A good day was spent at the Wildscape at the Bird and Bee Farm between Rockdale and Milano, on the last day of 2021.
There are many cats!
In March, the Wildscape will be three years old, and no one knew what it would become. It has been a place of happy times, learning, sharing, and surprises.
Angels are everywhere!
There were also some losses, including the favorite Garden cat Macaroni.
Farewell, friend.
Much is planned for the new year. Already, another big building has been built for expanding the Rio Grande Turkeys.
These are chickens, not turkeys, of course.
This last day of the year was spent with friends and relatives, including Master Naturalist Alan and son Adam building a great garden shed.
Working on the shed.
Enjoy what is holding on.
Still blooming just before the first hard freeze hit.
The Bird and Bee Farm Wildscape continues to produce butterfly- and bee-attracting blooms this November and people to take a look at what our chapter does there.
Monarch on white butterfly bush
The purple and white Butterfly Bushes are still in bloom as is the Tropical Sage. Those two seem to be the favorites of the pollinating crowd right now. Tropical Milkweed is also in bloom, but it’s not desired by either butterflies or bees of the three varieties there last Saturday. Indian Blankets, roses, Turks Cap of two colors, lantana, and a mystery bloom are also putting out lots of flowers. See the picture of the mystery bloom and take a guess.
Mystery flower. No one seemed to know what it is. I have ID’d it on iNat
Giant Carpenter Bee coming off a Purple Butterfly Bush. I didn’t know I had taken a picture of it until I loaded the photos onto my computer.
Tropical sage
-Pink Turks’ Cap with berries. This was a very small new plant in April. Chicken poop works.
Family taking home plants and playing with the Donkey with Donna Lewis
Catherine Johnson working on the wildscape
Catherine Johnson, main manager of the Wildscape, has organized plant give-aways to anyone who wants to prep their own butterfly flower bed for next spring. It started last Saturday and will continue through Saturday, November 13, and Saturday, November 20. Hours are 9 to 12. Several people from out of town went home with Texas native plants for their gardens last Saturday. The Wildscape is on FM 334 between Milano and Rockdale.
More wildscape views
If you don’t want to plant them, you can help dig them up and distribute them to patrons for service hours.
Rio Grande turkeys, guinea fowl, and a hen or two.
Enjoy the flowers while helping the pollinators spring through fall next year.
Linda Jo Conn received special recognition Saturday night at the annual meeting of Texas Master Naturalists in Dallas/Ft Worth. She has reached a milestone of 4,000 service hours. She was in very tight company. Only one other statewide member qualified.
Congratulations to Linda Jo
The award included a dragonfly pin of brushed gold with a ruby in the center and a special pin and certificate from the office of the President of the United States.
The Presidential pin
In other categories, Eric Neubauer received recognition for reaching 250 service hours. All who received initial certification from the class of 2020 were also recognized (there were many statewide).
Eric stands as his name is called.
Larry Kocian was recognized for “109!” hours of service in the Texas Water Specialist program with TPWD. Kocian and Sandra Dworaczyk were both given recertification this year.
Good job!
I attended a 3-hour session on this program, and it looks particularly interesting. If we can get a group of three interested, they can take the class and gain certification. I have a connection to it if anyone is interested. If you’d like to find out more information, contact Melissa Felty, conservation education manager for TPWD, at Conservation Edu@tpwd.gov or go to the web site. The class counts as advanced training hours (8) and the service, which can be education, water testing, CoCoRaHs precipitation measuring, and other things, count as service hours for Texas Master Naturalist.
Yay for our folks!
The meeting had some very educational sessions. I went from water conservation, to wildscaping in the shade, to Chronic Wasting Disease, to iNaturalist advanced training, to Tarantula sex with live tarantulas in one day. That last one was particularly amusing to me, Eric, and the rest of the packed class. A few members gave play-by-play commentary. My favorite occurred on Saturday. It was an excellent program given by a fellow iNaturalist from the Blackland Prairie chapter on identifying trees. I now have a brochure to carry with me.
Award recipients
The meeting was educational, entertaining, and a great place to meet other TMNs. I came away with some good ideas for our chapter.
Oh, and by the way, the new TMN pin for recertification in 2022 is the Lightning Whelk.
Our Let’s Get Outside project took us to Cameron City Park, 12 Street Park, Cameron and Airport Park, and O. J. Thomas Park.
At Cameron City Park we saw natives, mushrooms , and former swimming pool.
12 St. Park has beautiful trees and a nice pond.
Cameron Park has a fun pool and Airport Park great baseball fields.
O. J. Thomas Park has swings and basketball hoops. All were very well maintained and offer quiet, pretty places for recreation, walking, picnics, or observing nature.
Bitterweed photo by Nick Moore on iNaturalist. Used with permission.
I focused on three small yellow wildflowers in order to learn to distinguish them–Bitterweed, Camphor weed, and Straggler Daisy. The leaves are very different.
Bitterweed, camphor weed, and straggler daisy (left to right)
You will be amazed at how much you will know in a few years if you learn in small steps. Attending these latest walks were Linda Jo, Donna, Scott, Debra, Jackie T. , Connie, Pamela and Ruby, Kim and Catherine (me). Most fun–eating together at Dairy Queen and listening to Connie’s (who was mayor of Cameron for many years) tales of the city’s history.
Next year we will continue our Milkweed/Monarch project and create a network for sharing milkweed, info and habitats. A recent Monarch seminar taught us how to raise milkweed from seed. We’ll create here a walk-in enclosure in the Milam Wildscape for the project.
To follow up on Lisa’s post yesterday, it turns out that 10% of caterpillars make it to butterflies and 10% of those survive full adulthood. Two of my butterflies were born with wrinkled wings, so I fed them sugar water, took them for outside trips, and after a couple of weeks they passed peacefully. Other options were to euthanize or leave outside. This way they had a good life.
Gulf fritilary chrysalis
We are watching Gulf Fritillary chrysalises now. They look like leaves to fool predators.
Nature Along the El Camino Real 