The other day, I took a short walk down the neighborhood trail, pointing the camera down more than up. It was a gray and humid day that suggested rain but none ever really fell in our neighborhood. Even if it had, the drought would still be way ahead.

I really like this little bridge that connects two neighborhoods with the main trail. I’ve gotten a few nice shots looking downstream from it and sometimes I even see a few snakes hanging out nearby.

I probably should learn to ID some of the wildflowers around here. Until I do, though, they’re just going to have to be pretty white flowers. Whatever they are, they jumped out of the surrounding dry green like sparks.

There used to be a really nice log like this farther down the trail, but it’s gone now. Probably in someone’s house or on their porch. I hope this one goes unnoticed a little longer.

As dry as it’s been, you’d think the cacti would be loving it, but the prickly pears are suffering as much as everyone else. I saw more dried up and dead ones than usual.

A further reminder to learn the names of some flowers.

Somewhere in the archives of the City of Austin, there is probably a notation that could point some bureaucrat straight to this tree. I think the trees with numbers are the good ones.

I keep seeing this single bone in a clearing and finally took a picture of it. A mile farther down, I found a deer skeleton last spring. I wonder if this is part of the same.

There weren’t many birds out other than the Turkey Vultures, which I enjoy watching as they sail overhead.

Lately, I’ve been trying to pay more attention to the other life that lives along the little stream that runs to the pond down the street. Summer birding in these parts can be a bit dull and besides, there is a whole ecosystem out there to enjoy and appreciate.

From the footbridge over the stream, I’ve been noticing these little snakes that like to sit in the water, likely waiting for minnows to swim by. I’ve seen as many as three at a time going in and out of the crevices in the rocks. A jogger stopped on the bridge to have a look and he told me he saw four of them a few days prior.

As a kid living in the Philippines, I learned never to mess with snakes, and I still don’t even though I know the poisonous Texas snakes and these aren’t them. According to Austin Reptile Service’s ID Page for blotched snakes, I’m pretty certain these are Blotched Water Snakes (nerodia erythrogaster transversa), a nonvenomous species. The one with the more pronounced pattern is a juvenile.

Despite the fact that they’re nonvenomous, I kept my distance and certainly wouldn’t pick one up and not just because I don’t think people should go around handling wild animals but because, well, those Philippine lessons die hard and it could be a cobra or a bamboo viper. Aren’t irrationalities fascinating?

Still, I enjoyed watching them cool in the water and on that 100+ degree morning, I wouldn’t have minded joining them.

Nothing like some sugar water

This is the visitor I saw at the hummingbird feeder yesterday. It hangs from the roof, so this crafty little devil had to climb down the chain to the hanging plant to get to the feeder.

I’ve seen more hummers around lately, but now I know why the sugar water has been disappearing unusually fast the past few days.

These aren’t great shots, but I saw this butterfly while walking along the trail last week and I had to stop and try for a few pictures. I should have opened the lens a bit to widen the depth-of-field and improve the focus.

I looked it up in my butterfly fieldguide, and it appears to be a Queen, which is a member of the Milkweed Butterfly family and is related to the Monarch. As I’ve been doing my weekly bird counts along the trail by the house I’ve been trying to learn the other creatures that live out there. Butterflies are not too hard since they’ll often let me get close so long as I move slow. Perhaps next year I’ll try to learn some of the wildflowers and trees.

I find butterflies fascinating and it’s quite peaceful to watch these little creatures whose lives are so short and transitory. Watching this guy sitting on the leaf, slowing opening and closing his wings as if breathing, was to fall for a moment into a different rhythm as breath synced with wingbeat. When I moved on, I felt as if I was waking up.

It’s not just birds on the trail by the house.

On the evening of the 23^rd of December, I heard some hoarse panting in the backyard, but it was just my dogs (ouch!). I went to investigate and found that Joey and Phoebe had fenced this little guy.

An opossum fenced by the dogs

I went back for the camera while he waited to have his picture snapped.  He kept waiting there for several hours. I know possums aren’t renowned for their quickness, but this guy was really not in any kind of hurry whatsoever.

Many people are repulsed by possums, but I find them quite interesting and even a little bit cute. It’s hard not to like North America’s only marsupial even if we usually use his nickname instead of the full Opossum that separates him from his Australian kin.

One summer while working at Camp Periwinkle, I was walking back to my cabin in the middle of the night. I had my flashlight off to better admire the stars when I bumped into one of the camp cats.

Or so I thought. (Maybe we humans shouldn’t always be so quick to judge the quickness of other species.)

I bent down to pet the cat, but I was surprised by how coarse its fur was. In an instant, I grew suspicious and flicked on my light to find myself face-to-snout with a possum. He regarded me with indifference as I jumped back and into the air. I’m forever grateful the little guy didn’t bite me as I’ve heard rabies shots are not something one willingly signs up for.

Joey and Phoebe, however, being much more practical, knew last month’s possum as an intruder and had they been able to climb the fence, they might have gotten a nice possum stew for their Christmas dinner. As things stood, though, they received their usual bowls of kibble.

The Moon, Venus and Jupiter

My dad called on Monday evening to say that my brother had called to tell him to check this cool alignment out.

I could see it to the west, above my house as I stood in the driveway. Venus is the one in the lower middle, and Jupiter is on the right. Through my binoculars, I could see the Galilean Moons.

I love when these kind of things happen out there. It’s a nice surprise to see these transitory patterns appear, forcing a second look. I wonder what, if anything, this might have signified in more primitive times.

In these times it is a nice reminder of the wonders one can see by doing nothing more difficult than looking up on a crisp autumn night.

Week 3 of Project FeederWatch was cool and overcast with occasional showers. It was a good weekend for staying in and staring out the windows.

A Black-crested Titmouse eyes the suet feeder

The birds and the numbers:

• House Finch (1)
• House Sparrow (10)
• Blue Jay (2)
• Bewick’s Wren (1)
• Carolina Wren (2)
• White-winged Dove (17)
• Black-crested Titmouse (1)
• Chipping Sparrow (3)
• Carolina Chickadee (1)

I didn’t see our cardinal this weekend, but all the others have made appearances in my previous counts.

What’s really interesting to me is how the birds’ behavior has changed slightly since the summer. The Blue Jays, for instance, are no longer interested in the suet feeder. They hogged it all summer and now they’ve all but surrendered it to the wrens and chickadees.

A Blue Jay watches the feeders

They have not lost their taste for peanuts, though, and they swoop in, grab a nut and are gone before I know it.

Unless this guy is in the way…

I’m pretty sure there were more Chipping Sparrows, but they like to poke around behind the sage bush.

The 3 Chipping Sparrows I counted

Bewick’s Wrens come each summer to nest in our boxes, but this time of year, I see more of their larger cousins, the Carolina Wrens.

A Carolina Wren on the worm feeder

But, not turkeys for which, I’m certain, these birds at least are thankful.

Great Egret by the pond

Yesterday, I walked down to the little pond at the end of our street to check out the ducks.

A Great Egret was hunting along the far shore and I saw at least 15 Gadwalls. You can see one in the above picture above the word ‘great’ in the caption.

I also saw one Ring-necked Duck. Lesser Scaup. I only ever saw one last winter so I wonder if it’s the same one.

Ring-necked Duck

A Great Blue Heron flew overhead out of the reeds behind me and I saw a few vultures, but that was it.

The Great Egret again

Update: Ted pointed out that the Ring-necked Duck had been mis-ID’d as a Lesser Scaup. I have corrected the post accordingly.