Sycamores in winter woods

Don’t you love the way the white bark of sycamore trees, Platanus occidentalis, brightens our winter woods?

This picture is from February 11, 2007, in northwest Austin. In the years since then, the foreground vegetation has gotten a lot taller and now largely blocks this view of the sycamores.

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Although I’m away from home, you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m late in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Huisache tree and low wispy cloud

On February 19, 2013, at the intersection of Shoal Creek Blvd. and Foster Ln. in north-central Austin I photographed an overhanging part of a flowering huisache tree (Acacia farnesiana) with a wispy cloud low on the horizon beyond it. I used flash to lighten the underside of the huisache that otherwise would have been too dark in comparison to the much brighter sky.

If you’d like a close view of the flowers of this very tree, though from 2012, I invite you to have a look. It’s worth it, honest, and there’s more information about huisaches there as well.

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I’m away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Black willow leaves curling

From February 7, 2007, here’s a close and abstract look at two curling leaves of a black willow, Salix nigra. I don’t know what caused all those the dark spots.

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I’m away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Cedar waxwings and possumhaws

February 15 of 2010 was a good photographic day for me. I’d gone behind an office building on Capital of Texas Highway where I knew some possumhaw trees, Ilex decidua, were covered with small red fruits (technically called drupes). Once I got to the trees, though, my goal of photographing them in their own right quickly gave way to a new one, namely to photograph the cedar waxwings, Bombycilla cedrorum, that had also discovered the possumhaws and were feasting on the many fruits.

Birds often make for difficult subjects because they move so quickly, and that was the case here. Although I did manage to get some pictures in which a cedar waxwing came out sharp and was even caught open-mouthed right in the act of swallowing a drupe (yay me!), I’ve made a considered editorial decision—which is to say I’ve done what I feel like doing—to show you a photograph in which one of the birds was moving so fast that parts of it came out a little blurred. Still, I like the way the fluttering of the wing at the right and the lunging of the bird’s head suggest the rapid movement involved in snatching one of the drupes from a twig.

When I went back the next day, by the way, the possumhaws had been stripped bare of all their fruit.

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I’m away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Definitely in the Euphorbiaceae

The Euphorbiaceae, or spurge family, is a huge one. The genus Euphorbia alone includes over 2,000 species, several hundred of which are often now split off into the genus Chamaesyce. That may be where this little plant belongs but I’m not sure. There are lots of these low-growing, inconspicuous little spurges in central Texas, and I haven’t learned to tell them apart. To give you a sense of scale, let me add that each of the small fruits you see here is no more than half a centimeter (a fifth of an inch) across

Today’s picture comes from February 9, 2012, at the intersection of York Blvd. and Stonelake Blvd. in northwest Austin.

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I’m antipodally away from home (loosely speaking). You’re welcome to leave comments, podal or antipodal, but please understand if I’m late in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Redbud and greenbrier

By February 13th of 2013 some redbud trees, Cercis canadensis, were already beginning to flower in Austin. This one made quite a contrast with the tangled greenbrier vine, Smilax bona-nox, beneath it.

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I’m away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

A piscine prickly pear

From February 21, 2004, at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, how about this prickly pear pad that looked to me like a flounder?

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I’m still a long way from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Sinuous anemone

Here’s a moody and abstract view of a sinuous anemone, Anemone berlandieri, from February 17, 2010, along Stonelake Blvd. in northwest Austin.

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I’m away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Particularly pretty possumhaw

I could show you (and have shown you as recently as January 19) close views of the dense clusters of little red drupes produced by a native tree called possumhaw, Ilex decidua. This view from farther back lets you see the beauty of a fruiting possumhaw in the landscape, namely some of the woods in Great Hills Park as they looked on February 5, 2013. To take this photograph I had to gingerly work my way down the bed of a flowing creek to get close enough for a good (but still wide-angle) view.

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I’m away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Blue curls buds

From February 9, 2012, at the intersection of York Blvd. and Stonelake Blvd., here are some blue curls buds, Phacelia congesta, beginning to open. If you’d like to see what the flowers look like when they emerge, you can check out a post from a week later.

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I’m far away from home. You’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if I’m slow in responding.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman