Brazos Bend SP - 7 Day Itch

Life is just barely slowing for the summer. Spring Interns are 'graduated' which means I have time to myself for an entire Friday. No Saturday classes to plan for or communicate about! Two of the CPC interns joined Scott and me on today's hike, all social-distancing, of course.

We took the prairie walk so they could see all three species of Vervain and distinguish between the three: V. brazilian, V. halei, and V. xutha. The dragonflies were all out, as were the mating butterflies. The surprise of the day was the Reakirt's Blue in the prairie, as well as the GIANT wolf spider off the path. Scott mistook it for a tarantula, it was so big.

After our friends parted ways, we marched on a bit further. Sadly, photos of juvenile Barred Owls did not turn out well enough for ID, but while Scott was bench-napping, I was able to record some parent calling back and forth with cicadas singing in the background.

The rookery was also in full swing. I found it funny that iNaturalist had 'monkey' right up top to name the juvenile ibises. I guess AI was confused by the striped bills and the ugly little faces (only a Mama could love).

All-in-all, another great hike at BBSP, third week straight. We'll see if next Friday pans out for another day trip. crossing fingers

Nice to see you again, #MyBrazos. (PS - I included the handful of observations from yesterday's volunteer stint.)

Publicado el 29 de mayo de 2020 por dirtnkids