Josey Ranch – August 2025

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While I was in Dallas in August, I made an early trip to the pocket prairie and lake at Josey Ranch in Carrollton – a place I visited frequently before we moved my parents to assisted living in January 2024.

There didn’t seem to be very many birds around, so I started my visit at the pocket prairie. The trash cans looked freshly painted, and the gardens looked like they had been recently weeded (piles of vegetation waiting to be picked up). Some of the flowers had gone to seed but that is normal for August. There were marshmallows that were surviving in the rain garden area. The sunflowers dominate but I was glad to see Texas rock rose among the plantings.

I went back to look at the lake and realized that there were not many grackles (I heard several…only saw one)…pigeons were about as numerous as always…only two ducks and one was a white domestic duck. The only birds I saw in the pond were one great egret and one snowy egret. The two swans were still there. Evidently there were a lot of geese there recently judging from the goose poop on the sidewalks. It was depressing that there weren’t more birds around and I wondered what happened.

I noticed more trash in the water – a foam cup, plastic bags, and sheen on the water near the shore. Is there more pollution in the pond now? I saw one turtle snout from a distance. Overall, the pond does not look as healthy as it was a few years ago. I took a few pictures of feathers in the grass.

As I walked to the plantings between the library and senior center, I noticed a tree that was planted in memory of someone. It was about 6 feet from the sidewalk….a Bur Oak! I was surprised that it was planted so close to the sidewalk…maybe the climate in Texas will cause it to not get as big as Bur Oaks usually grow.

I looked for the beautyberry that seemed to thrive previously in that area, but they were gone. One of the new plants was a rock rose. The morning was warming up but I didn’t see many insects.

It was a little depressing that the wildlife that used to be around the area seems to be reduced. Maybe I was there at an odd time….I’ll try to look again later this year when the birds that typically winter in Texas might be around.

Lake Springfield with Identifying Woody Plants Class

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This past week the field class I am taking through Missouri State University added new woody plants to our list from a walk near the  Lake Springfield boathouse. I tried to take pictures of most of the new woody plants for this week…and a few from previous weeks:

Marshmallow – Hibiscus – Malvaceae (seed pods)

Green ash – Fraxinus pennsylvanica – Oleaceae (leaves and diamond shapes in the bark)

Black willow – Salix nigra – Salicaceae (leaves/twig)

Osage orange - Maclura pomifera – Moraceae (fruit…and I now have a fruit I am attempting to dry)

Honey locust - Gledistia tricanthos – Fabaceae (tree with drying seed pods)

Privet (non-native) - Ligustrum – Oleaceae (leave with blue fruit)

American hophornbeam – Ostrya virginiana – Betulaceae (leaves with thin, strong twigs)

Post oak – Quercus stellata – Fagaceae (rounded lobed leaves)

Bur oak - Quercus macrocarpa – Fagaceae (leaves…in the red oak group…I also picked up an acorn!)

It was an interesting afternoon…but I was tired afterward.

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center - Part II

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Continuing about my day at SERC last Friday…

I got to SERC early enough that I walked around a small pond and took my first pictures of marshmallows.

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There were more of them in the marsh near the boardwalk as we made our way out to Hog Island. They were – by far – the biggest flowers of the area.

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A tiny flower that I photographed along the trail from very close up was a mint. I was careful to look for poison ivy and plants with thorns before I positioned myself to take the picture.

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And then there were trees…trees with lichen…a canopy of green…a pathway lined with green.

There are ongoing studies that make exact measurements of tree trunks over time. Metal bands are used; they expand as the tree grows and the amount they have expanded is measured.

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There were trees with holes in their trunks. The rows of holes are probably made by a bird – a yellow-bellied sapsucker. I remembered seeing a similar tree during my last hike at Belmont and being thrilled that the campers already knew the bird that made the holes!

There are young paw paw trees in the forest and I realized that I had seen these at Belmont as well. I know the tree from its bark but not is leaves!

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There was a standing dead tree that had the thickest collection of shelf fungus I’ve ever seen.

A sickly dogwood had more colorful bark that I am used to seeing on a dogwood.

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As we got back to the cluster of buildings – on the road by the geothermal well area – there were some sycamores – with a few skeletonized leaves…something was eating them…and the last flower of the day:

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Some black eyed susans.

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After the hike, we had lunch followed by a lecture about orchids. The North American Orchid Conservation Center is based at SERC and there are 9 native orchids that have been found there! We saw one on the earlier hike (the cranefly orchid) – unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture of it. The website for the organization - https://northamericanorchidcenter.org/ - is full of get information about native orchids and there is a colelction of orchid-gami printables if you want to make paper models of orchids!