Photo Essay
Mesquite pastureland in January
[Published January 31, 2008]
The 2008 trainees for the Llano Estacado Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists were assigned to venture into the mesquite pasture at the Sibley Nature Center, or a similar pasture near their home. Armed with cameras they were to photograph specific plants and animals, plus other organisms that caught their eye. Most of the following photographs were taken at the Sibley Center (and those not taken there will be noted.) The students visited at different times of day, separately, and collectively wandered in the pasture for a total of 15 or more hours. The following students contributed photographs to this photoessay:
- R.L. Orth
- Mark Pelham
- Nina McCart
- Sharon Long
- Chris Cherry
- Leslie Harman
- Barbara Drissel
- John Drissel
- Taffy Armstrong
- Pat Porter
- Sean Patty
Burr Williams, the instructor, did the photo editing and contributed a few photos.
Click on each image to see a larger version; use your browser's "Back" button to return to this page.
A mesquite pasture in winter seems to be just a brown wilderness without much to catch the eye.
Even when a person tries to look a little closer, it is still just "stuff" all jumbled up. However, in this picture a person can spot the red berries of tasajillo cactus, the green stems of popotillo (ephedra), the yellow seedheads of broomweed, and the gray bark of the mesquite bushes.
A bobwhite joined some scaled quail. Student Chris Cherry noted that the bobwhite behaved differently - never looking up for a potential predator and remained bent over the ground, while the scaled quail often looked around.
White-crowned sparrows winter in West Texas mesquite pastureland. The adult has white stripes, while the immature has brown stripes.
Notice how this white-crowned sparrow is still holding onto the branch although his wings have started beating to launch into flight.
Despite icestorms and snowstorms earlier in the winter, a ladybug managed to survive and come out to sun on a warm day. Was it in a hole in the ground? Or inside a packrat nest next to the warm rat?
Cottontail rabbits "freeze" when a predator approach.
Chris Cherry had a coyote visit his pasture. It wandered through the windmill grass.
The coyote either heard a mouse squeak, or caught a whiff of one hidden in the grass.
Curve-billed thrashers are the sentinels of the pasture. When a predator approaches they hop up and holler "Taxi!Taxi!," and every animal (mammals and birds) know they need to be alert.
Sandhill cranes fly from playas to farm fields over mesquite pastures.
Near a packrat nest, hundreds of its droppings were piled together.
A packrat nest can be 4-5 feet across and 4 feet high. This is a small nest. Notice the bark stripped off the mesquite above the nest. In the winter, packrats that have run out of their stored food (or can find no other food nearby) will gnaw on bark, but it is only a brief respite from eventual starvation.
If a person takes a close look at a packrat nest, bits of shiny metal and other items will be among the tasajillo branches, mesquite twigs, and other "natural items."
The damage of a packrat gnawing on a mesquite can be extensive, but the plant will soon send up another trunk.
Fresh gnawing reveals the green cambium layer.
Packrats will also clip off the tips of yucca leaves to adorn the top of their nest.
Ladderbacked woodpeckers are the native woodpecker species to the Llano Estacado. A number of insects utilize the seed stalks for egg-laying, so the birds will inspect every seed stalk and "listen" for movement within the stem. As cavity nesters, they rarely find a hole large enough in mesquite in which to nest, so hackberries and soapberries in draws, sand ridges, clay basins are utilized for the nest.
In the winter kestrels spend the winter hunting small birds, small rodents, and insects on warm days. They do sometimes nest in cavities the region - but it is a banner day to find nesting kestrels. In wet winters a kestrel can be seen on the average of one to every mile along electric lines.
Curved-bill thrashers defend clumps of tasajillo, and can often be found near a particular patch for days. Their orange eye gives them a fierce visage.
When a visitor approaches too closely, the thrashers often drop to the ground and run to a hiding place.
Mockingbirds also love mesquite pastures full of tasajillo, and sometimes a dozen mockers will be visible in a five acre patch.
White crowned sparrows spend most of their time on the ground, but when a predator approaches, they often hop up to the top of a mesquite to evaluate the danger. Their song is part of the winter landscape - a cheerful sweet song most often heard at daybreak and at sundown.
Several of the students notice a large "wad" of grass and other vegetation in a lote bush.
The side entrance, the large size, and its untidy shape reveal the nest to be a cactus wren nest. Read this essay to learn more.
A number of feathers speckled the outside of the nest, but the inside was lined with feathers.
Another one of the students found a large amount of feathers on the ground. Hawks pluck birds before they eat them.
A sharp-shinned hawk was photographed on the fence at the nature center by yet another student. It was probably the bird that had left the pile of feathers in the pasture.
Yet another student photographed the hawk on a different day leaving the building and heading back out to the pasture. The staff of the Sibley Nature Center "expect" to see the hawk every day during the winter.
In many places in the pasture the students noticed jackrabbit droppings. The dark ones are fresh, the paler ones are older. Huisache daisy seeds speckle the cryptogamic soil.
A fox "scent station" has droppings of several ages. Many animals visit the same place for a week or two to leave a record of their presence. Other animals note the stations and may choose to go hunt in another area, knowing that the mice and rats in that area have been disturbed.
Jackrabbits will hollow out a small depression in the soil - sometimes to warm themselves, or cool themselves, depending on the temperature, or even to take a "dirt bath" to disturb fleas and ticks. Did the rabbit gnaw the yucca leaf, or was that the work of a packrat?
Cryptogamic soil sometimes forms peculiar craters. Read this essay to learn more about cryptogamic soil.
In any area where loose sand has collected, quail tracks can often be found. Several coveys of both bobwhite and scaled quail live in the Sibley Nature Center pasture.
It is unknown what creature collected thousands of tiny golden seedheads (probably broomweed seeds.) Was it the creature that had also dug the small hole in the seedpile?
In a detritus pile of various sticks and other dead plant parts, a mouse had excavated a hole. Notice that jackrabbit scat appears in a number of the photographs of other items of interest. A person can calculate the population density of rabbits in an area easily - for every two droppings per square yard, there is a rabbit. At least 20 samples must be taken to reach an average to use in the calculation.
Many mesquites have lichen on their trunks, and on wet days, the orange species can be spectacularly bright.
Wolf spiders will remain active on warm days in the winter. Wolf spiders can live two or more years.
Pat Porter recorded old coyote scat on her property in Borden County.
She also has feral hogs on her property, and their diggings reveal that they like what appears to be an evergreen sedge.
Feral hog droppings are large and full of everything - for they are omnivorous. Read this essay to learn more.
Tumbleweeds detach from the soil and roll around, but in a dense mesquite pasture, they do not go far.
When jackrabbits first spot a predator, they remain erect and watch the intruder, but then bound away with giant leaps - sometimes of six feet or more.
Trompillo, or purple nightshade berries add a little bit of color to the winter landscape.
Canyon towhees prefer dense mesquite pastures. They are often found near ranchhouses and in campgrounds throughout the southwestern United States. They are companionable birds that unobtrusively and meekly hang around humans, but they do not like to live in the towns of the region.
Pyrrhuloxias are cousins to cardinals that are always associated with mesquite pastureland.
In cold days, roadrunners turn their back to the sun and separate the feathers there, so the sun will strike their dark skin and warm them up.
Loggerhead shrikes prefer rural settings. They eat insects and small birds. When one leaves a perch, they always drop low and fly straight. In other regions of the United States their populations have diminished, but on the Llano Estacado they are commonly seen along the roads.
A whitewinged dove sat on a post in a sandstorm, the wind ruffling its feathers. When stronger gusts hit, it would close its eyes. Flying in high winds is dangerous, so it allowed the photographer to approach much closer than normal.
A few of the mesquite bushes still had a bean or two hanging from a branch. It is likely that an insect had damaged the bean and halted its growth at a stage where the cue for normal "dehiscing" would not occur.
A closeup of the pasture reveals popotillo, broomweed, and a few tasajillo berries.
Desert holly is often under the mesquite bushes.
Can you spot the white crowned sparrow?
The root crowns of yucca persist long after the plant dies. The leaf of a living yucca is nearby.
Under many mesquites bristlegrass can be found. It is one of the major food sources of the sparrows that spend the winter on the Llano Estacado.
The animal that left these droppings is a mystery - but notice the elytra of a small green beetle within the pile.The droppings might be of a fox with an intestinal problem, for the undigested material reflects an omnivorous diet, but the droppings are not normally shaped.