Photo Essay
Habitats: Breaks & Canyons: Summer on the Stockton Plateau
Cathy Hoak records the life on the Stockton Plateau east of Iraan, as part of her volunteer hours for the Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalist class of 2009. She has found many surprising taxons not previously known from the area. She is a careful observer, curious, and thorough. The summer of 2009 had above average rainfall.
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When the allthorn came, the tarantula wasps fed on its nectar. She saw up to a dozen visiting this one plant.
A honey bee perched on a stick over her small waterhole.
This beefly had transparent sections to its wing.
The birdwing passionflower blossomed. The bloom was smaller than a quarter.
She also found some immature fruit on the passionflower.
Blue grosbeaks nest in the region.
The Sibley staff is not sure of this butterfly species.
A hatchling cardinal visited the waterhole.
The male cardinal kept an eye out for predators.
Old man’s beard (clematis drummondii) has an intricate blossom.
Climbing milkweed leaves are glossy and arrowhead shaped.
For a few weeks no rain fell, and the ferns went dormant.
This fossil looks like a jelly fish… but it is not.
This fossil looks like a worm…
A lesser goldfinch found seeds on a sunflower.
The Texas sage attracted swallowtail butterflies –are these black or pipevine swallowtails?
Live oak creek is not far from her property. A county road crosses it, and the landowner allows people to picnic there.
Part of Live Oak Creek is more like a marsh.
The water of the creek meanders among thick vegetation. It has been quite a few years since a flood scoured the bottom of the valley.
Some of the open water pools are quite extensive. Several species of unusual fish are found here, including Rio Grande cichlids.
A moth lit and held its tail up. Sibley staff is not sure of the species, for a number of moth species use this posture for defense.
Nor do we know this white moth.
Or this moth that holds its wings in a tube shape,
And two of these met on the window sill of her house.
Nor do we know this one that looks like a bird dropping.
Mountain laurel seedpods had turned silver by midsummer, and the seeds inside were red.
A leaf footed bug with red legs and red antennae came to the lights at the house.
Is this circular depression in the rock a fossil?
Round tailed horny toads are hard to find because of their camouflaging skin color.
An immature rufous hummingbird visited a tomato cage.
Tickle tongue is a shrub whose leaves numb a person’s mouth when chewed, and this is the dried up skin to the fruit after the seeds have dropped out.
Vasey oak leaves have small teeth.
A walking stick amused Cathy’s grandson.
A bandwinged grasshopper always lit on the rocks.
Many species of the carrot family produce “beggers-tick” seeds.
Cissus incisus is known as false grape and produces clusters of purple black drupes later in the summer.
Climbing milkweed seedpods dwarf its small leaves.
Fishhook cactus has yellow blossoms.
Notice the tiny netwinged fly on this flowering straw blossom, a daisy without disc flowers.
Grasshoppers like the Cissus.
A house finch male visited Mrs. Hoak’s plastic lined pond.
Maltese thistle appeared in west Texas in the 1970s and is now a pest.
Nama is a common annual flower anytime after a rain in the growing season.
A “neon grasshopper” feeds only on tarbrush (the leaves in this photo.)
An orb weaver spider wrapped up some prey for later dining.
Ragweed will bloom and produce vast amounts of pollen in September.
Scutigera centipedes prefer to be in rocky soil.
Sida filicaulis is a common perennial plant that sprawls among the grasses.
This is a dime sized blossom of a spiderling, a type of 4-o-clock.
Texas sage is a member of the penstemon family.
Sibley staff do not know the name of this grass.
Nor of this grass with an insect pupae case attached.
Nor of this grass species with such tiny striking blossoms.
The staff is also puzzled by what insect might make this long 6” case in algerita.
A variegated fritillary visited a perfume ball, a daisy without ray flowers (petals.)
Mohr oak have rounded leaves, as opposed to the Vasey Oak in a previous photo.
Vine mesquite grass blooms have a tiny dash of purple (their anthers.)
Many species of dragonflies visit Mrs. Hoak’s ridgetop pool of water.
We are not experts at identifying dragonflies here at Sibley, but we do not remember ever seeing this species before.
We know this is an Orthemis ferruginea.
Are the pink ones females of the Orthemis.
We will hopefully someday have an odonata specialist identify our dragonfly photos.
White tail dragonflies are of the genus Libellula.
This is the aquatic larvae of a soldier fly in two inches of water in a tinijiti (a basin in the rock.) Its tail takes in air from above.
Mrs. Hoak scooped up some water out of a tinijiti and found more aquatic insects; bloodworms and a beetle larvae.
Ripe passionflower fruit followed the blooms mentioned in a previous photo.
Mrs. Hoak spent quite a bit of time investigating the insects that come to prickly pear. Here, a bee approaches.
Then it dives into the anthers,
And gets loaded up with pollen on its legs.
Another species of bee soon appeared.
She found a soldier beetle on the prickly pear, too.
A swallowtail butterfly came along.
But the jumping spider did not catch any of the bugs while she watched.
A honeybee was present, too. Africanized bees have colonized the cliffs in overhangs and small caves.
A reduvid bug crawled on the prickly pear.
And a tiny beetle climbed on an unopened blossom.
One species of prickly pear has red and yellow blossoms.
Dew forms on the waxy petals of the prickly pear.
A bush katydid nymph clambered on a blossom.
Yellow prickly pears fade to orange with age.
A funnel web spider built a web at the base of a prickly pear.
And caught a small bug that lit on the web.
Buds of prickly pear are beautiful, too.
All but two of the above photos were taken at this clump of prickly pear.
Pencil cactus has larger stems than tasajillo, and has blooms like a cane cholla.
The pencil cactus plant is usually less than three feet tall.
Cane cholla has yellow fruit hanging on when it blooms.
Claret cup are incredible!
Fishhook cactus bloom buds are spectacular.
This fishhook had something wrong with it – maybe a bacterial disease.
Strawberry pitaya grows well among dead juniper branches.
The blooms of strawberry pitaya are beautiful.
It is a surprise that the strawberry pitaya is not used in xeriscaping as the claret cup is.
Rainbow pitaya blossoms are also incredible!
Turk’s head (or eagle’s claw) blooms are pretty, too.
It is rare to see more than one bloom on the eagle’s claw.
A yellow pitaya also grew on Mrs. Hoak’s property.
Cactus blooms are so incredible. It is a shame that only last a few days, and on most species, only bloom for a few weeks at most.
Tasajillo have yellow-green blossoms.