Fun at LLELA This Summer

We did a three mile walk along Lewisville Lake at Lake Park yesterday morning.  Given the early hour it wasn't too bad, but it was so hazy due to Saharan dust, it was nearly impossible to see across the lake.  We walked at Lake Park rather than going to LLELA so that we could get home earlier and beat the worst of the heat.  It got to 104 officially yesterday and it is only projected to get worse for the foreseeable future.

With the dust and now the high temps forecast, I think it is time to hunker down.  It is time to focus on indoor activities, such as catching up on my blog posts.


So what have we been doing lately?  We have been spending a lot of time walking the trails at LLELA.  Here is the link to our iNaturalist posts by date.  Using iNaturalist, especially with its instant feedback of suggestions for identification, has been a great help in learning to identify the various creatures.

Common LLELA observations.  We have seen many of the usual birds, dragonflies, and butterflies.  We routinely see a variety of herons and egrets, but especially enjoy seeing the Little Blue Herons.  Fortunately they seem more abundant this year.

Little Blue Heron looking for breakfast in the marsh. 7-7-18

We hear lots of smaller birds, but they tend to be hidden among the foliage.  We were excited to catch sight of an indigo bunting who seemed as interested in us as we were with him.

What are you looking at, person?  Indigo bunting, 7-7-18

Of course there are the red-winged blackbirds.  I used to get excited about seeing them, but now almost consider them a nuisance.  They are everywhere this year on the very plentiful American lotus plants that cover the edge of some of the marsh.  They seem to really like the seeds in the center of these plants

Along the boardwalk to high blind on the Bittern Marsh Trail before all of the American Lotus plants went to seed. 6-12-18

Female Red-winged Blackbird on an American Lotus plant seedpod (what is left of the center of the flower).  Yes, the females really look that different from the males.  7-13-18

 

A typical pose for a male Red-winged Blackbird, mouth open making a lot of noise. 7-7-18

The number of dragonflies we see on any given day varies drastically.  We have yet to figure out what are the variables that impact their numbers.  On at least one day the gliders and saddlebags were literally swarming everywhere.  It was reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" but with dragonflies.  Fortunately they are much smaller than birds and harmless, at least to people.

Most days we see lots and lots of Eastern Pondhawks, Common Whitetails, and Widow Skimmers. 

Female Widow Skimmer dragonfly, 7-9-18

However, there are many many others.  What is striking to me is how localized to a particular locality some of the species tend to be.  We love catching sight of the occasional Halloween pennant.  They are usually perched on some tall dead plant on the open prairie or sometimes along the river.

Male Halloween pennant dragonfly 7-1-18

The ebony-jewelwing damselflies are particular striking.  They are quite plentiful in their little environment, but that is only along one gently flowing creek in the heavily wooded area of the Blackjack Trail.  We have been told that is the only place they have been observed in Denton County.

Female ebony jewel wing damselfly. 7-9-18

Butterflies are always fun to spot, but they seem less plentiful this summer compared to spring and fall.  The monarchs will be migrating back through on their journey south to Mexico in the late fall, but we occasionally see the related viceroys and queens.  I am sure before this past year I mistakenly thought all of these near look a likes were monarchs.

Queen butterfly on a buttonbush flower. 7-7-18

One of the common Pearl Crescent butterflies. Very visible are the balls or clubs at then end of its thin antennae, which are typical for butterflies but not for moths. 7-7-18

We have also seen some new things.   We finally saw a beaver, albeit fleetingly.  We saw the wake from something moving rapidly across the marsh, but could not see what it was. As it got closer, we could only see the head. It went directly towards the beaver lodge, dove down and was gone. Wow did it move fast through the water.
 

American beaver, 7-13-18

Beaver headed to the beaver lodge

It is obvious he and his friends have been busy.  They have stopped all flow of water going out of one area of the marsh.  That is good for the beavers during our current drought, because the water remains high around their den.  However, the marsh on the other side of the trail, which is outside of the beaver dams, is almost completely dry.  With no rain in the foreseeable future, that is only going to get worse.

We also got a good look at an anhinga, sometimes called a snake bird due to its long neck.  They are somewhat rare around here, but this seems to be at least the second year that a pair has returned to LLELA for the summer.

Anhinga. 7-10-18  Note the webbed feet.

We finally saw a Sad Underwing moth, or what the Frog refers to as "Mothra" (yes, as in Godzilla's Mothra).  They are huge, with  wings that are 3-4 inches long.  What is not obvious from this picture is how well camouflaged they are while sitting in plain sight on the bark of large trees.  Even looking directly at them, they can be hard to see. If they had not been pointed out to us by another LLELA iNaturalist enthusiast, we would have continued to unknowingly pass by and never see them.

Sad Underwing moth, 7-9-18

Interesting behavior.  We are also making enough observations to begin to recognize what is abnormal or at least unusual behavior.  In one instance we stumbled across several dozen velvet ants (which are really a type of wasp) fighting over a female.

Male velvet ants pursuing a female. 7-4-18

Unlike the males, the female is unwinged, hence the common name "ant".  Here is the link to our description and pictures on iNaturalist.   The responses from some of the more experienced observers were interesting.

BTW, the other name for some of these velvet ants is "cow killer" because the female's sting is among the most painful insect stings known.  Their velvet texture may make them look cuddly, but leave these little ladies alone!

Turtles.  Finally, I must mention turtles.  We were fortunate to spot this little guy and move him off the road before he got run over.

Eastern mud turtle on the road. 7-10-18

We very rarely see turtles, but are on the look out for them after taking the training earlier this month to use the LOTEK radio receiver to track one of the turtles at LLELA that is equipped with a radio transmitter.  That is a portable radio receiver and a hand held directional antenna.  Here is the link to the Facebook post with the pictures on the day we went with the group to find her.  I was so excited to spot her that I forgot to take pictures myself. That is a closed group, so hope the link will work.

The tagged turtle is a female three-toed box turtle.  Studies of her travels will hopefully be the beginning of a larger turtle project/study at LLELA.  A habitat (really a large cage) has been constructed to house baby turtles, but I am not sure when the turtles will be introduced.  The baby turtles will eventually be released at LELLA, but they may have to live in the habitat for several years.  Most baby turtles don't live to adulthood, but hopefully this habitat will improve their chances of survival.  However, if they make it to adulthood, three-toed box turtles can live for decades or perhaps even to 100.  Who knew??!

The motivation for the study is the rapid decrease in observation of box turtles at LLELA.  They don't usually respond well to relocation (they try to return home even over long distances!), hence the idea of raising little ones on site.  Hopefully they will think this is home and stick around.  However, so little is known about them that even that is unclear.  It is believed they normally don't stray more than 250 yards in their lifetime, but this little LLELA gal sometimes moves several hundred feet or more in a week.  I am absolutely amazed by that given how difficult the terrain would be for something the size of a turtle.

We have not gone out by ourselves looking for this turtle since it is somewhat of a pain to arrange to get the radio receiver.  It is also not necessarily a pleasant hike even with more moderate temperatures, since she will be somewhere off trail and usually in the midst of poison ivy. (This time of year she likes moist but not wet ground in the shade, the same perfect habitat for poison ivy.)

However, since I love to play with gps tracks and maps, I did plot her reported locations on Google Earth.  The yellow track is an earlier gps track of the Blackjack Trail I had from my gps.  The red track is our gps track looking for her with the group on June 23.  I have not updated the map since our trip to find her with the group, but she has been found a couple of times since then.  She moves around a lot more than I would have imagined and probably more than the nominal 250 yard range listed for these turtles.  I don't know how to put a distance scale on the map below, but the distance between the 6-7-18 point and the 6-9-18 point is 409 feet.

I am not sure how involved we will be with this project, but as you can probably tell we are having fun.  I also feel good if we can contribute a little as a citizen scientist in various ways through projects such as this or through iNaturalist...even if we are very much on the citizen end of citizen scientist.