Palo Duro State Park Trip

Friday, July 27, was at unusually cool day, with temps starting out at 68 F and warming into the mid-80s with loud cover for half the day. I arrived by 0730 and phoned to arrange my meeting another photo-naturalist who beat me there by 15 minutes.

By the time we exited the park before 4 p.m., the two of us took nearly 500 pictures. I totaled about 190 over the 8 hours, well below my usual rate, but I tried NOT to log everything in sight but only the different and interesting.

Three things stand out from this visit.

(1) The park had pleasant surprise presents for us, four of them. I won't explain further but will let our observations speak for themselves when we get them posted.

(2) While I photographed only one moth, the number and variety of butterflies was awesome. Our photos are not adequate to fully show this, because we each spent much time chasing butterfies that ultimately got away. For our last 15 minutes we tried and failed to catch a photo of at least one Monarch.

(3) The plants were a surprise. Some really different from the plants in the Lubbock canyons.

(4) One objective was to find and photograph a Painted Bunting. Far easier said than done and we failed. But we kept moving. As my co-hiker said, it might be better to stay still and let the birds come to us.

Posted on 28 de julho de 2018, 05:26 AM by thebark