Baby Mediterranean Gecko

This is the third baby Mediterranean Gecko we have caught in the house this week.  Did a short photoshoot with him.  He was my beer drinking buddy for the night.

Green Anoles mating

I came out of work August 3 to find these two Green Anole Lizards mating on the concrete.  They were so caught up in their act that I was able to snap a few photographs from only a few inches away before they scurried off into the bushes.  I have never witness these lizards mating.  I have seen males fighting over territory and mates but never the act of mating.  Too bad these were shot on a camera phone.

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Unusual spider

Found this spider on our fence in Double Oak Texas.  Ive never seen this species before.  I took some photographs of the little spider and then let it go.  The pattern on it's back is pretty unique.  I also came across a wolf spider, a yellow crabspider and some other unidentified spiders this weekend.  The yellow crabspider was one of the highlights of my photography this weekend.

Cricket frogs

I decided Friday and Saturday night I was going to go to Denton Creek and see what kind of animals I could find in the flood waters.  Friday night I went very unprepared, I was just scouting the place out.  I took a old spot light that only shines for about 4 minutes even at a full charge.  I pulled off and parked on the north side of the north bridge on 377.  I went down to the flood waters and started to hear and see frogs everywhere.  I spent about 15 minutes checking the place out before the light was gone and I left.

I wanted to go more prepared Saturday as I wanted to bring a few frogs back to photograph and hopefully find a snake or two.  I bought a good 400 lumen half spot light from Walmart that has an 8 hour battery life.  I also had some wader boots at home and a minnow net.  I was prepared this time.

I went out about 9:45 to the same spot.  I started wading through the water catch a frog here and there.  I ended up catching 4 cricket frogs, another unided frog that got away and a Texas Brown Snake.

I had only been there about 15 minutes.  I started to wonder why I hadn't seen any larger snakes.  I was quite confident this is the prime location  for water snakes.  About that time I spot a very large Cottommouth about 4 foot long climbing through the weeds a few feet from me.

These are some pictures I took of the Cricket Frogs.

Grapevine Lake May 2015 storms

It's May 30th and looks to be the last day of storms for Texas.  This is the first time in around 2 months that no more storms are predicted.  We were hit with severe storms day after day.  Nearly every lake in DFW is full or over flowing.  Lewisville is going over then spillway and water is still rising.  As of this morning Highland Village Road at Highway 35 is closed due to impassable water.  Several areas in Grapevine are closed as well.

My family and I decided to go get some photographs of what we could.  First off the spillway was completely shutdown as expected but they were not even letting people park and walk to see it.  They had officers turning people away that wanted to see the spillway.  I can understand closing the road to drivers, but why not let people who want to photograph the spillway go?

We finally made it to a part of the lake we could actually see.  This is Dove Loop boat ramp.  Well this is the road that is about 700 feet from where the ramp was.

The next stop was the Vineyards.

 This is the entrance to the Vineyards.  Or should I say Was the entrance.  All of the Grapevines on the left side of the road were underwater.  Some on the right were still above water.

This is the road between the Vineyards and the Katy Woods Boat Ramp.  The water was over the road.

Dobson Fly / Adult hellgrammite

This is what a Hellgrammite larva turns into.  They are called Dobson Fly.  They reach 3-5 inches long and cant inflict a nasty bite with their pinchers.  They are harmless as far as not having any venom or poison but they will bite it disturbed.  You can pick Dobson fly up by grabbing the back of the wings.  They will attempt to bite you by reaching back but they can't reach the back of their wings.

Black Widow

Found this black widow spider in my sons playground.  After showing her to my son to help him recognize them in the future I moved her away from the house.  This is number this year.  We found about 20 last year.  They seem to be all over the Double Oak area.