Diario de littlenickles

I'm trying out this journal post thing...

I wish I had a better chance to get photographs of the amazing things I saw in Castell this past weekend. We spent 4 days in the Llano river and saw a lot...I just didn't always have my camera/iphone with me (you know, IN the water).

I'm trying to learn at least a handful of the more common damselflies I see in Central Texas. I know a few but there are 76 in the state! I saw at least 6 different "blue dancers" (what I used to refer to ALL blue damselflies as) but only snapped a close enough shot of one for identification. There were lots of what looked like pondhawk dragonflies and possibly a few clubtails. Oddly enough, they never landed anywhere near us so I couldn't get a good look.

And snakes. Boy did we see snakes. The first one was surely a cottonmouth since it was in the water with me. If I'm in a position I feel vulnerable, it must be venomous. Honestly, I didn't get anywhere near a close enough look to see. It was the right size, but easily could have been a nerodia. Shortly after, I was walking on the shore near tall Johnson grass when a rough greensnake "jumped" out and slithered across my foot. That took a few years off my life. :P The next day my 7 yr old LITERALLY stepped on a snake. My brother was in charge of the kids at the time and from his description, I'm thinking it was a plain belly water snake. Mostly dark, not a lot of markings but with a yellow belly. And then we saw two Texas rat snakes crossing the road.

There were also spotted bass, some neat blue fish, white-tailed deer, red-winged blackbirds, inca doves, swallows (moving way too fast to truly identify, diving down to the water), multiple types of ants, lizards, lizards, lizards. Always darting away too fast with the noisy kids in tow.

We are headed to Inks Lake next week. I'll be on the look out for great observations!