I saw many things during my expedition around the lower half of the Texas Panhandle. Too many in fact to even summarize. So here is one thing I particularly noticed. I spent some time at Big Spring State Park after sunset.
The land was dry, and the spiders were scarce. Finally, I found a nice adult female Big-eyed Wolf Spider at the edge of the road near the entrance. This is only one of a growing number of fairly large unnamed wolf spiders in the pipeline.
Big-eyed Wolf Spider, female
While preparing photos for iNaturalist, I was struck (not for the first time) by the rainbow colors on the chelicerae of this species. The chelicerae are analogous to human lips or jaws except for housing venomous spines at the ends and separating in a vertical plane. Wolf spiders often have bold or complex patterns, but here is something extremely delicate.
Face close up.
Starting earlier this year I added face shots to my routine. After all, this is what spiders see when they meet each other. In this case it captures a colorful detail that would have been missed and shows how big the eyes of the Big-eyed Wolf Spider really are. The white circles in six of the eyes are artifacts, reflections of the dedicated light ring that is part of my setup.
As Master Naturalists, we think every day is Earth Day, but today is the official day to honor and celebrate the planet where we and all the myriad lifeforms we share the planet with live. Please go out and do something to honor Mother Earth. Plant a plant, clean up some debris along a roadside, donate to your favorite environmental charity…something!
For Earth Day, the El Camino Real chapter has a gift for you. It will be helpful for those living in or visiting Milam County and the surrounding area, but works for most of Texas, too. It’s our Common Milam County Birds brochure! It features pictures of 35 of the birds you’re most likely to see in Milam County. We did our best to include photos you can use to identify birds you see, and are grateful to all who share their photos for nonprofit use on iNaturalist, because that’s where we got them. You can download the brochure and print as many copies as you’d like to share with friends, hand out at events, or display in your business.
We will have copies available at the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary and any outreach events we hold, starting in May when the author gets back to Texas.
Female hummingbird on red yucca at the Hermits’ Rest Ranch in Milam County.
We would appreciate your feedback and ideas for improving the brochure.
Last Thursday, I headed out to observe wildlife at the Nails Creek Unit of Lake Somerville State Park. My usual method of observing is to take pictures of what I find, then upload the photos to iNaturalist for identification and to document what’s out there. (I also have Merlin Bird ID going most of the time, to catch the birds flying around.) I had a nice walk out by the lake, where I saw many ducks, hundreds of White Pelicans, and some plants I hadn’t seen before. What a lovely afternoon!
Pelicans in flight
Of course, I fired up iNaturalist on my iPhone when I got back to my campsite. To my surprise, there was a notice saying that I should download the new iNaturalist right now, because it has all sorts of wonderful new features (not available on Android yet).
This is the notice on the computer app.
I downloaded iNaturalist Next, as it’s called now, like a good user, but I went ahead and identified my photos on the old app, which still works just fine. I then read all about the new version, which you can, too, by going to their blog. It’s a good idea to do that before starting to use the new one.
Beautiful Prairie Nymph (Herbertia lahue) I saw at the park.
The next day I tried out the new version. I was especially intrigued by the new feature that lets you point to a plant or other living thing and get suggested identifications. So, if you just want to check on something or resolve an argument with your friends about what something is, you can do it without uploading to the database. This is like the Seek app many people use.
After some trial and error, I was happy to figure out that you can take a photo from within the app, get a suggested ID, confirm it (or select another option if you know better), then upload it right then. Off you go to the next intriguing plant. This really saves a lot of time going back in and uploading later.
The top option is the one that gives suggestions.
I have to say it’s not the most intuitive interface ever created (I’m qualified to judge, because I supported users of an application with a horrible UI from 2011-2025, so I know one when I see one). However, once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do, it was just fine. I was also happy to see a pop-up with instructions on how to make the new version work a bit more like the old one, for us creatures of habit, and a reasonable tutorial on the blog post. Here are a few tips I’ve come up with so far:
Here’s the user interface.
Take your pictures carefully. You’ll see possible IDs coming up as you aim the camera at something, if you move slightly or annoy the app in some magical way I don’t understand yet, it might go back to identifying by family or worse. So be sure to snap at the right time to get the ID you want; otherwise you have to go back in and edit the observation, which works like the old iNat.
Note that the photos the app takes are an odd rectangular shape. If you are going to use photos taken with the app for other purposes, you’ll want to go in and crop them to a more useful aspect ratio.
I also find that it’s harder to focus on your organism from within the app than using the phone camera app. I frequently got frustrated trying to get a good image, especially of insects. A couple of times I just took a phone photo and identified the insect or plant later. If you are careful to only upload nice, sharp pictures to iNat, you might just want to get the suggestions in the app, but take pictures separately.
One of the good new features is being able to upload a lot of photos at once (up to 20) for identification. You can group photos of the same organism to go in one observation, but read the instructions first, because I found it to be challenging when I started out. Once you get it, it’s fun.
Example of the shape of photos. It was the closest plant to me, Smilax bona nox.
Overall, I think I’ll like this new app just fine. The only thing I really miss is that I liked the more compact list of your observations on the Me tab in the old one. And I think there are some issues with traditional projects that need to be resolved, for those of us who use a lot of projects. New features, like viewing other users’ profiles on the phone, make up for any issues I have. I loved that their example was Sam K.
It’s spring, though, and plants are blooming, so get out there and identify some of what you see on this new app. I’ll be waiting for reviews from some of our Super Users.
At last, our tiny hummingbird friends have returned from down South ole Mexico way. It is hard to believe these little jewels are real living beings. A miracle for sure.
Tiny, but mighty. The two main species that visit Central Texas are the Black-Chinned and the Ruby-Throated. Both only weigh 0.1 ounce each. There are several other species that can be in our area also, but these are the most prevalent and easy to identify. They can beat their wings approximately 75 times per second! Yes, I said second, not a minute. WOW!!! I can’t move anything that fast.
Black-chinned Hummingbird. Photo by Mike Kit on Pexels.com
The males usually arrive first and get ready for the ladies to arrive soon after.
These birds drink nectar and eat insects. The plant they like the most for me is the Coral Honeysuckle. Turk’s Cap is another favorite bush.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Photo by Skyler Ewing on Pexels.com
Let’s talk about the human feeders we love to put up so we can watch them and assist in times of stressful weather events. There are some rules to follow so the nectar is safe.
Use regular white cane sugar. One part sugar to four parts water. I use our well water because I am in the country. No need for me to boil anything. If you are in the city, you probably should boil it. The feeders are usually red; do not use dye. You can tie a red piece of cloth or ribbon if you need to. Year to year in the same place, the hummers will remember where they are.
Here is the MOST important thing of all. Always change out the sugar water every three or four days in hot weather, or simply every time. The sugar water will ferment, and the bird will become drunk, and many will fly into a window or door and break their neck. Very sad.
If you can place the feeder under some cover to shade it, that helps.
Cats and snakes like to get our friends, so try to keep them where they cannot be reached. Everybody has to eat.
So get your feeders up, clean them with soap and water every few times and watch a little amazing bird show off its flying skills for you.
Recently I had several large flocks of these very sleek looking birds in my oak trees.
These beautiful migratory birds, Cedar Waxwings, like to stay in flocks and will go all the way to Canada during the warmer months.
A sleek crest with a black mask and red wax-looking tips on their secondary wings make these birds easy to identify. The feathers on their chests are short and look slicked down.
They mostly eat fruit, berries, flower petals, some insects, and occasionally sap.
I love the fact that when they are courting male and females will sit side by side and pass flower petals back and forth, share a meal and rub beaks. How romantic! The babies are even fed by both parents.
They will drink from bird baths and sometimes eat raisins from bird feeders. But more often Cedar Waxwings keep to the wild things for food.
Photo by AE Rudd
If you see some birds with a crest and look like Zorro, then they’re probably Cedar Waxwings.
Nature Along the El Camino Real 