For the Love of Nature

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Medina River Natural Area,
El Chaparral > Nogales > Rio Medina > El Camino trail loop

Today's photos:

It is that time of year again in South Texas when everyone is beginning to wonder if Autumn will ever arrive and bring cooler weather. In spite of the seemingly endless high temperature and to some extent, because of the high temperature, the South Texas landscape retains a vibrant character. My intense curiosity and passionate love of Nature irresistibly draw me out to experience the rich beauty of her elegant living tapestry:

• The first three photos are of a Snowy Egret feeding in the pond beside the El Chaparral Trail.
• The fourth through sixth photos are of Purple Threeawn. The inflorescence has fully matured losing its characteristic purple color and is beginning to disarticulate.
• The seventh and eighth photos are of fully ripe, bright orange Granjeno berries.
• The ninth photo is of a Turkscap patch with a couple of Common Wild Petunias peeking out in the center of the patch. The Turkscap are one of the more abundant flowers blooming in the hot, dry weather right now providing a rich source of nectar that will help the pollinators survive through the harsh South Texas summer.
• The tenth photo is a Common Mestra butterfly on Canadian Wildrye.
• The eleventh through fourteenth photos are of a Gulf Fritillary butterfly enjoying the Turkscap nectar.
• The fifteenth photo is a Cloudless Sulphur butterfly on an Alamo Vine flower.
• The sixteenth and seventeenth photos are a Turkey Vulture soaring high overhead.
• The eighteenth photo is the shell of a freshwater mussel with a couple of river worn rocks on a mat of algae at the edge of the river.
• The nineteenth photo is an overview of the Medina River. This is the large pool looking upstream form the "River Crossing" interpretive area.
• The twentieth photo is a Texas Rose-bellied Lizard.

Summer Solstice 2013

Friday, June 21, 2013

Hardberger Park, Oak Loop Trail

Today's photos:

Given all the rain that has fallen here the past couple months, the vegetation is about as green and lush as I've ever seen it along the Oak Loop Trail in Hardberger Park. I walked the trail today in preparation for leading a nature photography hike tomorrow morning.

Photography is the art of selection and elimination. Everything included in the frame of a "good" photograph should work together to communicate a unified theme. Generally, there is one dominant object or small set of objects that establish the theme of the photograph in much the way a topic sentence establishes the theme of a paragraph. Whether the photographer intends it or not, the viewer will interpret every else in the photograph in relation to the dominant object(s).

• The first photo is a Snapdragon Vine.
• The second photo is Two Leaved Senna.
• The third photo is a Common Buckeye in flight. I always try to take at least two and usually three to five frames of a photograph with slightly different focus in each frame, but sometimes, like this photo, there is only time to get one frame. This was one of the "lucky" ones were it worked.
• The fourth through sixth photos are a Texas Rose-bellied Lizard. Sometimes the animals cooperate. in this case, the lizard had run out on the trail in front of me, saw me coming then turned around and ran back to the top of a stump where it let me take a series of photos.
• The seventh and eighth photos are Zexmenia flowers.
• The ninth photo is a study in contrasting texture with the bark of a Live Oak tree in the foreground and an Ashe Juniper immediately behind the Live Oak.
• The tenth photo is a detail of a Tasajillo cactus with a small spider web woven on it.
• The eleventh and twelfth photos are blossoms on a Velvet-leaf Mallow.
• The thirteenth and fourteenth photos are a Sleepy Orange butterfly.
• The fifteenth photo is of the flowers on the top of a Whitebrush, also known as Beebrush. The way the sunlight was striking the flowers caught my eye initially, but I also realized fairly quickly there were no bees on the flowers. Given the well publicized declining bee population this is particularly worrisome. As the common name implies, theses flowers are particularly attractive to bees. These flowers appear barren without at least a few bees on them gathering nectar.
• The sixteenth and seventeenth photos are a Northern Mockingbird perched on the dead branch of a tree. There is only a slight, but significant difference in the composition of the two photos. In both, the bird and the tree are the related dominant objects. The first photo isolates the bird and the tree with only a hint of the distant horizon along the bottom of the frame. The second photo has the same basic theme, but includes more information. This particular tree is located on the side of a hill and is in an open area (there are no other trees close by surrounding it).
• The eighteenth photo is the inflorescence of Silver Bluestem.

I Would Tell You It's Hot, But It's South Texas (So, What's the Point?)

Monday, March 18, 2013

Salado Creek Greenway South, South Side Lions Park Trailhead
upstream to the second pedestrian bridge north of Roland Ave

Today's photos:

It may be two days before the beginning of Spring which means it's still officially Winter, but (as I have pointed out so often on this blog) this is South Texas. Summer never recedes very far and today it came roaring back with a record high temperature for the date of 95º (F).

So, the point is averages don't mean much here. We can easily get more than a month's average rainfall in less than 24 hours. If that is the only rain event for the entire month, we have still exceeded the "average" monthly rainfall. We aren't very likely to have a string of cold days in the middle of Summer, but a string of hot days in Winter is not at all unusual.

More specifically for this walk, the point is that the tree canopy made the experience much more enjoyable by lowering the temperature ten to fifteen degrees along the trail. I could digress with a discussion of the importance of tree canopy in the urban environment and how improved urban water drainage methods could increase soil moisture levels through the use of enhanced infiltration techniques, but I'll save all that for other occasions.

• The first photo is the trunk of a Honey Mesquite tree growing in the wooded upland area above the creek.
• The second and third photos are a Pearl Crescent. It wasn't sitting still in any one location for very long. The third photo is one of few were I have successfully photographed a butterfly in flight.
• The fourth through sixth photos are of a skipper butterfly feeding on Prairie Verbena. There are several skippers that look very much alike. The best I can tell, this is a Julia's Skipper.
• The seventh photo is a very tall Huisache tree in full bloom. There are so many Huisache blooming along this section of Salado Creek, the air is permeated with fragrance of the flowers.
• The eighth photo is Baby Blue Eyes. I think they are one of the most abundant wildflowers in bloom in Bexar County right now.
• The ninth photo is a view of the creek bank as seen looking downstream from the second pedestrian bridge north of Roland Ave. This is how a very healthy stream bank should look. The dense vegetation is growing on an area of deposition and very effectively preventing it from eroding.
• The tenth and eleventh photos are of Mexican Buckeye. This isn't a true buckeye, but its seeds resemble buckeye seeds. Mexican Buckeye is actually in the Soapberry Family.
• The twelfth photo is a view of the creek looking downstream under the Roland Ave bridge that is currently under construction. As with the ninth photo, this is a very healthy riparian ecosystem at this location.
• The thirteenth photo is an overview of another upland wooded area with a Huisache dominating the center of the photo.
• The fourteenth photo is a stand of mixed hardwood trees. This is the type of tree canopy that can easily lower the ambient temperature by ten, fifteen, sometimes even twenty degrees.
• The fifteenth through seventeenth photos are of a Texas Rose-bellied Lizard thoroughly enjoying the warmth (heat) of the late afternoon.