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Curious George Settles in for the Day

By Clyde Camp, 2011

Curious George arrives at about 20 seconds into the video link and settles in for the day. He’s verbally accosted by a couple of jays and a squirrel about midway through the video. George is the male of the last breeding season (spring, 2020) – a grey-phase Eastern Screech Owl. His mate then was a red-phase female named Hunter. Their breeding attempt was unsuccessful with two clutches of eggs, neither of which hatched.

They are both visiting the box off and on again and probably staking their claim on it in late fall 2020.

You can read about, with photos and videos, that attempt (as well as the 2018/19 attempt by a different pair) at http://crcamp.com/owls

Flora and Fauna Shaking of the Trees Post Shaking the Trees TPWD Wildlife

Recovering America’s Wildlife Act Update

Written By Richard Heilbrun, TPWD

Richard Heilbrun, who is well known by TMN’s and is Program Leader at Texas Parks & Wildlife Department,has been actively involved with The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. We recently asked him about its progress since not much comes out of D.C. nowadays that is not related to COVID.

The Wildlife Act made substantial progress in 2020. The standalone bill, HR 3742, passed out of committee with bipartisan support. The text of that bill, slightly altered, was inserted into HR 2, which passed the US House on July 20 and was sent it to the US Senate. Though the Senate declined to consider HR 2, the passage of the language in the House was a huge milestone for the effort and shortens our work dramatically in this Congress.

In this year’s Congress, the House Committee on Natural Resources has told us that Recovering America’s Wildlife Act will not need a hearing and will just be advanced through Committee.

Strategists in DC are pushing for a 2-track approach. First, it will be introduced as stand-alone legislation by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE). In March or April, we expect them to circulate a Dear Colleague Letter and a request for initial bill co-sponsors. When that happens, we’d encourage the wildlife community in Texas to contact their members of Congress. Then it will be introduced into the Senate. There are several Senators that have already contacted us offering to introduce the measure there. Once we’ve demonstrated support for the stand-alone measures, our second track will be to ask for it to be inserted into larger legislative packages such as an Infrastructure Package.

We’ll support both tracks, knowing that having 2 possibilities gives us a better chance of final passage. Many people have told us that if we can mobilize conservation-oriented support, Recovering America’s Wildlife Act has a good chance of being passed this year. We just have to keep our foot on the gas.

Sign up for updates at https://www.txwildlifealliance.org/ Learn more about the bill there and viewing the Texas Focus YouTube Video below.

Anyone interested in getting involved can contact me at Richard.Heilbrun@tpwd.texas.gov or Rachel Rommel, state coordinator for the Texas Wildlife Alliance at r.rommel@txwildlifealliance.org

Texas Focus Video

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What a Difference a Week Makes

By Sally Evans, Founder and Emeritus

THEN:

By the time anyone reads this epistle the Backyard Bird Count will be over, the Great Winter Storm will be over, Valentine’s Day will be over, and we will be working on the pandemic to be over! It has been a difficult time for people on so many areas of their lives with survival being uppermost. Actually the GBBC came at a good time because many folks could not do anything else except peep out the draped windows at the birds coming in to find what food they could. Bird feeders came to many of their rescues.

I had the opportunity to listen to a ZOOM talk given by Dr. Drew Lanham who is an author and an ornithologist. He was suggesting that bird watchers get so intent on bird identification and location that they (we) forget to put their binoculars down and view the whole picture. So I did. The birds were coming in close to the window so I could see them well and I had time to sit and observe. I knew that many of the birds I counted at different times were the same birds I had seen before. They live here and come here often for the handouts I give. The male cardinals with their brilliant reds against the snow were spectacular – and they were almost always accompanied or led by a female cardinal who was also very lovely. The red-bellied woodpecker’s red head was exceptionally bright and I could see him clearly on the suet feeder as he went back and forth from the tree to the feeder.

And the little upstart that took over the feeders and tried to chase everyone else away even though most were bigger than it was. It was a butter butt – a yellow rumped warbler – and every day it would go from feeder to suet to bush to feeder to suet, etc. except when it would chase another bird away. Just one! But according to the bird count I probably saw four or five!

For the very first time I had pine siskins. There were about a half a dozen that came to the thistle feeder and they chased away the few goldfinches that came to the thistle feeder. But the finches were clever and would just wait around and when the siskins flew away they moved in. I saw this because I put my binoculars down and just watched the birds and the trees and the snow. The doves would sit for long periods of time in the trees, fat fluffed bumps on the limbs. Then one must have said ,”GO!” because they would all fly off somewhere or inundate the feeders and throw seed all over.

I also had time to contemplate. How fortunate I was to have a home, food, electricity, family and friends who were checking on us, a warm blanket and a pair of binoculars to watch the panorama in my own back yard. So like the robin who has been sitting on the banister in the morning sun, I will look at my surroundings and wait for better times.

NOW:

Spring is coming!

Spring is coming, I can tell!
The elm tree buds are beginning to swell;
The willows by the creek have a reddish hue;
And the peach and pear trees have tiny buds too.
The incessant tapping of a woodpecker on a pole or tree
Announces he is establishing his territory.
A Carolina wren begins to build a nest
In a hanging basket – this one is just a test.
Patches of dandelions bloom in some places,
Their tiny ray flowers like sunshine faces;
And their puffy seed heads bow to a breeze;
They all lasted through the snow and the freeze.
I know spring is coming! I can tell!
The young green onions have their onion ‘smell’.
And in my garden which looked all dead,
Two tiny daffodils lifted their heads.
The March calendar announces SPRING IS HERE!
But I already knew that is was near.

Sally Evans 2/25/21

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Frisco Natural Area Restoration Opportunities

By Rick Travis, 2018

Hurray!!! Blackland Prairie Texas Master Naturalist Chapter and the Frisco The Parks and Recreation Department have reached an agreement that allows our chapter members to provide VH eligible restoration and maintenance efforts within the natural areas located in various Frisco parks, such as Frisco Commons, Cottonwood Creek, Northwest Community parks, and the Stewart Creek Wetlands Preserve.

The Stewart Creek Wetlands Preserve

Both weekend and weekday work sessions in the Frisco park natural areas will begin mid-March and can be found on the BPTMN calendar. Initial work will focus on the prairie restoration site at Frisco Commons Park. Periodic emails communicating updates to the schedules and other details will also be sent to members that live in the Frisco area, and/or are interested in earning VH hours working in these areas. If you wish to be added to the Frisco VH Opportunities email distribution list, please drop me an email at Travisfam2@yahoo.com.

Northwest Community Park and Nature Area

Here are examples of the kinds of work we’ll be doing in these Frisco parks natural areas:

Assist with removal and management of unwanted and invasive tree species encroaching into prairie and meadow sites. We’ll remove smaller trees and gather into brush piles for city removal, and the Parks folks will bring the chainsaws and work on the larger trees.
Remove and manage invasive herbaceous species, such as Bastard Cabbage, Nodding Thistle, etc.
In the summer and fall, we’ll harvest native plant seeds at some of the larger areas, for re-distribution into other natural areas within Frisco.
Members will also conduct trash/litter cleanup, as needed.

The Parks and Recreation Department will add signing at Frisco Commons stating the work being done is a “Joint project between Blackland Prairie Chapter / Texas Master Naturalists and the City of Frisco, Texas.”

In addition, Frisco will periodically conduct prescribed burns within these prairie restoration sites.

February 2020 Prescribed burn at “Freedom Meadow” in the Warren Sports Complex, Frisco

I anticipate our opportunities within Frisco will continue to expand in the coming years, as the city has hundreds of acres of undeveloped park land and are making plans to add a Nature Learning Center at one of the natural areas. There’s lots to be excited about!

Note: BPTMN members will need to complete the City Volunteer Waiver before beginning any maintenance activities. Contact Rick Travis at Travisfam2@yahoo.com for an electronic copy of the volunteer form. We’ll also bring some hard copies to our work sessions.

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Chip and Dale Still Entertain

By Deborah Canterbury, 2014

As I have nothing better to do than stare out my window into the back yard, I have been highly entertained by the two squirrels who frequent my bird feeders and scoff at my futile attempts to deter them. So I did some fact finding to assure me that I am smarter than a squirrel and that I still know how to read and research.

Fact #1: They Were Brought into U.S. Parks Intentionally

Squirrels can be pests around your property, but did you know that they were introduced to American nature parks intentionally?
After the Industrial Revolution, squirrels were mostly absent from cities. In order to liven up city parks (like Manhattan’s Central Park), the city reintroduced squirrels to the area.
It was believed that a bit of nature in the city was crucial to maintaining people’s well-being. Additionally, feeding the squirrels became a leisurely activity for children and adults alike. So the presence of squirrels in parks actually benefited the human population mentally, but it also had the unfortunate effect of contributing to infestations later down the line.

Fact #2: Squirrels Have an Expert Sense of Smell

You know they love to bury acorns (and my pecans not filched by crows) for winter foraging. Squirrels will typically bury their nuts around a memorable location, like next to a large oak tree. To protect their stash from birds, they bury them under only ¼ inch of soil. They are able to use their keen sense of smell to detect the nuts they buried, even if they have been covered in a foot of snow.

Fact #3: Squirrels Mislead their Scavengers

Not only are squirrels adept at tracking the nuts they buried, but they use misdirection to trick the scavengers who want to steal their nuts.
Squirrels have been known to tamper with soil and cover it with leaves, even when they haven’t buried a nut there. They make it look like they buried a nut there, in order to trick scavengers.

Fact #4: Squirrels Are Experts At Finding Mates

When mating season arrives, female squirrels in heat begin emitting a scent that male squirrels can smell from up to a mile away. During this time I hear numerous males hot-footing it across my roof. It’s worth noting that squirrels do not mate for life. Rather, a female squirrel will go to great lengths to avoid mating with the same male twice.This allows the squirrel population to stay genetically diverse, minimizing the risk of mutations and makes female squirrels very self sufficient.

Okay, four “Did-ja-knows” are enough. I need to stop and let the dogs out to pursue for the umpteenth time today their futile attempt to chase the long-tailed rodent currently draped around my newly filled feeder onto the roof where it can mock and tease them.

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Ramblings on a Cold Morning

By Sally Evans, Founder Emeritus, 2006

I know there were rabbits at night because I found tracks everywhere. They would have had a hard time finding food as the snow was about three inches deep. My toes would have been frozen! Why weren’t their feet too cold to hop around?!
I also had time to contemplate. How fortunate I was to have a home, food, electricity, family and friends who were checking on us, a warm blanket and a pair of binoculars to watch the panorama in my own back yard. So like the robin who has been sitting on the banister in the morning sun, I will look at my surroundings and wait for better times.

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Heard Happenings

By Laura Ragan
Submitted by: Greg Tonian

It’s been quite a while since we’ve all been able to fellowship in the way we’d like, so I’m glad for this opportunity to catch you up on the Heard’s activities.

After a long, lonely April, which saw open trails but few guests, the exhibit hall and Nature Store reopened for May, and shutdown-weary guests began flocking back. Even with interactive exhibits and programs closed, the Heard remained busy through summer and fall and continues to be busy on nicer winter days. We are so grateful for the community’s support of our mission to bring nature and people together to discover, enjoy, experience, restore, and preserve our priceless environment!

Throughout this past year, we have greatly appreciated our new and renewing members for 2020 (which include many of you – thank you!). As a private non-profit, the Heard is NOT tax-funded. Our ability to keep up with our 289-acre private sanctuary, museum building & grounds, and non-releasable animals depends on admission fees and memberships, as well as donations, paid programs, and rentals.

But more than anything else, the Heard depends on volunteers to keep its departments running. With that in mind, I’ll highlight a bit of last year and what you might expect for this year.

Quite comfortingly, the sanctuary has continued its roll through the seasons, unconcerned with the nightly news. Its intrepid volunteers have been busy through all kinds of weather replacing boardwalk, cutting new trails, and keeping the prairies from being overrun with saplings. Boardwalk replacement has gone so well that we are now looking at the very real possibility of creating wetlands access for those with mobility challenges.

And speaking of access, the trail through Animals of the World to the pollinator garden is now concrete! We appreciate those of you who were able to monitor the animals’ stress level during this loud, messy project.

The animal care, garden, and facilities departments have continued to receive volunteer support throughout the year. Pandemic or no, living things and buildings still need to be fed, enriched, cleaned, rearranged, pulled, pruned, fixed, and painted. With your help, it all got done.

As for 2021, “Covid willin’, and the creek don’t rise” still applies. We know what we want to do; we just don’t know when we’ll actually do all of it. Below are some things you’ll see at some point soon:

Sanctuary – Boardwalk replacement continues; tree-thinning is planned for Cedar Brake loop; we’ll increase stewardship opportunities for volunteers and interactive opportunities for guests.

Gardening – Too many items to mention! Weekly volunteers are needed in order to make progress.

Education – Most paid programs continue with smaller numbers; few fieldtrips are scheduled so far.

Exhibit Hall – Paleo Lab volunteers have been working to prepare parts of a plesiosaur skeleton, and we hope to install the exhibit soon. The accompanying artwork is already up and is absolutely stunning.

Plant Sale 2021– Yes, it’s scheduled!! It’ll be modified a bit, but we’re planning for April 23-25.

I look forward to seeing everything this year has in store for both the Heard and our Blackland Prairie chapter. If you’re not yet a Heard volunteer and would like to be, our volunteer application can be found at https://www.heardmuseum.org/volunteerapplication. And as always, you are welcome to e-mail with any questions or comments: lragan@heardmuseum.org.

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Carnage in Collin County

In early April there is a sunny spot in our back yard early in the morning. Usually I would find a robber fly perched on a leaf waiting for its first victim. The warmth of the sun would bring out some smaller flies which seemed to be its favorite target. What’s interesting is that the robber fly seemed to be fearless. I could get right up to it with my camera and he just seemed to dare me to take away his prey. It does seem to be a little strange to see a fly eating a fly.

In early fall I could often find another robber fly [Promachus hinei]. One day I saw one had caught a paper wasp. Again, I could take my time getting its portrait. It was quite impressive how the fly would control the wasp with its legs

Dragonflies are constantly looking for their next prey. This Common Green Darner [Anax junius] has another dragonfly for its meal. The victim looks to be a Blue Dasher. According to Greg Lansley, dragonflies will often eat other dragonflies. In fact, they will even eat the young of their own species.

In the fall I watch the wheel bugs and the praying mantis. I have a small grove of goldenrod in the backyard and there were several wheel bugs all summer long growing up. When the goldenrod bloomed, I could see why they were there. The flowers were full of honey bees and wasps. Every day four or five wheel bugs were getting their fill. Often two or three would be feasting at a time, to the point expected to see a pile of carcasses on the ground

A praying mantis shared in the bounty of the bees. One day in early November I found something unexpected. One of the wheel bugs had attacked the mantis.

Upon closer inspection of the mantis, it was clear that it was not in good shape. Some parasites had been growing in its body and had recently escaped the abdomen. I did a little search of mantis parasites. It was quite disturbing what I found. It was clear to me that being an insect is a dangerous existence and I was glad I could leave the carnage behind and go into the house for a nice cup of coffee.

Flora and Fauna Shaking of the Trees Post Shaking the Trees Texas State Parks

A January Visit to Lake Tawakoni State Park

By Jean Suplick

Sometimes you’ve just got to break out of COVID confinement and have a change of scenery. That’s why in early January, Michael and I hooked up the camper and headed to Lake Tawakoni State Park. Ninety minutes away from our Plano home, the park hugs the western shore of the Lake Tawakoni, a reservoir on the Sabine River. It’s a beautiful, well maintained park with a sandy beach for summertime swimming, lots of wooded hiking trails, a boat ramp, pocket prairie, and, of course, campsites. Plus it is far enough away from the metroplex that the night skies are fairly dark and the stars are pretty bright.

Inaugurating our stay at our campsite was a Giant Leaf-footed Bug (Acanthocephala declivis) which dropped out of a tree onto Michael’s arm. It got me thinking about all the insects hidden about, trying to make it through the winter. There must be quite a few because the next day, rustling leaves alerted us to an insect-eating Blue-headed Vireo vigorously foraging among the still-attached leaves of a post oak just over our heads. It was energetically poking into one cluster of dead leaves, first in one, then another. I have to assume it was worth the effort.

We saw tracks of common raccoons, but never a live one. However, each evening at dusk, right after we lit our campfire, one or two easily spooked, feral cats would slink around the periphery of the campsite. Cats weren’t the only mammals we saw, though. There were also plenty of deer to be seen in the mornings and evenings..

While most plant life is dead or dormant now, winter is a great time to inspect their fruit and seeds. Both Bigpod Sesbania (Sesbania herbacea) and the Bladder Pod (Sesbania vesicaria) grow near the shores of the lake. Both have dehiscent capsules, i.e. fruits or pods that when dry, split along a seam to release their seeds. The pods of these two Sesbania species are shaped differently, but they are both dry now. It is fun to pull the pods apart to inspect their structure and seeds.

We were surprised to run across a tiny little flower in one of the low mown lawns. It was a Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica), with its five pretty petals and two green sepals. What a cheery find! This individual little flower is apparently precocious; the seasonality graph on iNaturalist shows that very few observations have been logged in January nationwide.

But that wasn’t the only bright color in the area. On the side of a decaying oak tree we found some beautiful Golden Ear (Naematelia aurantia) fungus.
Our trip truly was a refreshing break from being, well, homebound. If you get a chance, visit Lake Tawakoni State Park. I hope you’ll find it to be a lovely place, as I do. No matter the season or the weather, there’s always something for a naturalist to engage with there. And it’s so close to us!

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A Mother’s Story

By Laurie Sheppard

Who hates spiders? I can hear you now. Statistically, more than 30% of you experience some level of fear when it comes to spiders, but for a few, that fear is a true phobia. For that reason, when I found a Green Lynx Spider tending an egg sac in the Butterfly Garden, I kept the location a secret until the new spiderlings dispersed. It was captivating to see the attentiveness of the mother while I watched and took pictures from a distance.

The Green Lynx Spider (Peucetia viridans) is sometimes viewed as a beneficial spider. Their use as pest control warriors on soybean or peanut farms has been proposed in Florida. Without a doubt, this species’ members are effective and aggressive “ambush” predators of insects, including many that are larger than the spider itself. They have been observed feeding on many species of moths and larvae, including some of the most destructive crop pests. Unfortunately, they are also indiscriminate feeders and are just as likely to prey upon needed pollinators. At Hagerman, a keen observer may see them on or under the petals of a flower awaiting an unsuspecting honeybee, moth, or syrphid fly.

Green Lynx Spiders are bright green and often lurk camouflaged in the green foliage of a plant. They are slender and average a half inch in length for males to under an inch for females. The upper side of their abdomen is marked with chevron-like marks and their eight legs are long, light in color, and punctuated with black spots. As spiders go, they are attractive and eye-catching and are a favorite of some photographers.

I hope I haven’t lost you already, because I want to share my fascination in finding a spider securing her egg sac on a Frostweed plant in the back row of the Butterfly Garden. I was looking for butterflies to photograph (as I often do) and noticed a spider astride a dull brown ball. It took a small amount of research to discover this was a female Green Lynx Spider on her egg case. A female will construct one or more truffle-sized egg sacs in September and October, each with 25 to 600 bright orange eggs.

Over the next several days, I watched the spider move her egg case to a location under a broad flower head and secure it with silken threads to the plant’s stalks. For the next few weeks, she stayed close and kept a cautious eye on me as I maneuvered to take photos to document the incubation. Females vigorously guard their egg sacs and will attack anything that comes near. In fact, they even have the ability to spit venom as ultimate protection.

Female Green Lynx Spiders have a very unusual quality – they can change their body color to match their surroundings. The transformation takes several days. The color of both sexes often fades late in the season so whether the color on our spider mother was changed to match her location or is simply a natural fading late in the season is unknown.

It takes roughly two weeks for the eggs to hatch and another two weeks before the spiderlings emerge, so the mother spider had been tending the egg sac for a while before I saw it. Juvenile Green Lynx Spiders undergo eight instars before they reach full adulthood. Upon hatching, the first instar remains inside the egg sac until their first molt. The mother helps the young emerge by tearing open the egg case. As she did so, the exterior of the egg case was littered with tiny exoskeletons, looking like ghostly spiders. The young had orange abdomens bearing the characteristic chevrons and were fully functional spiders. They moved away from the egg sac, but many stayed together and under their mother’s watchful protection for a week or more as I watched their numbers gradually decrease. On their own, the young spiders will feed on whatever tiny insects they can find and will overwinter in a protected location.

Green Lynx Spiders live for only one year. The babies I saw are just starting out, but their mother was reaching the end of her life. I felt privileged to wish the new lives on their way and to see her tend her final brood. If I see a Green Lynx Spider at the refuge next spring, I will wonder if it is one from the Frostweed nursery.