Tent visitor

This ground skink was climbing around in the pit the other day, perhaps on pest control duty.

For the birds

Monday we were greeted by three male turkeys competing for dominance in the field near the tent.
Freckles was having none of that... (sorry about the annoying background noise)

Inside the tent, a female Black-chinned hummingbird tired herself out, and took a brief nap before taking off into the blue sky.

Snake alert!

This afternoon at lunch, quite a commotion arose in the big pecan. First a couple of tufted titmice began flying erratically and tweeting incessantly. They were soon joined by three or four black-crested titmice and a summer tanager. The focus of their attention was the crotch between two large branches. It seems that there was an intruder in the tree. This small Texas rat snake was hiding its head from all the harassment.

This little one was just waiting for mommy, by the screens today.

Summer Settling In

Even though it's more than a month away, we seem to have settled into a summer weather pattern already. Dry days are slowly lowering the water table again, so the deep units can go down; good news for digging, not so good for farming. The summer tanagers (photos in 'Birds') have reared their young and abandoned the nest at the picnic pecan tree, and the green is losing its grip to the summer browns.  Saw a few new snakes this spring (I should be getting a coral snake photo at some point from the Hampsters). Here's a small Texas rat snake that was outside the tent a few weeks back.

Lily Mae, visiting aunt Snowflake (who, as of May 12, is still carrying).

May has arrived! The prairie coneflowers, aka Mexican hats (Ratibida columnifera) have taken over the valley, the Hampsters have taken over the tent, and we have a new calf thanks to Freckles.

Hampster Laura Jefferson shared this photo of Mexican hats at Gault.