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The lower mandible of the beak isn't completely black. I don't know if this is a sign of a young bird or something else? This bird essentially walked right up to me while I was watching grebes.
Brazos Bend State Park in SE Texas. October 2016
This great blue heron appears to have an eel in its beak. It's actually a western lesser siren, an amphibian that looks like an eel but has two small legs on the front of its body, just behind the gills.
www.wildlifedepartment.com/wildlife/nongamespecies/amphib...
Black swallowtail butterfly satisfies its craving for nectar from a horsemint blossom beside the nature center at Brazos Bend State Park
This was taken in Jan of 2006 from near the observation tower at Brazos Bend State Park near Houston Texas. The quality is not that good. It was dark and I stacked converters. Hopefully interesting nonetheless.
Shelf fungus growing on a downed tree limb beside the trail around Creekfield Lake in Brazos Bend State Park
A limpkin looks for snails and other mollusks at the edge of Elm Lake in Brazos Bend State Park. Limpkins had not been observed in Texas before 2022, but Texas now has an infestation of apple snails, and the birds arrived from Florida to help deal with them.
I was watching a bird when I saw this guy approaching from the distance. He kept marching closer so I made a few images.
Hale Lake is popular for fishing at Brazos Bend State Park, largely because of a large fishing pier on the north end of the lake. The pier was partially demolished by a flood in the nearby Brazos River a few years ago and was only recently rebuilt.
The cottonmouth (a.k.a. water moccasin) is a pit viper, i.e., a venomous snake. In five years of volunteering at Brazos Bend State Park, I've never seen one beside a park hiking trail. Today I saw two.
A comment (see below) pointed out that I misidentified this snake. It is a Mississippi green water snake, not a cottonmouth. So, as of the first of May, 2017, I have yet to see a cottonmouth on a trail at Brazos Bend. That doesn't bother me a bit.
This was the closest one of these birds got to me (branch above). I moved the camera to follow him as he flew, but reacted a little slow to keep him in the frame.
While walking the Spillway Trail in Brazos Bend State Park, I saw this alligator walking from Pilant Lake on the right to Pilant Slough on the left. I stopped to watch, but it saw me and decided to hunker down in the grass instead. It must have decided it had found a good place, because it didn't move on after I passed.
The woody knobs visible here are called cypress knees and are part of the root system of the bald cypress tree. Nobody knows exactly what they do, but among the hypotheses offered for them are that they help anchor the tree in soft, muddy ground and/or aerate the root system. They may also catch sediment and help reduce erosion.
Checked it out again today. The warm sun brought the mother and young onto the bank.
Brazos Bend State Park
SE Texas
Location in Park: www.flickr.com/groups/brazos_bend/discuss/72157628702575615/
Female wood duck swimming (or wading) across what's left of 40 Acre Lake in Brazos Bend State Park
For years I've been told that wood ducks existed in this park, and this is the first one I've seen for myself. At this location, she should be swimming in about 3-4 feet (1+ m) of water, but the summer of 2023 has been so hot and dry, the entire lake has almost completely dried up.