pollinators – Nature Along the El Camino Real

Searching for Pollinators or How Many Butterflies are on This Bush?

October 20, 2022October 18, 2022 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

By Carolyn Henderson

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).

Early Nectar for the Pollinators

March 22, 2022March 21, 2022 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Donna Lewis

Here are a few bushes and trees that bloom early. The bees and butterflies love them.

A Yellow Tiger Swallowtail on Henbit, Mexican Cherry Tree, Coral Honeysuckle vine, wild native Plum Trees, and a Peach tree.

There are many more that bloom early. Fruit trees are always good for pollinators and then for us with fruit, nuts, or berries.

Put some of these in your yard and the wildlife will be happy.

Remember… who are you gardening for?

June in Donna’s Garden

June 18, 2021 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Donna Lewis

It’s heating up.

So here are the June photos of my pollinator garden.

After days of rain, the sun and the humidity have returned in force.

We have gone from too much rain to too much heat. Now I have to actually think about watering my plants. I have to do that while I stay in constant motion so the mosquitoes don’t eat me for lunch.

The first tall plants were beat down by the wind and rains we had. Mostly purple Larkspur. They were really pretty and the Swallowtails liked them alot.

There are so many different flowers that I cannot name them here.

Just know I make sure that every plant or vine has some value to nature.

Zinnias, Indian blanket, black-eyed Susans, etc.

The tall sunflowers really fit the bill because they have both nectar and bugs. The nectar for the pollinators and the bugs for the birds. The cardinals and the wrens go crazy over them. Zinnias are just popping up and just about all the butterflies like them.

Fennel is back and the Black Swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs there.

It’s a wonderful place to be if you are a pollinator or a bird. It’s pretty nice for me too.

Hope “Springs” Anew

March 3, 2021 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Sue Ann Kendall

I’d really hoped something good would come out of those horrible winter storms we had last month. When I read the extent of the damage, as reported by Dr. Chip Taylor of Monarch Watch, my heart sank.

The 11-day cold spell (10-20 February) in Texas was a disaster. Freezing temperatures covered the state and extended well into Northern Mexico. While many of the immediate effects of the freeze are clear, season long and multiple year effects may linger. The damage to the flora was extraordinary, and it is likely that nearly all above ground insects died over a wide area. Plants already in flower may have been so damaged as to not flower this year.

I immediately went out to look for the kinds of plants that the iNaturalist project that’s tracking the damage is looking for. It’s a work day, so I only had a half hour, but still I managed to find bees, butterflies, and some relevant plants. I’ll look for more this week and this weekend.

My husband and I had noticed a wet spot that we hadn’t seen before. It remained wet when the snow fell, which seemed odd. So, we went to check it out. It is near our arroyo, which has a number of springy areas (more this year than since we moved here) and a stream that runs into Walker’s Creek. We’ve never been able to spot the source of any of the springs other than one in our woods, which we can see coming from between two soil layers on a slope.

The spring that made this little pond is up that slope somewhere.

I have to say I made a bit of a fool of myself as I walked over there and heard bubbling sounds. I was ecstatic to find a hole about five inches wide, from which clear water was emerging, along with some bubbles. It wasn’t seeping, either, it was flowing pretty briskly. I’d finally found the source of a spring!

Brief Aside

(Why was I so ecstatic, you ask? I have just loved springs my whole life. I was born and raised in north Florida, a place just chock full of springs, artesian wells, sinkholes, rivers, and lakes. The water level at my childhood home in Gainesville was so high that my dad had to be careful digging holes for trees, or he’d lose a shovel.

My happiest memories are of swimming in cold, spring-fed lakes or the springs in rivers, such as Fanning Springs, on the Suwannee River, on the way to where mom spent much of her childhood.

This photo of Fanning Springs, from Florida Spring Life, looks exactly like this spring did when I was young. You can see straight to the bottom of the spring area. In the distance is the river.

My mother’s family came from Green Cove Springs, Florida, a place that started out as a resort where people came to bathe in water from a deep, deep sulphur spring. My relatives lived right down the street from the spring (411 Spring Street!), so we often went to marvel at how deep the spring was, and to look at the little fish that lived in the short waterway that took the spring water to the St. Johns River. Once a naturalist, always a naturalist.)

The spring in the 1880. Behind it is the pool house where people went to get cured of whatever.

Back to the Hermits’ Rest Ranch Spring

My semi-educated guess is that the reasonable amounts of rainfall for the past 2-3 years got at least three of the old springs on our property back up and running. And the water sinking in after the three winter storms, with all the ice and snow, allowed a new one to pop up. Maybe it was started in a mouse or rabbit hole, or maybe the extremely busy armadillos on our property helped.

Here you can watch it bubble, and see where the spring leads.

I get to dreaming that I can put some rocks over there and make a small dam to capture some spring water before it heads off to the stream in our arroyo. I don’t want to obstruct it, just briefly delay it.

My attempt at showing where the spring starts, where the water goes, and where it ends up.

But, who knows how long we will have a little spring to enjoy? My dogs love it, the red-wing blackbirds are playing in the wet area it’s made, and I even saw a merlin watching the meadowlarks and other birds. It’s like a buffet for that little guy!

Carlton says spring water is tasty. This is just before it falls into a depression and into the stream that goes to Walker’s Creek.

I wish I could have gotten a photo when the geese were closer! They were easily identified by their black wing tips and all the honking.

By the way, I’ve been hearing sandhill cranes all week, and some landed at Pamela’s place. And more surprisingly, a flock of snow geese flew right over me earlier in the week, honking away. I am in such awe that I forget to take pictures at such times.

Oh, and it looks like some frogs and turtles are still in our ponds, and I’ve seen signs of living crawfish (plus a dead one). Nature will persevere!