On a few small acres in the hill country of central Texas, we live by watching, feeling, and waiting. Together, we come to know by loving and love best when we care enough to understand. Our Loves: limestone, leaf-vein, scales, feathers, friends, and all their shifting reflections in the waters of a small Creek.
Here is a great comparison photo below. I never knew that snow-on-the-mountain changed the white edges of its leaves and bracts during the period when its flowers are developing. The first photo of two blog entries ago shows the plant as the first flowers were blooming, and the one below displays the full-bloom stage of the leaves. Such a change obviously augments any of the flower's attempts to draw the attention of pollinating insects.
What might be a carpenter bee (Xylocopa) on snow-on-the-mountain (Euphorbia marginata)
When things out at the Creek get just too hot for us to work at anything productive (we hit 112 degrees yesterday), we take to the purely useless. Like stone-balancing.
I really didn't think that the Creek would still be wet this deep into the hot drought, but water continues to seep up into the upper stretch of the stream, and if not exactly working a brisk flow, it at least is able to keep up enough of a presence to sustain the usual Creek life.
The Pond continues creeping northward, away from us, now at a distance of about seventy-five feet from the original water-meter. I don't know, but this comes to about an eight-inch step per day, and down about four or five feet in actual elevation fall.
(The water-meter stick is hidden in the dry grasses bottom left.)
This particular snake was filmed swimming in the north end of The Pool. After watching it for a few minutes, I went around to the other end of the pool, sat on a broad stone, and spent the next hour watching four such blotched water snakes swim around the pool's edges and back and forth across the small waters. Once, a Nerodia swam to the center of the pool and floated still. Then another swam out to it and immediately the two of them splashed the water about and then swam off in different directions.
I should admit that the species named here may or may not fit the actual snake seen here. The genus is right on, but Nerodia includes a number of snakes. They all live a semi-aquatic life, though, and all of them can be aggressive (an evolutionary piece of mimicry from living near poisonous cottonmouths?). Fish, amphibians, and rodents are not safe around Nerodia.
Notice the strong "keel" on the carapace of this young specimen. As it ages, the ridge on its back will weaken out more. This one was resting quietly on the edge of the very small stream emerging from stones about eighty feet south of the lower end of The Pond. I saw no others nearby.
Below are a few weak illustrations of what we are seeing a couple places along the creek. The bluegill will spawn from now until way through the summer. Before and after eggs have been placed in the creek bottom, the male will guard the nest diligently. The nest featured here takes up about a square foot of cleaned gravel where the fish has removed all algae and the diatoms which make up most of the creamy white "scum" across the floor of the creek and the pool into which it flows. These fish have chosen a spot right at the confluence of creek and pool, on the downstream side of a boulder. The only other bluegill nest in the area likewise is situated on the downstream side of a boulder.
The individual bluegill here is small, about five to six inches long, with aqua-blue lighting up where the sun shines on its fins and tail. A faint reddish ring circles its eye.
Most of the time, the male here is chasing away any other fish that swims close to the nest. When it is not feeling threatened, it sometimes appears to stand up on its tail and flap it back and forth as if sweeping the nursery floor of silt.
The obscure view of a bluegill's nest, center of the photo.
Male Bluegill Guarding Its Nest
A short movie, featuring a nervous father protecting his childless nursery in the middle of a stream.
Up the hill from the Creek, we have had test holes dug where we hope to intall a septic tank and field. This photo is meant to show the soft sandy loam down for about five feet where rounded river stones take over.
Still don't know what this fossil of leafy swirls might be.
Within the Stonefiled near the Creek, hundreds of these sorts of rocks can be found.
More of the same riffle bugs.
The rear-end view of a honey bee feeding on water willow blossom.
Venus' Looking-glass (Triodanis perfoliata)
The cricket frogs have taken on a greener color than when we saw them earlier in the season.
Dewberries almost ripe.
This is a difficult one, based solely on the photo. It could be a Clippedwing Grasshopper (Metaleptea brevicornis) or a Cattail Toothpick Grasshopper (Leptysma marginicollis) or some other. (Anybody have a suggestion?) It was found in the short bushes near the west side of the Creek.
