Photo Essay
Nature Trail Tour - January, 2009
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[Additional Tours: February, 2006 | April, 2006 | May, 2006 | July, 2006 | August, 2006 | October, 2006 | January, 2007 | February, 2007 | April, 2007 | May, 2007 | June, 2007 | July, 2007 | August, 2007 | September, 2007 | October, 2007 | January, 2008 | December, 2007 | March, 2008 | July, 2008 | September, 2008 | November, 2008]
Debi Cates, a member of the 2009 class of the Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists, visited the Sibley Nature Center the evening of January 31st and spent three hours photographing. She turned in over 400 photographs. We selected 106 of them - it is amazing how much she found in the driest and bleakest time of the winter. "Everything is dead and brown - nothing is out on the trail" a visiting school child had said just a few days before - but not to a person with a creative eye like Debi!
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Yuccas are common along the trail, but the golden grass is less common, thanks to the years of drought from 1992-2007.
Tasajillo again is growing in large numbers in the mesquite pasture. During the rainy 1980s it had almost disappeared from the pasture.
Debi is the first person to adequately capture the geometric complexity of the lote bush.
Some of the seedheads of the 3 awn grass remained on the plant even this late in the winter.
The old blossoms of prairie zinnia turn whitish and hang on the plant almost all winter. Some still had a hint of yellow, and the leaves had a hint of green.
The leaves of the winter rosettes of the huisache daisy are covered with long hairs.
Desert holly captures the eye of visitors to the trail, and Debi was struck by the way the leaves slowly become just networks of veins.
The leaves of New Mexico croton hang on during the winter, with tones of mauve and burgundy. Also known as doveweed, the species and its cousins are a major source of food for doves.
Windmill grass hangs onto black seeds long into the winter.
Bristlegrass seeds are usually eaten by the wintering sparrows and resident quail, so, to find seeds so late was surprising.
Desert holly seeds form the day the plant blooms. To find out that desert holly will bloom in the winter was something new for the Sibley staff - we had not noticed it, but Debi did!
Tumbleweeds turn brown with the first frost, and then begin rolling, but they get trapped easily in the dense mesquite thickets.
Debi kept returning to the desert holly, fascinated by its unique shape.
Desert holly is rhizomatous, and under mesquites it can often form dense colonies.
Jackrabbits hollow out divots in the ground. In summer, the earth cools their bellies - but in the winter, does the earth warm their belly?
Hidden deep in litter under a mesquite, a pocket mouse hole was almost hidden.
Notice the remains of berries under the feet of the mockingbird - he often brought the tasajillo fruits to his favorite perch on a fence post.
Tiquilia has a tiny blue blossom in the summer. During the winter the hairy surface of the leaves slows the effect of frost, so its chlorophyll can still be processed in the winter until frost finally kills the leaves - and this year, not all of the leaves will die.
How many years has it been since pull tabs were used in the soda pop industry? This is 40 year old litter!
Cory ephedra (the green sticks) is an endemic plant in west Texas with a rhizomatous root system, but the rhizomatous roots of desert holly can compete with it and the two species become intermingled.
Cory ephedra (and the other species of ephedra) bloom in the early spring - and the buds were swelling on January 31st.
The bright colors of lichen can be found on mesquite trunks along the trail.
The delicate hairs of a milkweed seed were trapped by the crinkly edges of the lichen.
What a contrast of shapes and colors! Lichen, mesquite trunk, desert holly leaf, and Cory ephedra stems made a wonderful arrangement.
Lehmann's lovegrass is an aggressive invader, but it can be beautiful.
Its seeds are tiny, like dust, and the seedheads are delicate wands.
From a distance, the Lehmann's lovegrass seedheads are a frothy wonder.
Softness and sharpness - another contrastÉthe airy froth of the grass and the sharp leaves of the yucca.
A bobcat had left its unique scat along the trail - but why was it not buried (as usual.)
Although the yucca can poke a careless walker, delicate hairs curl along the leaves.
Gray mesquite, green ephedra, golden tumbleweed are colors of winter along the trail.
A golden field of tumbleweed grew in the bottom of the playa, and beyond, the golden leaves of cattails mass beyond isolated coyote willow clumps.
The seeds of tumbleweed have an interesting brown network of veins late in the winter.
Dried up tumbleweed is prickly, causing a person to itch uncontrollably if a piece gets in one's pant legs.
Cottonwood trunks appear white in the winter.
Winter reveals the patterns of branches of trees at the west end of the pond.
Cowpen daisy seedstalks contrasted with dense tumbleweed.
Leafless trees make it easier to see birds during the winter, but none were at rest at the moment.
Siberian elms form their leaf buds early in the winter.
Alley mustard is green during the winter, and the rabbits seem to like its spicy leaves.
Thousands of buds will be thousands of leaves.
Hackberries have a "ladder-like" appearance, according to Debi.
Last year's growth on a hackberry seems random and haphazard.
One Hackberry leaf is hidden among the elm leaves collected on the ground.
Notice the scalloped edges of the elm leaves.
The bur oaks at the pond now produce their large acorns and reveal the hairs turning orange, and the scaly top of the cup.
Why does a oak acorns have the tiny tip on them?
A russian olive stump revealed the different rates of growth in different years - some rings are wider than others.
A few Russian olive leaves always hang on the tree.
The branches of last year's new growth on a Russian olive are covered with fine hairs, giving them a gray cast.
Since the water pumped into the pond comes from a 50 year old well, the water is alkaline, and the salt encrustation or efflorescence will not only form on the ground, but things on the ground, too (like a hackberry leaf.)
The dock at the pond is a bit wobbly, but it gives a good vantage point to watch what comes to the pond.
House finches came to the pond for a last drink of the day.
The silhouette of a cottonwood tree has a "certain comforting appearance."
The wood of the dock is slowly warping.
A pied-billed grebe swam about in the pond, sometimes sinking out of sight, as it searched for aquatic snails and other food.
The grebe kept going back and forth, unafraid of Debi.
A coot came out of the cattails, taking one last foraging cruise in the pond, before returning the interior of the cattail swamp to spend the night safe and hidden.
The coot kept dipping its bill into the water.
It pulled up a cattail root, but did not swallow it - was it taking small organisms off of it?
Most of the time it ignored Debi, but occasionally it seemed to glower at her (for being there).
The two species of waterfowl ignored each other (for the most part.) Ever so often, they eyed each other, as if deciding who was going where.
The grebe seemed to be a little bit more aware of the coot (than the other way around.) It kept turning its head to check on the coot.
The coot sometimes put its head under the water, as if it were surveying what was underwater, and did not always pull up some food item.
The white tail of the coot is like "brake lights" on a car.
The coot was small against the cattails.
The reflections of the cattails were golden in the water reflecting the blue of the evening sky.
The coot pulled up a skinny thread of chara algae.
Notice the "dirty mouth" of the coot, and the soft appearance to the feathers on its back.
Another coot came out of the cattails, and they swam together for a while.
Was it a mated pair of coots? Do they have the same mate each year, or was this courtship among strangers? Why did they start swimming faster (notice the waves around them.)
The planted giant sacaton loves having wet feet - it is over 7 feet tall.
A buttonbush in the winter reveals the "button" seedheads at the tip of last year's growth. Some of this growth is dead and will eventually fall. Despite the buttonbush being at the pond for ten years, it has not reproduced, despite producing thousands and thousands of seeds each year. In some of the summer virtual trails, photos show the great variety of insects that love its white balls of blossoms.
Aren't the seeds of the buttonbush strange?
A few of its leaves still hung on in late winter. Why? Did insect damage cause it? Spider webs?
Debi was struck by the delicate tracery of the giant sacaton leaves under the airy seedheads.
All of the seeds were gone - and, again, despite the grass being there for over eight years and producing millions of seeds, no new plants have ever appeared.
The seedstalks were like puffs of smoke against the back lit plant.
Or, en masse, the seedstalks were like wafts of fog.
The curling leaves were a marked contrast of shape in comparison to the stiff stems.
Alley mustard will bloom almost all winter, surviving freezing temperatures.
Colder temperatures do give a reddish tinge to the new seedheads.
Last year's new growth gives a Russian olive an unkempt appearance.
Why does the new growth of a Russian olive curl and swirl?
Kochia is another "invader," a non-native plant, that can become a pesky weed, but in the winter, the fuzzy white seedheads are delicate "wands."
A kochia can be "a group of comets" in the waning light of the evening.
Young mesquite shoots have huge thorns.
When a mesquite branch crosses the trail, a hiker has to be careful and not get a bloody scratch.
The last light of the evening made the understory of the mesquite thicket glow.
Debi noticed the overwinter ovaries of the lote.
What gnawed one of the lote thorns?
She again noticed the geometric pattern of the lote bush.
Curved billed thrashers often nest in the lote bushes - what a safe place for eggs and babies!
Why do hackberries have small twigs along larger branches, and why are they symmetrically placed?
What causes the scars on the cottonwood bark - did twigs once grow there?
Rescue grass grows in the willow thicket at the east end of the pond (where water runs every night.)
A few hackberry leaves stay on the tree, too, and that is usually the result of a psyllid bug that causes a round gall on the leaf.
In the last glimmer of light, the Lehmann's lovegrass seedstalks revealed their grace even better.]
Lovegrass, willow, and cottonwoods in the last light seemed wispy.
Desert hollies glowed in the last light.
The waning light made a desert holly leaf appear leathery.
Debi is the first person to notice (that we know of) how the new growth of the lote is paler than the old growth. The patches of new growth delineated the tip of each major branch.
The algerita along the trail had flower buds beginning to swell.
The stem and the heart of the trifoliate leaf of the algerita is red (but is it that way all year?)
What a creative idea - hold up a desert holly leaf to the sunset!
What determines how dense Desert holly will grow under mesquite?
Spiny yellow aster seed heads display even in the winter - white against gold.
The hairs on the yucca take on a delicate filagree, and look like abstract birds taking flight.