San Bernard Wildlife Refuge

Walden West ~ December

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Walden West ~ November

My decision to visit the place I dubbed ‘Walden West’ each month in 2022 may be the first New Year’s resolution I’ve actually kept. In the beginning, I had few expectations and no plan; I only intended to visit on a monthly basis, recording whatever seemed interesting.

I certainly didn’t expect to find such variety in such a small spot; over the months, I learned far more than I could have imagined. From the names of unfamiliar plants to the intricacies of spider web construction, it seemed there was no end to the discoveries.

There were surprises, too. By early summer, the water in the vernal pool had evaporated. While I assumed it would fill again by fall or winter, it’s still quite dry. Thanks to recent rains, the hard earth has turned spongy and much plant life remains green, but as we make the turn into spring, the absence of water is perplexing. Clearly, additional visits to check the water level will be in order.

The biggest surprise of all was the sadness I felt as I approached the end of the project. I never expected to become attached to the spot, and yet I had: so much so that I briefly considered continuing the project for another year. In the end, I decided against that, but I did find myself appreciating in a new way some words from Joan Didion’s collection of essays titled The White Album:

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.

Here, then, are a few images from a place I claimed for myself over the course of a year: not re-making it, but appreciating it in a new way. 

While the pool remains dry, there is evidence of water here. If you compare this photo, taken in December, with the November photo above, you can see that the large log has been moved some distance. Not only that, all of the loose limbs and twigs shown in the second photo have been piled together. Perhaps the force of water running through the area during last month’s flooding rains was responsible.

Walden West ~ December
Branches swept along by water

The large log, whose patterns I explored in a previous month, had been rolled over, and decorated with a leaf.

Having sighted a raccoon in November, it made sense that fur would be added to the feathers occasionally found among the leaves.

As I wandered the area, changes wrought by falling temperatures, less light, and the natural progressions of the seasons became apparent. The pretty poison ivy triplet I’d admired in November had shriveled and become less attractive.

November poison ivy
The same poison ivy in December

Both the Climbing Hempvine and the cattail it climbed for so many weeks turned from bloom to seed, completing their cycle for the year.

Climbing Hempvine and cattail in August
The same hempvine and cattail in December

Poison ivy, still colorful in last February, declined quickly as fall approached, perhaps because of the droughty conditions.

Last year’s poison ivy, lingering in February
December’s poison ivy, nearly gone

None of the Yaupon or Possumhaw trees produced prolifically this year, but by December only a few berries lingered: thanks, perhaps, to hungry birds or other creatures.

November Possumhaw
The same branch in December

This small collection of Silverleaf Nightshade fruits had disappeared: perhaps at the hand of land managers who had done some trimming in the area.

Silverleaf Nightshade fruits in November

Where similar fruits remained, they had begun to shrivel and dry. Rarely eaten, they often can be found even as new flowers begin to form on the next year’s plants.

A December decline for the Nightshades

A short distance from Walden West, the ascendance of winter became even more obvious. Leafless trees, sere grasses, and silence marked a world grown fallow.

But here and there, buried life emerged. Wild onions lay scattered on the ground, the result of foraging by feral hogs or other creatures.

A trailing vine, perhaps the non-native Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) crossed through fallen leaves.

Possibly Japanese honeysuckle

And during my last, New Year’s Day visit to Walden West, a cluster of Violet Wood Sorrel bloomed near the edge of the path leading to the clearing.

No doubt Thoreau was right when he wrote, “No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.” But if the pretty wood sorrels weren’t the first sign of spring, they surely were a sign: a fitting reminder that, even as my human project ended, Nature’s projects continue on.

Violet woodsorrel ~ Oxalis violacea

Comments always are welcome.
For an overview of my Walden West year, please click here.

Walden West ~ November

~ shoreacres ~ 63 Comments

By mid-to-late November, Walden West remained dry, and the butterflies that provided so much delight during October’s visit were gone: vanished as completely as the spiders that  preceded them in leave-taking. In their wake, a few flowers lingered, as well as a pretty mushroom that signaled our recent rains.

Blue Mistflower can spread aggressively, and large colonies of the plant exist within the San Bernard refuge; perhaps those plants had sent their seed to the edge of Walden West.  Closely related to white-flowered bonesets (Eupatorium spp.), mistflower can be distinguished by its colorful flowers, relatively short stature, and broad, heavily veined leaves. Like bonesets, its flowerheads contain only disk florets.

Blue mistflower ~ Conoclinium coelestinum

With eleven species of aster listed for our coastal counties, and even more for Texas as a whole, identification can pose a challenge. These belong to the genus Symphyotrichum, and probably are dumosum: the pretty ‘rice button,’ or bushy aster.

Rice Button Aster ~ Symphyotrichum dumosum

If rains come, can fungi be far behind? Despite a lack of standing water, the soft and sometimes muddy ground gave rise to this pretty pleated mushroom.

Possibly a brittlestem mushroom ~ a member of the Coprinaceae

Despite the delicate lavenders and whites displayed by fungi and flowers, Walden West’s November displayed a subtle golden glow: an unexpected wash of autumn color.

Poison ivy ~ Toxicodendron radicans
Goldenrod ~ Solidago altissima,with paper wasp
Hairy cowpea ~ Vigna luteola, with friend

By November, fruits were as common as flowers. The pretty Silverleaf Nightshade, a member of the same family as tomatoes (Solanaceae) produces fruits that resemble cherry tomatoes in shape, if not in color.

Silverleaf nightshade fruit

The berries of Possumhaw, a native holly, shine against the golden glow of Winged Elm leaves. Possumhaw is deciduous, and the loss of its leaves in autumn makes the berry-and-stem combination even more striking.

Possumhaw ~ Ilex decidua

A golden-leaved Honey Locust (Gleditsia spp.) caught my attention, but left me puzzled. Every characteristic of the tree, from leaves to bark, seemed typical of Honey Locusts, but the tree lacked thorns: a feature of the tree often described as “particularly nasty.”

In time, I learned that a natural hybrid between Gleditsia triacanthos and G. aquatica exists. First recorded in Brazoria County bottomlands in 1892, the tree was introduced to cultivation in 1900; the BONAP map shows the limits of its distribution. While its foliage is similar to G. triacanthos, the Honey Locust known as Gleditsia x Texana has no thorns.

Last February, I found a single leaf of a Winged Elm clinging to its branch.

This November, the full glory of the Winged Elms was impressive. Their golden leaves, draped with Spanish moss and glittering in the sunlight, seemed a fitting end to this penultimate visit to Walden West.

 

In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and head-lands.
If we go beyond our usual course, we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.
                              Walden: or a Life in the Woods ~ Henry David Thoreau

Comments always are welcome.

Walden West ~ October Flora

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In October, Walden West’s vernal pool looked almost exactly as it had in September. A few more leaves had fallen from the trees, and most of the surrounding growth showed insect damage, but no visible water had collected.

On the other hand, my feet could feel what remained invisible to my eyes. Enough rain had fallen that the ground had grown soft if not spongy, and the pleasant scent of rotting leaves hung in the air. An assortment of logs showed the effects of weathering, including the intricate patterns etched into this large log lying in the middle of the dry pool.

Deeper in the woods surrounding the pool, a different log displayed hard, brittle chunks where the wood had fractured and broken. This type of decomposition results when mycelial networks digest cellulose, leaving the wood’s lignin intact.

One of the oddest sights I encountered suggested that someone armed with a can of spray paint had been at work. Given the log’s location away from a trail, the absence of any other signs of human presence, and the perfectly even, glowing color that didn’t rub off, some sort of fungus seems the most likely explanation. If a graffitti artist with a quirky sense of humor had been at work, that artist deserves kudos for both patience and skill, since the ground on which the log lay and the surrounding vegetation showed no signs of color.

Other changes had taken place. A single orchard orb weaver (Leucauge venusta) lingered in the branches of a yaupon tree, but the huge webs of orb-weavers like Argiope aurantia no longer shimmered across every opening, and those large, dramatically patterned spiders seemed to have disappeared.

Many flowers I’d grown accustomed to seeing were gone as well, in part because of significant clearing done by refuge staff. Here, climbing hempvine continued to climb, despite losing some of its support.

The most brilliant color belonged to this standout in the midst of a patch of blooming dayflowers (Commelina erecta). The flowers are highly variable in color; this was the most deeply saturated blue I’ve encountered.

Perhaps encouraged by rain, a saltmarsh mallow (Kosteletzkya virginica) had put on a new bud.

Some distance away, another saltmarsh mallow, having bloomed, slowly faded away.

The pretty red Turk’s caps had nearly stopped blooming, but some fruits still were available. Many of their leaves, covered with small grasshoppers, showed signs of nibbling, but the fruits remained undamaged.

A few stems of Gulf vervain (Verbena xutha) lingered at the sun-dappled edge of the woods. The tallest I’d seen, I assumed their height was due to a stretch toward sunlight, but according to Eason’s Wildflowers of Texas, they can grow to a height of six feet.

A common sight in our area, the hairypod cowpea (Vigna luteola) is the only native Vigna species in Texas. Depending on conditions, it can bloom nearly year-round; here, an early-opening flower is decorated with dew.

It’s said that nature leaves clues, but in the case of this Osage orange (Maclura pomifera), one clue wasn’t enough for me to solve the mystery of its appearance. Also known as Bois d’Arc or hedge apple, the trees usually produce a number of fruits, and yet only one lay on the ground. When a search of the area turned up not a single tree bearing Osage oranges, it seemed reasonable to assume that some creature — human or otherwise — picked it up elsewhere and dropped it at Walden West.

Speaking of creatures, I’ve split this October visit into two parts because of the wealth of creatures I encountered. The next post will show some of them, including my first encounter with a mammal.

 

Comments always are welcome.

March-ing With Emily

~ shoreacres ~ 66 Comments

One of our most well-known American poets, Emily Dickinson, also dedicated herself to the extensive gardens she tended alongside her mother and sister Lavinia.

A serious student of botany, the creator of an extensive herbarium, and an enthusiastic propagator of plants, Dickinson necessarily became attuned to the weather, the changing seasons, and the innumerable pollinators that frequented her plants; observations about her roses, lilacs, peonies, daisies, foxgloves, and zinnias fill her poems.

She also lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, where winter tends to linger; her longing for the transition from snow to spring blooms sometimes is palpable. Her poetic celebration of the changes wrought by March’s arrival pairs wonderfully well with this assortment of photos from my wanderings on the weekend of March 19-20 .

DEAR March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat—
You must have walked—
How out of breath you are!
Baby Blue Eyes ~ Nemophila phacelioides
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!
Pink Evening Primrose ~ Oenothera speciosa
I got your letter, and the bird’s;
The maples never knew
That you were coming,—I declare,
How red their faces grew!
Indian Paintbrush and Butterweed ~ Castilleja indivisa, Packera glabella
But, March, forgive me—
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.
Downy Phlox ~ Phlox pilosa
Who knocks? That April!
Lock the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
Texas Dandelion ~ Pyrrhopappus pauciflorus
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear as praise
And praise as mere as blame.

 

Comments always are welcome.