Hither and Yonder

(Hither) Friday, February 8, 2013

Medina River Natural Area,
El Camino > Rio Medina > El Chaparral Trails

Today's photos:

My day began Friday with docent training from the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department in the Medina River Natural Area. I didn't have time during the day for a separate walk around the trail from the one we took for the training, but I was able to get a selection of photos:

• The first two photos in this series are of an Eastern fox squirrel munching on a bald cypress cone. This squirrel is sitting atop the trunk of a large cypress that had fallen across the Medina River and created a bridge all the way across from one bank to the other.
• The third, fourth, fifth and sixth photos are of a Red Admiral butterfly. The red admiral butterflies are one of the most common butterflies to remain active during a mild winter. This butterfly's hind wings are a bit ragged, but that is not unusual for this time of year and it is still capable of flying very well.
• The seventh and eighth photos are of a Polydamas Swallowtail butterfly. I haven't seen many, but over the past couple of weeks have sighted four or five of them at various locations around Bexar County.
• The ninth photo is of an American Snout. I think I have seen more American snouts at the Medina River Natural Area than I have at any other location in the county.
• The tenth photo is an orange and brown millipede. My knowledge of millipedes, which are Arthropods in the Class Diplopoda, is on par with my knowledge of snails. One thing I discovered is there even less authoritative information on the web about millipedes than there is about snails. I was more than a bit frustrated trying to search for more information.

Friday afternoon, after the docent training, I had to leave for a trip to La Grange, TX about 125 miles over yonder east-northeast of San Antonio:

(Yonder) Saturday, February 9, 2013

Colorado River at La Grange, Fayette County, TX
TX Hwy 71, Public access boat ramp

Today's photos:

Other than the photograph of my grandfather in one of the very early posts of While on a Walk, all of the photos I have posted on this blog have been taken in the 1,257 square mile area of Bexar County. That's more than enough territory to keep a wildlife blogger busy for a long time to come.

I didn't take my dSLR camera with me on this weekend trip to La Grange primarily because I knew there would be little time for photography.  Saturday morning I did have a few minutes to make a stop at the public access boat ramp next to the Tx Hwy 71 bridge on the Colorado River.

The only camera I had with me was my cell phone camera, so the two photos above are not of the best quality, but they are an adequate representation of the scenic beauty of the Colorado River. These are looking upstream from the boat ramp. The bridge in the distance is the Union Pacific railroad bridge.

As can be seen in these two photos, the Colorado is a much larger river than either the Medina or the San Antonio River here in Bexar County. One can also get some idea of the difference in the riparian ecosystem along this section of the Colorado with its dense growth of deciduous hardwood trees. There was a great egret along the bank of the river and a yellow-rumped warbler in a tree next to the boat ramp, but I wasn't able to get a photo of either with the cell phone camera.

Publication update: I do have a Sunday Special Edition in the works. Hopefully it will be ready to go online before Monday evening.