After coming back from the farm this morning, we spent the afternoon prepping and organizing for camping. Starting tomorrow, Jason and I will be starting our official field work for his rattlesnake research. We’ll be driving southwest, searching for snakes through the bigger, and camping where we can. We went out for a quick evening excursion which turned up another jackrabbit, a bee hive (if you get the chance, ask Jason about his history with the hive), and a scorpion. In lieu of animal photos, I decided to include a closer picture of a pump jack that was nearby. Even though Jason’s mom feed is some delicious lasagna before we went out, Jason insisted that we stop at Allsups, a gas station with the best bean burritos and chimichangas that a gas station can provide. Dustin, Jason’s brother, was completely right – Putin A1 sauce on the chimichangas is outstanding.

Pump jacks, like this one, extract oil from deep under ground and are a common sight everywhere in Seminole.

Allsups boasts having world famous food, and honestly, I was impressed

Half of an Allsups chimichanga (left) and bean burrito (right) just before I devoured them. The A1 sauce is really good on the chimichanga, but only mediocre on the burrito

We had another 6AM morning today, and we headed quickly to Jason’s uncle’s farm. On our way out, I noticed the pervasive smell of oil from the drilling that is done all around (interestingly, Jason and his dad don’t notice it unless the smell is strong) and that there were clouds in the sky. Seeing clouds was a refreshing change, hopefully some rain will soon follow. Farming is a major source of income in Seminole (coupled with oil drilling on the farmlands), and vast, circular crop fields dominate the landscape. I was excited to discover that many of the roads through the crop fields are lined with live tumbleweed (not intentionally grown by the farmers, which demonstrates the success of their unique seed-dispersal mechanism – the dead, dried parent plant tumbles in the wind, carrying seeds to different suitable habitats). We, unfortunately, have yet to find any snakes today, but we spotted a Swainson’s Hawk, a Black-tailed Jackrabbit, a Texas Brown Tarantula crossing the road, caught a cottontail, and found another Ornate Box Turtle crossing the road. For as dry and hostile as it is here, I’m surprised that we’re finding so many box turtles. We also saw tons of mammal holes and tracks, but surprisingly few predators.

An example of some of the footprints that we saw neatly everywhere this morning. The larger prints with the continuous line between them come from kangaroo rats, and the tiny, long prints are from a beetle.

Live tumbleweed growing along the edge of cotton fields

A field of wheat with tumbleweed on the edges.

A storage house that we explored

There is a cottontail rabbit down that pipe

We got the cottontail out of the pipe

Ornate Box Turtle crossing the road with clouds in the sky

After a relaxing afternoon, Jason, his dad, and I headed out to a friend’s ranch to see what we could find. Just before leaving, we found a scorpion in the kitchen:

Scorpion in the kitchen. Is this a desert bark scorpion?

We donned our PPEs and headed out into the field, where we saw a number of bird species (including a barn swallow nest), kangaroo rats, packrats, bullfrogs, cottontails, common side-blotched lizards, an ornate box turtle, texas brown tarantulas, coyotes, dung beetles, tiger beetles, tarantula hawks, a fulvous harvest mouse, and (by far my favorite animal of the trip) a texas horny lizard. Seeing a horned lizard had been on my bucket list since I first saw them in my zoo books as a child.

PPE, courteousy of mom and dad. Thanks!

Barn Swallow nest with chicks in it

Texas Brown Tarantula (male, if I’m not mistaken). The males have longer, thinner legs, a thinner abdomen, and “love spurs” (which have a real name, but I forgot it at the moment) on their front legs

A male Common Side-blotched Lizard, Uta stansburiana, caught and held by Jason. You can see the blotch on it’s side, for which the get their common name

Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata

Texas Horny Lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum, my favorite animal of the trip so far. This species is threatened, due to over-harvesting for the pet trade. Horned lizards primarily eat ants and they have a very unique defense behavior: when agitated, they puff their bodies and may try to bite, but in some cases, they squirt blood out of their eyes. Really beautiful animals

No snakes today, but still a great day.