Photo Essay
June on the Stockton Plateau
In June of 2009 the Master Naturalists as a group visited Fort Lancaster and Cathy Hoak’s place east of Iraan. Within two weeks of that trip, Burr Williams also visited several other sites in the region. Spectacular scenery, fascinating archaeology, and under-documented flora and fauna intrigue regional naturalists, and keep pulling us back, over, and over. Nathan Taylor, Nancy Kirk, Randy Hapgood, Carol Ann Bauer, and Burr Williams photographs.
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In the tiny tinijitis rain collects for a few days, and algae begans to grow.
When pulled from the water the algae was almost black.
Why did the birdwing passionflower leaves have red veins?
Some of the moss on the rock was also black.
Cissus incisus, or false grape, clambered over wolfberry, with blooms beginning to form.
Cory Pipevine has a heartshaped leaf.
Sibley staff is not sure of this species of Dichondra, which is randomly found throughout the regioin under larger shrubs.
A bulb cloakfern had reddish new growth.
Pellea sp, a fern, does not look like most ferns, with its succulent “leaves.”
Sibley staff is not sure of the identification of this fern.
Fishhook cactus sometimes grow under mesquite.
Rain droplets covered a funnel web spider’s web snuggled in a Torrey yucca.
This was the largest robberfly any of the group had ever seen – close to 2 inches long.
Bandwinged grasshoppers are common, but this one was unusually gray.
The walking sticks were gray, too.
Sibley staff is not sure of this species of ground cherry, either.
A gulf fritillary rested on a Texas purple thistle.
Lecheguilla have interesting blossoms with long anthers.
Some of the millipedes were almost orange in color.
This is the only “double” pectis blossom any of the group had ever seen.
False pennyroyal makes a great tea.
Polygala tweedyii has an intricate bloom.
A potter wasp or a masonry bee had made a nest for its eggs and larvae.
Purslane grew in standing water (that evaporated the next day.)
A very pale snail crawled between the rocks.
Sotol bloom buds are little green balls.
Shallow tinijitis were full of water after the morning’s rain.
Prickly pears throughout west Texas sometimes exude wax, for an unknown reason.
This bandwinged grasshopper had yellow wings when he flew.
Some of the deeper tinijitis had water for several weeks, and this mat of algae had formed and had begun to float from the collection of gasses given off by the algae.
The canyon at Ms. Hoak’s is extremely rugged.
Fishhook cactus does not usually form clumps.
A pipevine swallowtail caterpillar fed on the Cory’s pipevine.
Lecheguilla and sotol are scattered among the tinijitis on the mesa top.
Red mountain laurel seeds could be found near some of the tinijitis. The seeds take “decades” to germinate, after being washed along and scratched on the rocks after every good hard rain.
Littleleaf sumac, sotol, juniper, and agarita made the gentler slopes of the canyon almost impassable.
Polygala tweedyi is a very small plant, and hard to spot.
Sammy Hunnicutt surveyed the canyon.
A Torrey yucca stood sentinel over the canyon.
Can you spot the tiny cactus? (It is on the right side!)
Allionia is a common annual throughout west Texas in most habitats.
This is a cactus beetle, but it was not on a cactus! It lays its eggs in the flesh of some species of cactus.
How strange to see a cactus growing out of a bed of moss!
A chrysalis hung on the door of Fort Lancaster.
A crevice spiny lizard eyeballed a cricket (and Sibley staff do not know what species of cricket it is!)
Then the lizard grabbed the cricket for lunch.
A velvet ant (a female wasp) drowned in a rainwater puddle.
Millipedes defecate when bothered.
Nostoc is a species of green algae that forms during and after rains.
Orange mushrooms appeared on burned wood.
Painted grasshoppers are uncommon, but found throughout the major habitats of the region.
A portulaca germinated in gravel.
Velvet mites always appear after rains in the growing season throughout West Texas. To learn more about them, type in rainbugs in the website search engine.
A scorpion found a cricket, too. The crickets had been driven to high ground by the rain.
Sprangletop grass is only found down in the better soils of the canyons in most years.
Yucca buckleyii is common on the Edward’s Plateau and reaches its western range limit on the Stockton Plateau.
Agarita and Mexican persimmon form dense copses for wildlife.
Native Texas bindweed is common, as is bristlegrass in the deeper soils of the region.
Black grama is stoloniferous, and with plenty of rain will carpet the ground, but in drought it dies back to a small clump.
Bush muhly prefers to grow under shrubs.
Claret cups can form large clumps.
A dark millipede had to climb a plant to escape the puddles of rainwater.
Angel trumpet is a common ground cover in the area. It has 3” long tubular white blossoms at night.
Tarbrush, mesquite and juniper fill the valleys below the hills.
Tobosa grass is only green after a rain and is poor forage, but it holds the dirt together in clay soils.
Canyon wrens like the steepest cliffs.
Their song is a descending “bouncing ball” trill that echoes in the cliffs.
Bacopa is found in permanent water in the area, such as live oak creek, and the Pecos River.
Wooly paintbrush is usually only found in clumps, and rarely covers the ground.
The bloom of cat claw acacias attract hundreds of bees and butterflies.
The snapdragon vine has beautiful small blossoms. It is a perennial, while its close relative in the sanddunes is an annual.
Nicotiana is scattered around West Texas, and is more common in the Stockton Plateau. Once found on top of the Llano Estacado, it is rarely found there now.
Where is the rattlesnake? OK…it is in the lower center…
Where is the rattler now? Look close….
Indian blankets grow best in the clay bottoms where beebrush grows.
Mariola (the gray shrub) and lecheguilla can carpet a steep hillside.
Horsecrippler fruit, when ripe, begins to split, if an animal has not already begun the harvest of the tasty fruit.
Independence Creek is a wonderful oasis in the region, and a county road provides access to a wonderful crossing.
East of Fort Lancaster, Lancaster Hill has gained attention of botanists and ornithologists for unique species found there.
The banks of Live Oak Creek present deep erosional features.
Nutria now live in Live Oak creek, and sometimes their tunnels through the sedge can be spotted.
Michael Eason of the Ladybird Wildflower Center identified this small shrub for Sibley staff, but the notes have been misplaced.
It only grows in the bottom of the gravelly canyon bottoms.
Water primrose grows at the edge of water in the region in bedrock cavities and gravel bars.
This red legume is a small shrub in the same habitat. Sibley staff remembers that Eason called it Indigofera, but we could be wrong.
The Pecos river goes under some huge cliffs as it enters the canyons south of Sheffield.
Live oaks grow at the base of the cliffs.
Salt cedar is still found along the Pecos, but the State of Texas and the U.S. government is slowly eradicating it along the river.
Bacopa can form large mats in shallow water.
Way up on one of the cliffs was a large cliff.
Alkali sacaton will grow under large mesquite.
Senna lindheimerii is common in the gravel bottomed draws.
Salt heliotrope is common along the river.
Chara is a green algae that fills backwaters of the river.
Chara is a large algae with leaf structures more like those of flowering plants.
When side canyons meet the Pecos River, great amounts of gravel are dumped. The banks of the river reveal past floods, where ledges of large gravel can be seen between layers of silt and smaller gravel.
Flood detritus lined the bank 5 feet above the water line. In 2007 a flood rearranged much of the area around Sheffield.
Water cut under the deposited gravel from floods centuries ago.
Giant sacaton grass can be found along the river, too. It is a larger plant than alkali sacaton, sometimes getting over head tall.
A large little walnut (nogalito) had been flattened by the flood of 2007.
Beebrush in bloom can be smelled for hundreds of yards, and can be covered with butterflies, bees, wasps, and moths.
Salt grass grows on islands on the river, and seepwillow joins the salt cedar along the banks.
A huge blueberry juniper was found. It may be several hundred years old. It was located on a terrace about 3 feet higher than the river, so it gets floodwaters every so often.
Giant sacaton was on the same terrace.
Some of the salt cedar was old, and had strange burls on their trunks.