Jeremy's Birds (and More)

Short-horned Lizard.  The kids saw and caught this horned toad.  It was so small! Red-naped Sapsucker.  First time I had seen this bird.  It's a male.  On the female the red doesn't cover the entire neck. House Wren.  Have seen lots of there, but this is probably my best pic.

Shrubby Cinqfoil Am. Bisort Low Larkspur (aka showy larkspur) Skyrocket Silky Phacelia Sulpher Paintbrush Rocky Mt. Phlox Indian Paintbrush. I find this incredibly interesting. The only time I've seen a bi-colored paintbrush. Wasatch Penstemon

White Columbine Long-leaf Phlox Blue-eyed Grass Bitterroot These last two I haven't identified yet. The last one was all along the road up to the camping place.

Banded Garden Spider Saw this while going to church one Sunday morning in September. It is quite big, but harmless.

4 Peaks in 4 Days: Day 3 - Mt. Sunflower, KS There wasn't much around this "peak" except for certain varieties of Bos primigenius , but I posted this to round out the trip. Day 4 was spent driving back home so I don't have any photos from that day. We did see this,  Black Swallowtail Butterfly , at Robbie's house where we crashed at the end of Day 3.  One of her kids had captured it in a Mason jar, which gives this photos its unique look.

4 Peaks in 4 Days: Day 3 - Black Mesa, OK This doesn't show the "peak," but, then again, there really wasn't one. It does show what the area generally looked like. We esentially hiked to the top of the bluff on the left to the highpoint. Plains Lubber ( Brachystola magna) . The biggest grasshopper I've ever seen in my life. It was early in the morning so it wasn't moving very well and I was able to get it up on my hiking staff. The photo doesn't do justice to how big this was for a grasshopper. Texas Horned Lizard . This reminds me a bit of Stich from Lilo and Stich for some reason.

Birds Lark Sparrow .   Horned Lark Western Kingbird

Wildflowers Bush Morning Glory ( Ipomoea leptophylla ) . This is in the morning glory family, but does not grow on a vine Whitemouth dayflower ( Commelina erecta )  aka Widow's tears, Day flower. One of the coolest flowers I think I've ever seen. I really like the distinctive two blue petals, once white. Bractless Blazingstar ( Mentzelia nuda ) . Unknown Sunflower/Aster . Yellow flowers of this type are probably the hardest for me to identify just due to the sheer number of similar looking plants. If you have any ideas let me know

Cacti and Yucca Soapweed Yucca ( Yucca glauca ) . The branches at the top of the stem is very rare to find, usually it is just a strait stem with a cluster of pods. Tree Cholla ( Opuntia imbricata ) . More tree cholla, I included this shot for the very cool spider web attached. 

4 Peaks in 4 Days: Day 2 - Carlsbad Cavern, NM Guadalupe Peak was just a few miles from the Carslbad Caverns so we decided to stop and check it out. The first photo is of the natural enterance and I posted one more as a representative sample of the caves. They were really quite cool. The night before we had stopped by to see the bats exit from the cave.  Although the Park wouldn't let us come as close as usual, we did see thousands of Brazilian or Mexican free-tail bats exit the cave. Silverleaf Nightshade ( Solanum elaeagnifolium ) aka Purple Nightshade. Desert Prickly-Pear ( Opuntia phaeacantha ) aka Brownspine pricklypear, Tulip pricklypear. Cave Swallow .  There were hundreds flying all around the natural entrance.  Given the millions of bats in the cave and the swallows, I'm surprised that there are any  insects anywhere near the cave.  Canyon Wren . Also near the natural entrance into the caverns.