April 2024 – Page 2 – Nature Along the El Camino Real

Mushroom Bucket List Success

April 15, 2024 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

By Ann Collins

Does anybody besides me have a mushroom bucket list? I don’t need to see a “Death Angel” (might be Angel of Death or one that glows in black light, although that would be really interesting. No, my bucket list is only one deep, a bird’s nest fungi. I’ve seen pictures but figured I’d have to go to eastern Canada or the jungles of Belize to see one.

Well, wouldn’t you know it! I’m wandering around in my wildflower meadow, in my nightgown and robe, in the cool damp morning. I’m doing a bit of “belly botany” getting a picture of the very first winecup of the season. I’ve been keeping a sharp eye out for them. I knew they were coming and wanted to add them to my growing list f flowering plants to satisfy the sweet lady at the appraisal office. I do pollinators, critters, and plants for my wildlife exemption, and I’ll do just about anything to make the folks at the Appraisal District happy. Someday I’ll have to show the Master Naturalists my scrapbooks and journals.

Anyway, I see what I think is a small mushroom cap. But it isn’t! It’s a tiny cup about the size of my little fingernail. Inside the cup is a bunch of little charcoal gray “eggs.” Wow! Is this a fairy’s bird nest? Maybe a lost leprechaun’s? I would have jumped straight up in surprise, delight, and amazement, but at my age I can’t manage that sort of thing anymore!

As I gazed in awe, I realized there were bunches of them all over the place. I dug one out of the ground with a toothpick-sized stick and reverently laid it in my palm. Gosh! Don’t you love your camera phone? There was a kind of bulb or knot at the base of the cup. I tried carefully knocking off the damp soil from the tangle of roots. That wasn’t working out very well, so I took my precious treasure into my potting shed and started washing it. Let me remind you, this thing is the size of my little fingernail – tiny!

I feel like I just discovered Cleopatra’s tomb – really! The detail on this little bit of magic is simply unbelievable.

The world we live in is filled with wonderful, magical, delightful structures if we only take the time and get down on our hands and knees and look.

Don’t forget to take your phone camera!

I looked them up online, of course, and they are used in Chinese medicine. There are lots of benefits: anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial. Treatment for tuberculosis, asthma, skin problems, stomach troubles. It’s even used against aging.

There was a lot of information on how to get rid of them. I can’t even begin to know why. They are very tiny! So much hidden wonder and magic. For a mere $630.00 you can purchase them for home use. 4.8 stars! You can even buy bird’s nest mushroom tea.

Chapter Eclipse Day Gathering a Success

April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

By Carolyn Henderson

Clouds parted and the view was stunning of the Solar Eclipse. El Camino Real chapter members gathered at a member’s place to watch the event together as well as do a few projects – and of course eat.

There were 16 members and 7 guests who met at Jackie Thornton’s Party Barn near Minerva Monday. Jackie had everything ready to go including materials to make bee watering stations and Wren nests.

Debi Harris used gourds to make the Wren nests, and members put a little personalization on them. Jackie told everyone how to create the bee watering stations. Several creative pieces went home with members.

Training was then provided by Carolyn, Connie Anderle, and Linda Jo Conn on the eclipse. Carolyn provided facts, including the one that predicts another total solar eclipse will not occur in our area for 350 years. Connie provided safety information on viewing eclipses, and Linda Jo discussed how animals react to eclipses.

After eating a large lunch, members set up outside in a wildflower-covered field and cheered when the clouds parted, making the eclipse visible. Everyone sat and watched for over an hour as the moon edged its way between the earth and sun.

Everyone stopped all noise, to hear what nature would do as the totality came close. Before it was complete, but it was growing darker, birds, frogs and crickets began to make their noises that they normally do at dawn and dusk. At the darkest point, nearby coyotes howled for a minute or two. It was measurably cooler, too.

Several members were seeing colors – pink and blue – at the most covered point, too. I found out last night that it was solar flares making the colors.

I did not use the correct filter on my camera, so my photos show those colors, among other oddities. It was a once in a lifetime experience – unless you are willing to travel to see another one.

Of course, Linda Jo took some time for iNaturalist observations

Local Texas Master Naturalist Identifies New Wolf Spider

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall3 Comments

By Carolyn Henderson
ECRTMN President

[This article appeared in the Cameron Herald, Thursday, April 4, 2024]

A local member of the El Camino Real chapter of Texas Master Naturalist is putting Milam County on the scientific map in spider identification. Eric Neubauer, now considered a local Rabid Wolf Spider expert, discovered a kind of Wolf Spider that has never been identified anywhere.

Neubauer discovered the new spider and named it Hogna Incognita while studying the biodiversity of his place out near Davilla in 2019. He had just moved to Texas from Pennsylvania and bought a few acres in that area. When he realized the place was covered in what are commonly called Wolf Spiders, he felt compelled to identify all of them.

There are many kinds of Wolf Spiders, but after two years of trying to identify the Hogna Incognita without success, he believed that he had found a new, unidentified, as yet unnamed spider. “It’s amazing that a spider that big, that common had not been identified already,” said Neubauer.

He started using iNaturalist, an internet vehicle to identify all living things all over the world, in 2019. Only 4 people had an active interest in Wolf Spiders on the site. Neubauer went through 13,000 Wolf Spider observations on several different identification sites. None were his spider. The first identification of Wolf Spiders in Milam County goes back to 1904 when Texas was still a popular place for biologist to study all types of living things.

*Hogna incognita* *– photo by Eric Neubauer*

After extensive studying, he came to strongly believe that he had a new one that had never been mentioned in scientific literature. The Hogna Incognita has a relative that looks similar to it, but it doesn’t look exactly like it. The “cousin” is commonly called the Hogna Antalucana. He believes the incognita was thought to be the antalucana because they had one similar trait.

Neubauer began giving presentations on Wolf Spiders to fellow Master Naturalist. In 2021, convinced it was a new one, He put up a “note” on it on the Bug Guide web site. The curator of the site agreed that it was a new species.

After some statewide presentations by Neubauer in 2023, Tarleton Professor Russell Pfau read the presentations and offered to help Neubauer with definitive evidence of its uniqueness. Pfau did extensive DNA testing on both the incognita and antalucana. Neubauer and Pfau caught some of each type in several stages of development – including all the spiderlings on the mother’s back. Pfau has managed to raise them from infancy to adulthood. The raising of them showed difference between the two from birth to adulthood.

Just weeks ago, Pfau notified Neubauer that the two spiders did indeed have different DNA. He had found an unidentified Wolf Spider.

“Hearing that the DNA test verified what I was sure I’d found – I was more excited than I thought I would be,” said Neubauer, who is normally very stoic.

Neubauer would like to stress that Wolf Spiders are harmless. They may bite, but it’s not poisonous or painful. “I’d rather be bitten by a Wolf Spider than a mosquito,” he said. They offer some benefits out in the blacklands, too. The incognita is mostly in the blacklands and some surrounding areas, so if you’re in Milam County you probably have them.

If you’d like to read the original report, you can find it on the El Camino Real Texas Master Naturalist web site https://txmn.org/elcamino/ . You also can look up Wolf Spiders on www.inaturalist.org.

Total Solar Eclipse of 2024

April 6, 2024March 22, 2024 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall3 Comments

by Carolyn Henderson

This solar eclipse of totality in Milam County is a rare event. They actually occur about every 18 months somewhere in the world, but it can take lifetimes before one occurs here again. There won’t be another total eclipse in the USA until August 23, 2044. The last time there was an eclipse of totality in this area (Austin to be specific) was 1397. That’s right, 1397, according to the Austin American Statesman.

The total event will take up to 3 hours to complete. The actual total eclipse will last approximately 4 minutes, give or take 30 seconds. Where totality occurs, it will be completely dark for 4 ½ minutes. For those of us in the path of totality, which is 100 miles wide, we will see somewhere between 2 ½ minutes to 3 ½ minutes of total darkness. Our location is not at 100%, but we are only about 30 miles off, which gives us a full 3 minutes of chill bump-raising darkness.

According to NASA Astrophysicist Alex Young, the hype is true. He has seen 4 total solar eclipses. He says that every time he’s experienced one, he gets chills, like goosebumps, and all the hair on his arms stood up. He says he feels like a rush of adrenaline is washing over him. “Getting cold and getting dark happens so quickly that your mind is confused,” Young said.

So how long does the whole thing take? According to the National Solar Observatory, it will take about 2 hours and 45 minutes from start to finish. The moon moving in front of the sun will take more than an hour to complete. And then it’ll take more than an hour for the moon to completely move off the sun.

The best time to view this one in totality here will be 12:15 p.m. to 1:44 pm. Give or take a few minutes. It starts at 12:15 to12:30 and totality ends at 1:45ish.

So what’s the difference between the April 8, 2024 eclipse and the October 2023 eclipse that was best seen in South Texas? The October 2023 eclipse was an annular eclipse. An annular eclipse only partially covers the sun which creates the “ring of fire” effect. The eclipse today is a total eclipse. If you are in the “path of totality” (that’s the 100 mile wide path), you will see total darkness. As stated earlier, the time it stays totally dark depends on how far away from center you are.

According to NASA, a total eclipse needs the moon to be at just the right “eliptic” to the Sun. The eliptic is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky. The moon’s orbital tilt is why we don’t have solar eclipses during every new moon. The new moon is usually too high or too low to block out the sun. In an annular eclipse, the moon is too far from Earth to entirely block the Sun.

When a new moon passes between the Earth and Sun and the eliptic angle is right, a total eclipse occurs. During the eclipse, the moon’s shadow is cast upon the earth and travels across the surface at an estimated 1,950 mph, according to scientist in a Washington Post story. So if anyone is intending to try to keep up with it on the 195-mile stretch of Interstate 35 between Austin and Dallas, good luck with that. All of that is in the “Path of Totality”.

Nearly 32 million people live in the Path of Totality. This one will cross the homes of more people in Texas alone than the last cross-country eclipse of 2017. It is projected to last longer, too.

If you miss this one, it won’t happen again in our area until Feb. 25, 2343. That’s 340 years away.

Above all else, wear eye cover that meets the requirements for certification by the government. There should be the following on the eyewear: ISO 12312-2:2015 Certification. Looking directly at the sun too long at any time can harm your eyes. It is particularly harmful during eclipses.