Texas Flora and Fauna

After a very long and busy weekend working on household projects such as hanging pictures, painting bathrooms, multiple trips to Lowes, and performing painful yard work, I treated my achy feet and sweet pooch to a nice, long walk. Last week I discovered the most wonderful little path that begins next to my house and goes all the way to the town square maybe 2 or so miles from my house.

You would think that a walk after two full days of strenuous work would be the last thing I wanted to do, but I took a few pictures of tonight's walk to show you all why such an idea is so appealing. The first picture is the view you get as you first embark on the most amazing journey. You walk right out of town into the "woods." You are instantly cut off from all sounds of traffic, and instead you hear little lizards and bunnies skittering around in the bushes.

The first wildlife we spotted on our walk was a bright red cardinal. I took a picture of him, but it didn't turn out well at all, and he flew off after his first Kodak moment.

I couldn't help but stop and take a sweet little picture of Mags as she tries to figure out what is rustling in the bushes nearby.

We continued our walk down the path lit by the sun as it was quickly setting beyond the horizon. We were encased by the twitterings and chirps of birds.

The next wildlife we came upon was a small herd of geese. These birds are apparently not afraid of humans at all because they paused and checked us out as we took their picture. Maggie sat quietly by my side.

Next up on our nature walk was a mom Mallard duck and her three little chicks. You'll have to excuse the fuzziness of the picture. All of these were taken with my phone camera and its limited capabilities.

This little shot is one of my most favorite parts of the walk. For some reason it makes me think of the movie "Wizard of OZ."

As we exited the "OZ" field, we came across two little bunnies. One of them was kind enough to hold the classic "chocolate bunny" pose before he bounded off on his merry way.

We weren't fortunate enough to get any pictures of the other wildlife we passed because the family of turtles we found blended too well into the water for my phone camera, and then there was a herein, but he was flying high overhead when we saw him.

We do get nightly and daily visits from lizards at our house though. One of my favorites is this little guy.

He suns on our window ledge almost daily and loves to pose for the camera. He and I will sit for minutes on end taking each other in every time I spot him on his ledge. He never runs away when he sees me, but turns his head and looks right at me. We also see the occasional gecko crawling around eating flys on our screens at night.

I will never get tired of the wildlife that is so abundant and so close to my new home. It makes me want to go out and walk every day just to see what new animal I will discover.