Today (Wednesday, April 5) was our last full day in the Austin area. We wanted to explore a little of the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, so we took a couple of their shorter hikes. This was a nice change from previous days.
Balcones is home to the endangered golden-cheeked warbler, which we hoped to see today. We heard several bird songs which could have been the warbler and caught glimpses of birds in the woods, but only the birds know their identity!
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| Blue curls (Phacilia congestaI |
In spite of slim pickings in the bird department, we saw a lot of wildflowers, including several surprises. One looked very much like the purple fringed phacelia back in the Smokies. We discovered it is called Blue curls (
Phacilia congesta) here.
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Lovely tall flower which we now
know is blue-eyed grass. |
We also saw some blue-eyed grass that looked exceedingly tall. We thought it was blue-eyed grass and then we changed our minds. Next, we thought it was Prairie Pleatleaf from the Iris family, which would explain why it was so tall! After further research, now Smoky says it must be blue-eyed grass after all!
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"Olive" Juniper Hairstreak (Callophrys
gryneus gryneus) on a White Milkwort
(Polygala alba). |
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| Skipper butterfly on phlox. |
Smoky also had a great time photographing some tiny butterflies, smaller than my thumbnail. The colors on them was spectacular. It is truly amazing how much detail you can see when you examine the macro photographs of these beauties.
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This unknown damsel species caught our eye
at Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, TX. |
We are a little sad to be leaving Texas but, as grateful as we are for this opportunity, we look forward to being home again. We have lots of memories to store away. It will be fun to relive those as we look back through Smoky's photographs.
My plan is to post a few more blog entries about this trip, perhaps summarizing our experience and sharing some additional photos. Thanks for following along with us.
--Shann
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