A huge day spider - commonly seen in The Woodlands and elsewhere

Here in The Woodlands, I have seen this spider of the family Araneae several times before. It is the Black & Yellow Argiope, or Argiope aurantia. It is very big and scary to many people. Go to swampy areas in Southest Texas and you might find these in abundance. These were found on plants next to a pond in a Woodlands park. This large one is the female. Although like most species of the family, its bite is venomous but not dangerous to a human. It eats small insects captured in its web.

The small one is the male.

Red Spider of the night

In The Woodlands as in other parts of Southeast Texas, we have a multitude of spider species. By a brightly lit full moon, I observed this bright reddish orange spider that on close examination, was not really red at all. I would like to identify it but have not succeeded yet. As quickly as this little lady spun her web, she laid eggs and posed for a while this evening. The next morning it was all gone.
I went out early to see how the web did and there was nothing, so I have to assume the little guys hatched and left. The web could have existed for a couple of days or been destroyed overnight. It was watering night, but no water goes as high as the eggs were laid.

My kids call them Bambis

In The Woodlands, my children call a Texas White Tailed Deer "Bambi". "Look, Bambi's". They are not little children; they are teenagers. But it tells us the special place deer have in our society and hearts. Walt Disney made sure of that! This morning, I went to photograph a park. On the way, one doe ran across Lake Woodlands Drive. It was not so early, so I was not expecting that at 7:30AM! That woke me up. The doe disappeared quickly into the forest.

After photographing a park, I started home. On crossing the Bear Branch Creek bridge on Research Forest Drive, I spotted a beautiful buck down on the creek along with several does. Since I had the camera on this outing, with all the necessary gear, I decided to park and walk back to the creek. On doing so, as soon as I could see the area below the bridge the buck also spotted me. He ran; I hit the shutter button. Then he paused for a second, as if to satisfy a curiosity. "What was that noise?" I clicked again. He ran again. So you have the story behind these two photographs. I rarely have my cameras with me on these occasions, but this time yes!
When I used to take my daughter to the Woodlands High School, we would see deer grazing, usually on foggy mornings. Last night, we had a full moon early. I suspect that the deer wanted to feed late in the morning because it turned dark fairly early as well. Notice the ribs showing on this beautiful creature. The drought has been tough on their lives, but there is plenty of grass. Water may not be so abundant however. I noticed a few weeks ago that water was indeed much less abundant than in the past when I was on the creek. My brother, a hunter, tells me that a rack like this indicates a healthy deer. Perhaps there is a lack of protein due to the green grass it is eating. Bambi is alive and well here in The Woodlands.

Meet the Queen (of the backyard)

This may be a little bird, but it is a terror when it comes to another Hummingbird or other birds who threaten its habitat. I call her "Queen of Sheba" or "Queen" for short. If we are watching TV in the den, sometimes we see this little lady in the window, like a helicopter watching some drama on the freeway. She is soaking up what she sees. There is no telling what is going on in her pea-size mind. She is curious what is happening inside the house. If I have my camera at the window, she will investigate what it is. If the scenery around the place changes, such as putting the BBQ pit near the feeder, she wants to know what it is. She will also investigate when she has no feeder outside to look inside to see if she can spot her feeder. I sometimes wonder if she knows that we are the providers of the free meals. It really does appear that she knows. Each person in the family has at one time or another said something to the effect, "I don't believe that bird is at the window! Why?". Hummingbirds have some sort of intelligence that other birds do not normally exhibit. ¹They are also exceptionally territorial and inquisitive.
One evening Miss Queen was off on an outing. Actually, I think she was tending to her brood. In came Mr Wannabe. He took over the territory. In the side yard, he swooped down to the feeder, took a good long drink and went back up to a twig twig to perch and guard his new territory. Sure I said. I gotta see this! He returned to the feeder several times. In 30 minutes, here came Miss Queen. He took off without a challenge. She is a very tough cookie!
I often will spend a few minutes observing behavior when I see one close to the house. We have three, but only one has dubs on the territory - Miss Queen! A male will visit a feeder on the side of the house. I call him Miss Wannabe (sorry buddy). Another female shows up there also. Depending on what Miss Queen is doing at the time, the other two get run out of Dodge. They are not welcome if detected. She just sits on a perch sometimes and watches for them, then like a speeding bullet, there are flashes of light as the unwelcome guests are on the run.

But this goes further. Ask the sparrow. He will tell you she is "h..." on wings! How would you feel is this little thing was aiming her sharp and long mouth at you and flying what seemed to be the speed of light! How much damage can that mouth cause? People have found the bird with its bill stuck in wood! I see a lance being used as a weapon. Well, the poor sparrow which is some 10 times larger then the Hummingbird kept being hit with the bill. It was not comfortable and you see its just finally giving up and saying, "you can have it". What a nuisance in a yard full of birds! Miss Queen owns that section of the yard completely. No one is welcome there but her.

Thank you Miss Queen of Sheba and Mr Wannabe. You create hours of backyard entertainment and you are much smarter than I would have ever thought! I wonder what is in that little head of yours.

References

¹Might Smart for a Pea Brain

Barn and Cliff Swallows

Have you been startled by birds as you walked beside a bridge in Texas? Sometimes it seems like bats coming out of a cave when you approach these little birds nesting under a bridge. Each year, we have Barn Swallows right here in The Woodlands, under the bridge over Lake Woodlands on lake Woodlands Dr. We also have Cliff Swallows under the Kuykendahl bridge over Bear Creek (at the reservoir dam). These are Barn Swallows.
I have observed and photographed them the last two years, so I am going to share a few photographs. They are not easy to photograph and I did a rather poor job, but here they are anyway. You have to follow them in your lens at the same speed they are moving and that is a big challenge when the creature seems to move at the speed of light! They rarely give you a chance to think about what you are doing. Cliff Swallows and Barn Swallows will share a bridge and nest about April or May. I have seen them when fishing and on a photograph session one day late this Spring. Both species are also easy to spot in some areas along SH 290 on the way to Austin, but I believe what I saw there were mostly Cliff Swallows. I saw a large group of them flying near a pond. Both species like to be near water, typically flying and catching bugs over the water. Another reason they nest near the water is that they use mud to build their nests.

This intricate mud nest at the bridge on Lake Woodlands was too high for me to see the chicks inside. The parents were flying in and out quickly. Bridges are ideal for nesting purposes because of the rain and heat protection they provide.

Fire Flickers in the forest

In the forest of The Woodlands, on any given night when there is rain, one may see the fire in the sky flickering through the tall pines. The fiery bolts dance about in the wind high above our heads, somehow connected to the natural setting about us.

As we turn on our hearing senses, we become aware of the frogs singing out for rain. Meanwhile, we contemplate when we will ever see the rain again. This has been a hot dry summer. An evening with the threat of rain is appreciated.

A show like this in the evening makes rain concerns all go away. Roll of thunder, flickering fire lights, wisps of wind and the singing of frogs.

What more can one ask for on a summer night in the forest?

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker at Jesse Jones State Forest

Do you know we have a true living forest next to The Woodlands, Texas? There are 43 counties containing parts of the East Texas forest system. The significance of this conservation next to us is quite important. When entering the forest, you will recognize a vast difference between going into the managed logging forests such as The Woodlands and this managed forest.You generally won't find the same along Spring Creek either, because much of it was part of the logging forests, or fires have been prevented and there are no clearings. In the logging forests, the short needle pines were planted in place of the native Long Leaf pines. Those pines are faster growing and produce more wood, giving investors a higher return on their investments. We do find the Long Leaf Pine in some places, but the predominate species in our area now is the Loblolly Pine.

The Long Leaf Pine is more susceptible to disease than its brother the Loblolly. Jesse Jones National Forest is populated with the Long Leaf. The forest is "fire maintained". That is, the density of the forest is controlled with planned clearings to enable the sun to reach the ground, a necessary condition to maintain the natural native ecology. Various species of creatures depend on the natural ecology and native plants which thrive within the boundaries of this forest. It is believed that there were many frequent fires in the forests which continuously reconstructed the ecology that is now maintained through a forest management process within Jesse Jones.

One such creature is the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker (RCW). It is one of eight native species of woodpeckers in our East Texas forests. It shares its habitat with the Red-Headed Woodpecker and other woodpeckers we see right here in The Woodlands. It is unlikely but possible to see the RCW in The Woodlands, since Jesse Jones Forest is so close. The bird is found on private lands and in some areas along Spring Creek. However, there are no places for the bird to nest here. Each year, there is a formal national bird count conducted in December to watch and mitigate extinction. It's range in Texas was the entire East Texas forest system. Today, only 13 counties report significant sightings of nests; 15 counties no longer have the birds at all. This woodpecker is found and protected in several southeastern states. Some 6500 birds survive the wild today.

This woodpecker species is on the endangered list. In past centuries, it inhabited all the East Texas forest. Then, forest consisted primarily of Long Leaf pines, with an understory of grass on the forest floor. There were not many hardwoods in the forest, primarily due to frequent fires. RCW (Red-Cockaded Woodpecker) requires a mature pine tree with a disease that comes in that maturity. It does not nest near a hardwood. The disease is "red heart disease, a fungal infection that causes the core of the tree to rot. In Longleaf pines, trees do not begin to suffer from red-heart fungus until their age averages 80 - 120 years old. Once a suitable, mature tree is found, it generally takes an RCW 1-3 years to construct a cavity. Generally these birds will excavate groups of cavity trees in an area (called a cluster)."¹ The disease softens the core, enabling the bird to carve out a cavity for its nest.

This photograph was taken of a nesting tree in Jesse JOnes Forest right after a family of the birds fledged from the nest in 2009. This Longleaf at this location is found among several of one cluster in the park. Note the holes about 30 - 35 feet high on the tree. Only one of the holes was the nest of a family this season. All of the baby birds have left the nests but will be building new ones for next year. Sap produced by the tree is released by the excavation of the cavity and said to be a natural barrier to the birds' enemies. If a hardwood is nearby, there is danger of a Rat Snake climbing up into the nest, discouraging parents from raising a family in the tree.

So we see a little bird with a specific ecological need, being protected in Jesse Jones Forest, right next door. Hopefully I will acquire a photo of this shy little bird in the near future and expand on this subject.

References

¹ The Long Leaf Alliance, "A Family of Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers Makes a Home in a Mature Longleaf Pine Tree",