Nature Along the El Camino Real
Blog of the El Camino Real Chapter, Texas Master Naturalists, Milam County, Texas
by Donna Lewis
Here are some last photos of August…
A male Painted Bunting, a Rat Snake in the trees, an Inca Dove, Cardinals on feeders, Pipevine Butterfly, Ruby-throat Hummer on feeder, Swallowtail Butterfly, and Mr. and Mrs. Bunny eating the bird seed.
I hope I have made them happy.
By Pamela Neeley
Around the farm, I have all kinds of lazy water features. Let’s take a look!
This one has a drip from the faucet keeping it full and the water moving. Even large birds, cardinals, come here for water.
Here’s another lazy water feature. The solar fountain keeps things moving. The plant is rooting in a convenient terracotta strawberry pot. Also there for fish “enrichment”
I put water hose into a pot when topping it off so the water movement doesn’t create mucky water. The fish are doing well and get fed pellets or mosquito larva from nearby sources.
Lazy water source is by the back door faucet. Shallow kitchen container with shard and pot in corner. When there is a fish, they have a place to hide under the shard. The pot provides extra climbing surface so the toads can get out when they find themselves in here. When mosquitos build up, I move a fish over here for a day. The faucet drips into the container when I’m watering around the house.
This large lazy water feature container is not set up right now. I have an electric ceramic fountain, usually 6-8 fish, and a water plant – this is an arrowhead. When set up it creates the pleasing sound of running water, but being under an oak tree presents problems with leaves.
The next lazy water feature is a plant container from a big box store. There’s a pottery shard for fish to hide under, and a pedestal for the water plant and solar fountain. This solar fountain has legs to keep it from hugging the wall and emptying the water on to the ground. I’ve lost one leg, so water escapes regularly.
One happy fish, pedestal for plant on pedestal – but too hot right now.
Fountains do need to have algae and minerals scrubbed off top to keep it accepting sun power.
It’s a very low tech, not too expensive way to have fountain, fish, and a water feature. Just use what you may already have. Solar fountains range from $12-15 on line.
And finally, here’s another low-cost water feature at night. There are two toads enjoying the water at 10:30 pm. One is partially on the solar fountain and partly on the rim of the submerged terracotta pot. He won’t drown.
By Sue Ann Kendall
I’d promised myself that I’d make another visit to the bird station our chapter is working on to see what birds are there this time of year. Even though I wasn’t feeling too well, I figured I could sit in the shade for an hour, so off I went to the special area behind Bird and Bee Farm near Milano, home of our Wildscape project (and chickens and turkeys!)
There have been some improvements to the site, as Cathy Johnson posted earlier this week. I enjoyed checking out the new raised beds, charming seating, and a beautiful birdbath watered by a tinkling rain chain.
Last time I visited was three weeks ago, when I identified eleven birds. This week I found seventeen! When you sit quietly, the birds forget about you and go about their business catching bugs and picking delicious morsels off the cedar elms.
I got to see Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Eastern Bluebirds, and precious Blue-gray gnatcatchers feeding themselves. Not seen, but very well heard were a Swainson’s and Red-tailed Hawk. Other hidden friends were Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and Blue Jay.
Two juveniles surprised me. One was a young Cardinal who landed very. Eat me and proceeded to find multiple morsels to eat.
You can tell it’s a juvenile by its black beak. It’s growing in adult feathers, so doesn’t look too great.
The other juvenile was a real puzzle. It was enjoying the water chain and easy to photograph, but I couldn’t ID it. It had pretty eyes but not many markings. I ran my photos through Merlin Bird ID and it got no results. But when I tried iNaturalist, the result came up Painted Bunting. It didn’t look like the female, who is rather green, but as I paged through the pictures, I saw the juvenile. Bingo! It has the wing and beak markings I saw, and the same eye ring. So, there we go. I didn’t see or hear any adults
Here are today’s birds:
Of course I checked out the plants, so that if I get the area declared an official spot on iNaturalist, the observations can go there. A few were really pretty, especially the berries.
I’m going to miss the dedication, but I’ll be back to see what’s here at the beginning of September!
by Lisa Milewski
So many times, I have heard someone say, “I just killed the most ugly caterpillar I have ever seen.”
My face turns to horror in my barely contained reaction. After a brief pause to gather my thoughts, I swiftly turn this into an opportunity to educate others.
I ask two questions. One, to describe the caterpillar, and two, what plant or vegetable was it on. Based on those two things, I am usually able to identify the caterpillar. I then proceed to let them know that the ugly caterpillar was going to turn into a beautiful butterfly which in turn is a pollinator that will actually benefit your plant or vegetable. They had no idea!
Sometimes the reaction is, “but they were eating up the leaves.” I then ask if it was a miniscule number of leaves or is it completely devoured. If it’s miniscule and it is a mature plant or vegetable or fruit tree, I say let it be since it won’t be long until it turns into a beautiful butterfly and that mature plant will quickly recover. If it is an immature, young, plant or vegetable, I suggest protecting it with crop covers until it matures and can handle the occasional munching from those caterpillars.
At this point, I remind them of the many benefits the pollinators provide to include bees, wasps, hummingbirds, etc., and how it actually benefits their plants, vegetables or fruit trees by pollination. For most (not all), it is critical that the pollen gets transferred from the male plants to the female plants in order to reproduce. Although some plants, like cedar trees, reproduce by the wind that spreads their pollen, most others rely on pollinators.
The next time you think about killing that “ugly” caterpillar, bee or insect, please look it up to identify whether or not it is a friend or foe. If it a beneficial pollinator, we can always find a way to co-exist.
by Eric Neubauer
Since I knew the Hogna ‘incognita’ females were on the verge of adulthood, I went out spotlighting on my property at 5 AM this morning. Recent rains had sealed up all the cracks in the soil, and a heavy dew made picking out spider eyes harder than usual. Although I saw several promising spiders, they easily eluded me under the new vegetation caused by the rain. I was disappointed and rather wet from the knees down.
The only option left was to go down the gravel driveway and check out the margins of the gravel county road. On the way down the driveway, I found one which turned out to be my first adult female this season! Walking a quarter mile of county road in front of my and other properties filled out the eight containers I carry with me in a tub. These included an adult male and four more adult female ‘incognita‘ as well as two adult female Hogna antelucana. Oddly enough several were along the edge of the neighbor’s mowed lawn where there was little cover. The others were found bordering hay and row crop fields.
The largest was this female ‘incognita’, and she was a feisty one. Wolf spiders, especially the larger ones, may stand their ground when approached. They may raise one or even two pairs of forelegs in a threatening position. They may lay the tip of one foreleg on what has approached them to gain more information about it. Less often they’ll launch a mock attack which likely would turn lethal for edible prey. In the past they’ve attacked the toe of my boot and a finger. During the latter I felt some pressure.
A while ago I ended up with some toilet paper rolls with a center that could be pushed out. The centers became useful to have around for other purposes. I have one I’ve reduced to about a half inch in diameter and find useful to get larger spiders to go through the bottom of a funnel into an observation chamber for ventral views. The large female wasn’t happy about the process and attacked the end of the small roll. She was lightning fast of course, and I could feel a substantial blow from the other end of the roll. Best analogy would be a cat boxing the ears of a larger dog. Calling this family wolf spiders is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. They don’t hunt in packs and many other behaviors are much more like house cats. Should they be called Felicosa or kitty spiders?
