Return to theYturria Tract

Hello, everyone.

As y'all know, we've begun our walking training. On Monday we drove over to the Yturria tract again. The previous time we had been there, it had recently rained. The main trail/road into the area was swamped pretty close to the front. We hadn't brought wading boots that day, so we headed for home. On Monday the weather had been dry for a while.

Things at the west end of the county were really dry. And there were almost no butterflies.

One of the few butterflies. Notice how the leaves on his twig are all folded in against the wood. That's one of the native shrubs' drought adaptation at work.

 This cardinal was the only bird that was willing to hold still in the open. There were a lot of really skittish birds, though, hiding in tree foliage and shrubs while they ate berries. We couldn't figure out why they wouldn't hold still for the camera.


Maybe this guy was the reason.

I got this kite at a long distance, using every bit of zoom my camera would give. (Then I cropped out a bunch of empty sky so we could see the bird!)

When we got home, we studied the area a bit with Google Earth. It will probably repay another visit, as it turns out that we walked only about 1/2 of the distance toward the back of the tract. Once more, with feeling, right?