Wildflowers and Quail

Upon returning from 4 days at Nature Quest it was really great to see how full our wildflowers have now covered the ranch.  We will need rain soon or they will all start going to seed and that will be the end of what has started out to be a great wildflower spring.  I'm afraid with no rain forecast for the next 10 days,  the blooming season will be short.

View of Wildflowers from our front porch

 Upon returning, I heard for the first time in months, the call of a Bobwhite.  Each time I hear one call, it is like a new day in my life.  There is something special about some of the bird calls that stir my inner DNA - calls that are very special - the Bobwhite, Sandhill Crane, and  Chuck-will's-widow.  Soon after hearing the call a pair of Northern Bobwhite appeared under the feeder and then this male took a short drink from the Oasis.  So glad they have returned.  Maybe this year with some good green plants providing cover and grasshopper food for the young, they can raise chicks.

Northern Bobwhite male

Nature Quest

Sherry and I spent a lot of time preparing our programs for Nature Quest this year.  I upped my number of programs from 1 to 3 and Sherry who did none last year signed up for 2.  I repeated my Hill Country Butterfly and added a Migration Program which I had given at Riverside Nature Center in the past.  My new one was a workshop on Hill Country bird songs called "Do you hear that bird?".  In the past I had a similar program for the Upper Texas Coast.  So the overall structure was there - I just spent hours out recording birds with my newly acquired recording equipment and building a easel to hold my hand written flip chart discussion items that took hours to copy from my computer printout to the 18x24 inch paper.

Sherry did one program that she has used in the past - "Beginning Birding" and she added a new program on "Hummers of the World".  This was also her first time to use Power Point and she quickly got over the hard part of the learning curve and put together two excellent programs.  Like my workshop on bird song, her Beginning Birding was also a workshop - a walk around the Nature Quest area finding birds to study.

Nature Quest Beginning Birding group

My Bird Song program was held at Love Creek.  It was a wonderful morning, cool and overcast with just a little wind.  Every bird song I played was quickly joined by one of the local breeding birds that decided there was an intruder and while trying to find this invader, all the participants got good looks at the birds.  The trek down to the creek produced those birds that are best found down in the canyons - Golden-cheeked and Black-and-White Warblers, Canyon Wren, Hutton's and Red-eyed Vireo plus Zone-tailed Hawk.

Love Creek Preserve Bird Song group

With a little free time on our last day, Sherry and I took a short birding trip over to Neal's Lodge and got great views and sound recording of a Tropical Parula.  Seen several times in the past in the RGV and once at Garner State Park, but this was my best view ever.

Painted Buntings Return

Every year I wait impatiently for our Painted Buntings to return.  There is always a possibility one or more may be lost during one of their migrations - south or north.  Plus their is the concern that they can fall capture to one of the illegal caged bird traders.  Well almost to the exact day one showed up at the Oasis.  Then disappeared for a a day, then it or another one made an appearance.  Finally I am hearing their bubbly song and know they have found the ranch once more.  So far I believe we have 3 males in full adult plumage, one that is still showing a lot of orange to the breast and one that is a first year male.

1st year male Painted Bunting

We are also overrun with Clay-colored Sparrows.  Based on the amount of birds at the Oasis bathing and their constant calling from almost any brushy  area on the ranch, we have several hundred.

Clay-colored Sparrow

Another early visitors was this Blue Grosbeak

Blue Grosbeak - male

Two new Ranch Butterfly Species

It's been a long time since I added a new butterfly species to the Ranch list, so today I was very surprised to find two new species about 20 feet apart while I was out doing the weekly nest box census.  Both species have been on my watch list, just got lucky today.

The Great Purple Hairstreak is easy to identify.  Its size and dark color sitting on top of an Antelope Horns Milkweed flower head was unmistakable.  All I need was my camera that was still in the house.  A quick run up and back, and this individual had not moved an inch.

Great Purple Hairstreak

My second surprise was a Southern Oak Hairstreak also feeding on a different milkweed flower.  At the time I took the picture, I thought it was one of the 10's of Gray Hairstreaks all feeding on the dozen's of milkweeds in bloom.  It was only when I got back to look at the photos in house light, did I see I had taken a picture of the Oak Hairstreak.

Southern Oak Hairstreak

Just to make my Lep day, an Eight Spotted Forester Moth was feeding close by and I snapped a few shots of it for my Butterfly Program.

Eight Spotted Forester Moth

The only other interesting part of the route was a Gray Fox hiding in the high grass that I walked up.  It sprinted off a few yards, turned to give me a look and then trotted off down the hill. Sorry, no pictures.

Nature Quest Preparation

Sherry and I committed to doing some programs at Nature Quest this year.  We just didn't know it would be so many and take so long to pull them together.  Sherry is learning to use Power Point and I'm out building an easel to hold my old style program with flip chart and marking pens

You can see what we are doing by going to the link and selecting Registration and Schedule...

.http://www.hillcountrynaturequest.com/

Wildflowers

This year's wildflowers are really starting to fill out the landscape.  We still need some rain to help nurse them along as many are starting to look weepy and without a good rain, many will die before opening and giving us seeds for the future.

Fun Day Birding with Friends

Today we birded with friends we met on the Brazil Birding Tour.  Doug Nail, a Californian and Brian Coleman, an Old World visitor (Great Britain) were doing a Texas Birding trip searching for Valley, Hill Country and Big Bend speciality birds.  They spent all day Monday birding with Sherry and me before heading off to the Big Bend.  With a fairly good weather day we managed to get all the Hill Country species on Brian's hit list while squeezing in plenty of time to visit.



Doug Nail, Sherry, Brian Coleman, Tom



Easter time in the Hill Country

This was a more typical Easter spring event - green vegetation with wildflowers and butterflies.  Not to mention the grand kids out chasing butterflies and hunting eggs.

Emilia and Marcelo with their new butterfly nets in pursuit of butterflies