Another Look at a Legend

For the past week prior to the arrival of the arctic cold front early Friday morning, the American Snout was having another major flight, not as legendary as the one in mid-October, but still with Snouts too numerous to count:

This set of photographs was taken along the Rio Medina Trail at the Medina River Natural Area on Tuesday, November 19, 2013.

Land of the Spanish Dagger

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

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

Today's photos:

After a morning of leading a tour at the Medina River Natural Area, the best option for a walk today to take photos for a blog post was to go one more time around the trail loop in the early afternoon. This is just a small sample of what I encountered. Once again, I took so many photos, it will take a while to sort through all of them.

• The first photo is Spanish Dagger Yucca with a large stand of Prickly Pear cactus in the foreground and a Honey Mesquite tree immediately behind the yucca.
• The second and third photo are close ups of the Spanish Dagger Yucca flowers. The small green insect with the black spots just to the right of center is a Spotted Cucumber Beetle.
• The fourth photo is a close up of Texas Persimmon leaves. This particular tree has just set its new leaves and has done so earlier than most of the other persimmon trees in the area.
• The fifth, sixth and seventh photo are a Phaon Crescent butterfly getting a drink of water from between the rocks on the edge of the river. Phaon Crescents are very similar to Pearl Crescents except the Phaons have a yellow-orange stripe on the forewing.
• The eighth photo is a Texas Rose-bellied Lizard looking out over a low mound of soil. It wasn't much interested in posing for a photo. I was only able to take this one before it disappeared.
• The ninth photo is a Purple Leatherflower, also known as purple clematis, that hasn't quite fully opened yet.
• The tenth photo is a close up of Box Elder seeds still on the tree from the Fall. Anyone who knows much about tree seeds will immediately recognize that the box elder is in the maple family.

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.

Approaching the Ineffable

Monday, November 5, 2012

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

Today's photos:

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I want to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life… ."  -  Henry David Thoreau, Walden: or, Life in the Woods

Beside Rippling Water

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

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

Today's photos:

A perfect location for a walk on a hot South Texas day is under the trees beside the rippling water of the Medina River.  The sound of the water alone nourishes, refreshes and restores the soul.