seeds, which are tiny, uniform-size dots.

Hawk fights and fancy ducks

Walking along a mosquio-infested trail at Baytown Nature Center, we flushed out a Red-Tailed Hawk. 

Two Red-Shouldered Hawks immediately objected to its new perch on top of shelter, which gave us a good view of the big Red-Tailed. The smaller hawks circled before one of them swooped down to strike the Red-Tailed.

The big hawk left the shelter to land atop a nearby tree. Again the Red-Shouldered Hawks circled and one attacked. The scene was repeated a third time.

Although the Red-Tailed was bigger, the two Red-Shouldered Hawks forced it to leave.

What a show! For a couple of minutes it made us forget the mosquito swarms. 

David Hanson led the group on its November bird count, which was on a duck hunt, of sorts.

Hood Merganser photo by the Hansons.

 I got a good look at the pretty Hooded Mergansers and Gadwalls.

David said:

I guess  two things jumped out today. First, this was the most Hooded Mergansers I have ever seen in one session and the lack of Doves. There were very few of any of the Dove species but especially White-winged Doves.

As a novice birder, here is one that I can identify: dead.

Here is a list of the 57 species spotted  
    
7    Gadwall
6    Northern Shoveler
17   Hooded Merganser
1    Red-breasted Merganser
9    Pied-billed Grebe
10   Neotropic Cormorant
9    Double-crested Cormorant
17   American White Pelican
16   Brown Pelican
8    Great Blue Heron
9    Great Egret
3    Snowy Egret
1    Green Heron
8    Black-crowned Night-Heron
1    Roseate Spoonbill
1    Black Vulture
2    Turkey Vulture
2    Osprey
1    Northern Harrier
1    Cooper's Hawk
2    Red-shouldered Hawk
2    Red-tailed Hawk
2    Clapper Rail
21   Killdeer
2    Spotted Sandpiper
46   Laughing Gull
1    Ring-billed Gull
1    Herring Gull
10   Forster's Tern
1    Royal Tern
10   White-winged Dove
3    Mourning Dove
5    Belted Kingfisher
4    Red-bellied Woodpecker
3    Downy Woodpecker
2    American Kestrel
2    Eastern Phoebe
5    Loggerhead Shrike
5    Blue Jay
3    Carolina Chickadee
2    Tufted Titmouse
2    House Wren
4    Marsh Wren
6    Carolina Wren
5    Ruby-crowned Kinglet
10   Northern Mockingbird
1    Pine Warbler
8    Yellow-rumped Warbler
1    Swamp Sparrow
2    White-throated Sparrow
2    White-crowned Sparrow
4    Northern Cardinal
6    Red-winged Blackbird
8    Great-tailed Grackle
6    Brown-headed Cowbird
2    American Goldfinch
6    House Sparrow

Prairie Pandemonium 2013

I wasn't at Prairie Pandemonium, but some of my Galveston Bay Area master naturalist buddies were there.

Working with seeds gives you a warm feeling

Picking out the seeds can be tedious.

Woke up to to coldest morning this fall -- around 37 degrees -- to go to my first volunteer day with the Wetlands Team at Sheldon Lake. 

I opted to stay indoors to help deconstruct dried Indian Plantains, which were collected along Beltway 8 for their seeds.

One group braved the cold to take school kids to plant at the water's edge. Brrr.

The kids that wanted to stay indoors made seeds balls.

Maybe next week I'll get wet. -- Lana b