East Texas Naturalist Blog

Here are my personal favorite photos of 2016.

Bald Eagle Mother from last year's nesting pair

I have been unusually busy lately so here I wanted to post a major article - here is the equivalent of 9,000 words.  That is, if indeed a picture is worth a thousand words.  

All of these images were taken within a couple of hundred yards of my front door.  

Female Green Anole

The weather forecast says rain for the rest of the week. Maybe up to 7 inches. Wow. I have a lot of work to do on the computer and around the RV so maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Besides, I enjoy rain and storms.

So I mentioned this to a friend, Steve Sutton who with his wife, Fabienne Devolter, own Lake O’ the Pines RV Motel and Marina. He pointed out that I should go out in the woods with my cameras that day since it would be the last chance I would get for at least a few days. I thought it was a good idea, but I was leaning towards getting to work. So I headed for my computer.  

About 15 minutes later, Steve dropped his Kawasaki Mule off in my driveway and said go to the woods. Well, I couldn’t argue with that. So, I packed my gear and headed out.

While Googling for some information tonight, I got sidetracked and searched for an old "friend".  Well, it is a lizard, but I am sure you know what I mean.  Anyway, I discovered a link to an old paper that I co-authored years ago.

It was fun to see the old paper again and to remember how we traveled to Laredo in the heat of summer to collect some specimen of Laredo Striped Whiptail lizards, Cnemidophorus laredoensis, for the study.  

Trying to catch these lizards is not easy under any circumstances.  They are extremely fast and evasive and the hotter it is they more fired up they are.  On the day we spent in Laredo collecting them, it was extremely hot and very humid.  

Along with the missing turtles, I have seen very few lizards this year.  

When I was doing an estate sale in Harleton, I regularly saw a 5 Lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) and a 6 Lined Racerunner Whiptail lizard (Aspidoscelis sexlineata).  At the RV park I have seen one Anolis lizard (Anolis carolinensis) and a couple of times I have seen 5 Lined Skinks - including one on my site when I was moving big rocks to make an outdoor fire ring.

On my several trips across the highway where I walk in the woods, I have seen 2 Anolis lizards.  Two.