Disc Golf Course Update

I have been going to the Disc Golf Course quite a bit in the past few weeks. This is a place not far from Bona Dea and offers some unique features as I have talked about before. The flooding that has occurred here in the past 2 weeks have not effected this property as much. These photos included here shows some of the last couple of weeks takes. There were a pair of Brown-headed Cowbirds in a tree and this photo shows a closeup of one looking at me with the very brown head and neck and coal black body and looking at me. They actually don't usually build their own nests but rob the nests of other birds and lay their eggs right next to the other bird's eggs. There is a city baseball and softball park on the way to this area and I saw 4 or 5 Canadian Geese families. This is a photo of one of them. These small yellow butterflies were all over the place. They are Cloudless Sulphur-Phoebis sennae, this pic is of a female. Notice the bright green nodules or cheeks on the sides of the head. Click on all photos to enlarge. There was a group of daisy like wildflowers I only saw at this one particular spot by the waters edge. They were Common Fleabane. They got this name as a long time ago they were ground up and used to protect one from fleas. This photo is of the very small white blooms with yellow centers. This Green Heron water wading bird was in a thick foliage tree right on the water's edge. It was bent over preening itself. Very pretty brown neck and greenish blue back and wing feathers. This mean looking critter is a Green Lacewing insect Larvae-Neuroptera Chrysopidae. I saw this purple worm looking insect on some flower blooms. It actually eats all the bad bugs. So it is a goodie not a baddie. This insect was found on a commonYarrow-Achillea millefolium-Wildflower. You can see the closeup of the blooms with this very small insect in the middle. There was a Northern Mockingbird just singing away very loudly and heard all over the park. It was flying from the very highest part of the trees. This is the grey and white bird in top of the tree. It is the state bird of Arkansas. There are several pairs of these very pretty and impressive birds. They are Scissor-tailed Flycatcher-Tyrannus forficatus. They seem to have 2 very long tails. This one was on a limb with vehicles in the background. I had just walked over the narrow arched bridge off the parking lot to the course/park and saw a long green snake crawling along. Some young men were com ing toward me and they had been playing disc golf. One of them spotted this snake and ran and caught it by the tail. A no no. It turned to bite him and he used the other hand to catch it behind the head. He then held it up that way for everyone else to see and asked if anyone wanted to pet it. I won't say what some of them said to him. He then released it. It took off to the water and heavy brush before I could photo it. I walked just a few few further down and another one the exact same size was crawling toward where the other one was. I was able to get these photos of it. It is a Speckled Kingsnake-Lampropeltis holbrooki. They eat other snakes and especially like poisonous snakes just before bedtime. I have seen this vine like small flower plants all over the place and decided that it was a type of ground cover that the authorities had planted along with Wild Oats and Red Clover. All three were mixed and were growing together. This park is a land reclamation project which used to be coal strip mining property. It turns out to be Spring or Garden Vetch-Vicia sativa. It is a type of ground cover. It is the photo with the small redish pink bloom. It's seeds contain Cyanide and very toxic to humans and animals. I wonder if the many White Tailed Deer out there eat that stuff. Humm!! Speaking of the deer. The other day, I saw several grazing on the part of the park that was cut real low and full of Red Clover at the very far end. There were several real small fawns. Click on fawns to see a video of close to what I saw.