Nature Along the El Camino Real
Blog of the El Camino Real Chapter, Texas Master Naturalists, Milam County, Texas
By Pamela Neeley
I went to turn off a leaky faucet today, and found a 9-banded armadillo having a mud bath. I didn’t know they are so playful! He flipped upside down!
I walked right up to him for photos, turned off the faucet, and he continued splashing around and digging.
He was really big! And loved the mud!
He finally heard me (they have very poor sight) and scurried out to hid under a nearby rose bush.
By Linda Burgess
It was a peaceful Sunday morning and I’m watering my plants to beat the summer heat when something unusual caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what it was from a distance….just a brown mass on some weeds. But on careful inspection, I got a couple of close up pictures and discovered it was a Rabid Wolf Spider, with her newly hatched babies covering her back!
Contrary to the name, the Rabid Wolf Spider does not have rabies and it is not dangerous to humans ….. as Eric Neubauer, our member and Wolf Spider expert, has already educated our Chapter. It is famous for exceptional maternal care. The photos I captured show hundreds of newly hatched babies (spiderlings) that the mother is carrying and protecting. They ride there for a few weeks until they are ready to live on their on.
I sent my picture to a few friends. One said, “OMGOODNESS! Do not send that picture to people who don’t like spiders. That’s like a nightmare!” But you, my Master Naturalist friends, are not terrified and I’m sure you’ll find this observance quite interesting.
So enjoy!
by Catherine Johnson
When you get overwhelmed at the heat and weeds, look around and you will find little jewels all over our Wildscape. Birds, nests, pollinators, blooms, frogs and a rabbit. It is worth the visit to smell the chocolate daisies.
by Eric Neubauer
Sometimes I get to see interesting behaviors while photographing wolf spiders. Most often this involves catching prey, because the light of my photography rig attracts all kinds of flying things out of the dark. In the blink of an eye, a spider leaps on its prey, usually a moth, and subdues it. Sometimes a spider misses, ends up on its back and then quickly flips itself right side up.
Once I saw a spider remain on its back after the moth escaped, hoping the moth would come back within reach. Behavior like this almost always happens too quickly to photograph.
Tuesday night I was photographing a large adult male Tigrosa which ended up on hold back holding onto his dinner with 4 of his legs. He didn’t immediately flip himself upright. I guess he was taking time to securely grab the moth by its neck with his jaws, so I got a picture! Then he flipped himself over without letting go of the moth and I got a second picture. It pays to have 8 legs.
by Terri Brickey
I love to trek about my property checking on blooms and animal tracks, listening to the birds and neighboring cows and just mucking about. I was on such a trek about a week ago when I came upon this:
Ugh. Pulled out iNat to discover it was Poison Ivy leaf mites. The mites make little galls on the poison ivy leaf like a protective sleeping bag where they lay eggs that eat the inside of the little bumps once they hatch. The mites are harmless to humans and unfortunately don’t kill the aggressive, hardy perennial vine. Which brings me to the main topic – the poison ivy itself. It could have been lurking deep in that forest patch and I just never encountered it. But this is the path I used to travel back and forth to my bee hives. Since I sold them a couple months ago, I have not walked this route or maintained a clear path like I had for the last 5 years. It was now overgrown and poison ivy was coming out of the woods and crossing toward the fields.
I need to eradicate it! But remember, I am not a country girl. I can tell you all about cautionary things in my world of beaches and oceans, but I have never faced off with poison ivy. So I did my research to find out the urushiol oil from the plant can stay active on the dead plant, your clothes, tools and anything else that comes in contact with it for YEARS! I worry the dogs will be exploring and bring that oil back into the house on their fur. The grandkids will unknowingly make contact.
So last Monday I got up early and dressed defensively with double gloves, glasses, hat, long pants and long sleeve shirt and tall boots. I had read that you should NEVER burn poison ivy: Burning vaporizes the urushiol oil. Inhaling the smoke can cause severe, life-threatening allergic reactions in your lungs and airways. AND DO NOT weed-whack: String trimmers chop the plant into tiny pieces and spray toxic urushiol oil into the air, onto your clothes, and onto your skin. So I chose my tools, set up a big garbage bag and started cutting everything back to clear a path and expose the devil.
But first I took some cool creature pics on the path (as identified by iNat):
Yellow garden spider
Longhorn bee with full pollen saddlebags
Common whitetail dragonfly
tiny Tumbling Ragdoll on Spotted Horsemint flower
I was very careful and purposeful and I worked cutting and bagging for two hours. Then I had to stop. If you ever see me working and I look like this
I need to stop, please make sure I do as this lack of tolerance for heat (the temp was creeping up as usual) was part of why I needed to quit beekeeping. I rested in the shade, drank water and cleaned up. I had worked hard and had cleared the path
I cleaned all my tools and boots with degreasing Dawn soap. I stripped down and washed all my clothes with strong degreasing detergent. Then I showered and washed my skin with dawn and soap.
I knew there really was no way I did not get touched at some point in all that digging and bagging, but no blisters appeared. I read that approximately 15% to 25% of people are not affected by urushiol oil. While the vast majority of the population will experience an allergic reaction, this small minority is genetically resistant because their immune systems do not register the oil as a threat. Maybe I am one of these lucky ones.
BUT then two days later
I eventually ended up with 4 itchy blisters on my forearm that I am treating with hydrocortisone. The worst part is there is still a huge crop of poison ivy there
And it goes deep deep into the tree line. I will need to get something to spray on it. Please share your best treatments and poison ivy tales with me in the comments or at tmbrickey@aol.com.
Until then, I will look but I better not touch….
