Change of Seasons, Change of Species

"Spring has sprung."

In Texas, this is the season for wildflowers, and especially for Blue Bonnets. The stand on the right is from my neighbor's yard. We don't have very many ourselves, because we have mostly trees, as you can see from the picture of our driveway, below.


It's been pretty cloudy (and in some cases, rainy) the last few days, and by the time I get home, it's pretty dark. My blue bonnet pictures have been a bit challenging. This macro shot was taken with a flash. As was the top photo, but that one required a lot of brightening.

Another flower that we see along with the Blue Bonnets, is the Indian Paint Brush. These lovely flowers on the right are a bunch of Paint Brushes -- the mixture of red and white and blue and white seems somewhat patriotic.

With all the rain we have been having, it's not a surprise that we are seeing a lot of lilies. This "round" of blossoms are called "Spider Lilies". My mother-in-law used to grow these in her yard. We had a few at our old house that we got from her. We may need to collect a few and see if we can get them to grow in the shade.


The bird species have been changing as well. Today is the first that I've seen Scissor- tailed Fly catchers this season. And we saw several.

Another bird that we have been seeing over the last couple of weeks that we hadn't seen since early fall is the Black Bellied Whistling Duck. These are interesting ducks as they are mostly seen in pairs or small family groups -- at least in our area. At Aransas, we've seen them in somewhat larger numbers. The photo below is one of my favorite of whistling ducks -- it was taken in Rockport last year.