Roadrunner Day

The roadrunner, according to Wikipedia, is a fast-running ground cuckoo with a long tail and a crest. It is found in the southwestern United States and Mexico, usually in the desert. We saw one today on Texas Route 1431 east of Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. As it is with most roadrunners, our viewing lasted only a few brief seconds. In fact, by the time Smoky was out of the truck, the roadrunner was gone. But we saw it!

Our resident longhorns, who fondly nuzzled each other
just before Smoky took this photo.

We were roadrunners today, too, but at a more modest pace. After watching and photographing our resident longhorn steers and cows, we drove north on Highway 183 until it intersected with 29. We headed northwest past Bertram and Burnet. Not too far past Burnet we spotted a sign on the left labeling a small secondary road as a Texas Hill Country Trail. It also said the road went to Kingsland, and since that was our destination, we turned.

Lovely scene along the Texas Hill
Country Trail, Park Road 4W

Bluebonnets, Indian blanket, and Indian paintbrush
on Park Road 4W.

What a great choice that was. The wildflowers on this road were some of the best we've seen so far this trip. The beauty of the flowers was enhanced even more by the pull-offs along the roadside, some of the first we've found in the Hill Country. This road bordered on Inks Lake State Park, which likely is the reason we found pull-offs here where we haven't found many before. Most Texas land is privately owned, and we have been advised over and over not to trespass.

Indian blanket closeup.

Indian blankets are beautiful around this area right now.

I asked Smoky today how rural Texans manage to interact with their neighbors. These ranches are big, or really big, or huge, or mega huge. And most every one of them has a fence all around the property with a locked gate at the entrance. Oh well, enough complaining. Back to today, which was marvelous!

Spiderwort (tradescantia) caught in a sunbeam.

We both took lots of photographs; Smoky even ran the battery completely down on his camera. By the end of the day, we had found several "new" flowers (ones we had not seen this trip) and a zebra-tailed lizard (Callisaurus spp.) in Inks Lake State Park. I shot a short video of the lizard, but we'll have to wait for better wifi connection to add it to the blog.

Zebra-tailed lizard blends in with the
granite rock really well.

Here is Smoky's still photo of the zebra-tailed lizard. He can curl his tail up over his body, much like a scorpion.

On the way home we stopped at a Tex Mex restaurant for dinner. It wasn't as good as the last place, but we cleaned our plates anyway.

Black and white version of last night's
boat-tailed grackle.

Color version of last night's boat-
tailed grackle.

On the way back to the truck, the boat-tailed grackles were busy in the parking lot. Smoky got a great shot of a male. I like both the black and white and the color versions.

--Shann