Blog of the El Camino Real Chapter, Texas Master Naturalists, Milam County, Texas
Author: Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall
The person behind The Hermits' Rest blog and many others. I'm a certified Texas Master Naturalist and love the nature of Milam County. I manage technical writers in Austin, help with Hearts Homes and Hands, a personal assistance service, in Cameron, and serve on three nonprofit boards. You may know me from La Leche League, knitting, iNaturalist, or Facebook. I'm interested in ALL of you!
I went to check our pond to see if the 1.5 inches of rain made a difference, and I was surprised to see two birds in the pond that I did not recognize. I didn’t have my binoculars or any of my bird watching stuff with me so I got the best pictures and video I could with my phone. My dog Whiskey was also excited to see them…too bad she scared them away. Hopefully they will come back.
I used my Merlin app to identify the birds, it told me that they were Juvenile White Ibis, and they are rare in this area. I confirmed it with my Sibley’s Bird Guide. How exciting!
The annual Texas Pollinator BioBlitz is on! Participants search for, photograph and post photos of all pollinators and what they pollinate during the month of October. There are a few places to post the photos, but the primary location is iNaturalist – my media of choice. Texas Parks and Wildlife Biologist and other studiers of pollinators and their source of food use the data to assess the viability of the insects.
I started my quest on Sunday. I was headed out to some friends’ place to check the Green Antelopehorn Milkweed which was abundant in May. I stopped at the Triangle Garden in front of Cameron Elementary School because it was full of a variety of blooms. The garden was started and is maintained by the Little River Basin chapter of Texas Master Gardeners. Because it is cultivated, I can’t use the flowers as post of pollinator food, but I can use what lands on them. I felt like I had hit the motherload of butterflies.
I was surrounded by Monarchs (at least 10), Queens, Gulf Fritillary, Pipevine Swallowtail, Fiery Skipper (or Southern Broken Dash – I’m still not sure), Painted Lady, and even a few Giant Tiger Swallowtail. Add in Eastern Carpenter Bees, plenty of honeybees, a few Bumble Bees, and something I think is a Snowberry Clearwing. I’m also pretty sure a saw a couple of Hummingbirds, but they moved too fast to identify. I took many, many photos. And none of them worked. I was upset. It was my fault. I’d done something wrong with my new fancy camera. They were all washed out. Of course, I didn’t know this until I got home.
To make it worse, when I arrived at my friends’ place, the Antelope horn Milkweed was gone. The total lack of rain and excessive heat had done them in this summer. I did get photos of Great White Egrets, Greater Yellowlegs, and thousands of American Bullfrogs. The Bullfrogs are hanging out in mass around the edges of a rapidly shrinking small lake. They look like little balls of mud from a distance but move in mass when startled. One verifier on iNat even gave them a “Wow!” for the sheer number of them. I did get a photo of “Swamp Smartweed” which was covered by honeybees. It’s a source of pollen on my quest.
Not to be deterred, at lunch on Monday, I went back to the Triangle Garden, and all the butterflies had waited for me to come back and take photos of them. I got most of them, but not all. On Tuesday, most of them were still there, and the Pipevine Swallowtails were getting full, I think, because they actually sat still for a few seconds at a time, so I could get clear pictures of them.
If you want all these butterflies to stop at your place next fall on their southern migration, I advise planting Gregg’s Mist and maybe a little Tropical Sage. The Queens, Gulf Fritillary and Skippers stayed only on the Gregg’s Mist. The Monarchs also stayed there mostly. One was interested in a lantana. The Pipevine Swallowtails like the Tropical Sage and Gregg’s Mist. The bees were less picky. Of course, if you want Monarchs to lay eggs at your place, you’ll need milkweed. That’s the only thing their caterpillars eat (according to current general consensus).
Fall is a sad time of year for some. I had garden spiders arrayed around my house again this year. One picked a low spot between the porch and skirting. It was a good spot at first and she grew quickly. There were lots of suitors while she was the only show in town, including some from the other species.
Argiope aurantia
About that time, she wasn’t catching anything and looked like she might be starving to death, so I started throwing differential grasshoppers into her web. After a while she was doing OK on her own, so I stopped. In all she produced six egg sacs. No other spider came close and most never produced a single sac. After the last sac, she caught no more grasshoppers and died about a week after the photo was taken.
Many people in the chapter have probably heard about my continuing war on Johnsongrass. Here’s a shot from out in the yard of an area that was once overrun. You can see bunches of native grass which grow to about 4′, drifts of goldenrod, and a poverty weed. It’s about 30′ from the bunchgrass to the house. Although the initial Johnsongrass pulling was taxing, maintaining the area got easier with time. After several years it has dwindled to pulling scatted seedlings once or twice a year. The native plants were already there and just needed sunlight to thrive.
What do I do with all the pulled Johnsongrass? I decided to build haystacks to provide shelter for various animals. This one is conveniently located near the powerline that various raptors were hunting from last winter. The canes are arranged with the roots on the outside so they dry out and die, and the seed heads are on the inside where they won’t spread and germinate. The stack is about 12′ in diameter and 4′ tall now.
Last Saturday, it was hot and windy, so it was hard to get photos of butterflies when the plants were swaying in the breeze. But I did the best I could. There were several species of butterflies in my garden today: Gulf Coast Fritillaries, Pipevine Swallowtails, Clouded Sulphurs, and the big Giant Swallowtails.
This is very late in the year for these huge butterflies to be here. I think the extended hot weather has brought about this event.
Giants are so graceful and beautiful. You can recognize them by the two bands of yellow spots across its open wings, and the small eyes at the bottom of their hind legs. They can be as big as six inches across. They love citrus tree leaves and may defoliate small trees. It will not kill the tree.
They love Rue, Butterfly Bushes, Coneflowers, Sunflowers, and Zinnias.
Their host plant is the Prickly Ash. They lay their little orange eggs on top of the leaves. As it hatches into a caterpillar, it changes its appearance to look like bird droppings. Who would want to eat that?
The chrysalis stays in place through the winter.
So, if you see something that looks nasty on a leaf, leave it! It may be a beautiful butterfly next spring.
