26 April 2018 - More about Texas

I am sure many of you who travel in America have this same moment, when all of a sudden it becomes clear you are not in your home state. I had several of these. Sometimes it was seeing something I would never see at home, but often was the signage. 

On our first day in Texas, we were stopped on the side of a road looking at a bird when a bobcat stepped out of the woods, looked at us and unconcernedly crossed the road and disappeared into the underbrush. That was pretty cool. That same day I saw this lizard on a fence post. 

I'll tell you, all the memories of having anoles for pets (25 cents at the five and dime store) came rushing back.  Non sequitur: ever wonder why the keyboard doesn't have a cent sign anymore?

One day we were birding a wildlife refuge, walking on a creek embankment. First the sign:

Then the critter:

He was well hidden in the marsh below us. Gave us all a start. He was only about six feet long but that's when you really know you aren't in Kansas anymore. 

We ran into several iterations of the alligator sign. I liked this one. "Live alligators!"

Another evening just after dusk we were looking for nightjars such as nighthawks, chuck-wills-widows and pauraque, and we stumbled across a javalina. Not sure if it was a loner or part of a herd, we made a lot of noise back to our car. 

There were no signs warning us of possible peccary attacks, but this one at the beginning of a trail didn't seem to attract much notice at all. 

We spent a day at the King Ranch, the second largest ranch in America. While we were there looking for birds, we also learned a lot about the history of the ranch. There wasn't any signage, but the critters we encountered here were awful! Chiggers and ticks. We stuffed our pant legs into our socks, sprayed the union with deet. We still got bit. I'm here to tell you that those are nasty bites!  We brought home many bites as souvenirs. 

Later in our trip we ventured into places where there were big signs saying Hunters and Fisherman Beware! Fever tick eradication zone.  Oh boy. We didn't get any ticks in those spots, for which we were all grateful. 

I always enjoy seeing the lizards. 

We were tickled to find a Texas Tortoise--one of only six tortoises that are native to North America. 

Of all the signs, this was the most disappointing. In ten days we didn't see a single snake.

Texas signs also made me laugh. In  Utah, our signs announce BUMP. In Texas they do something else. 



 The beaches were lovely with fine white sand, and the rolling sand dunes were gorgeous. 

We followed the Rio Grande in our travels. In several places you could see across to Mexico. 

We passed through several Border Patrol stations as well. I found it hard to see this wall. It just seems wrong. 

Another odd to me thing was that Texas has imported two deer/antelope species from India for hunters. The King Ranch started importing Nilgai Antelope in the 1930s. Now many ranches have both Nilgai and Blackbuck for hunting. 

The Blackbuck antelope apparently is a sought after game animal. People like to hunt these from helicopters, which I don't find very sporting. Blackbucks have spiral twisting antlers which apparently look nice on a wall. Not for me! 

And insects. Can't forget them! Especially copulating damsel flies. 

I also stumbled across two interesting caterpillars, and as of now I haven't figured out what butterflies they will become.