Friends of Lake Kirby

THIS COMING SATURDAY! Trash pickup sponsored by Vista Planning and Design!
Early birds get a breakfast taco!

This Longhorn Beetle caught my attention while I was exploring a patch of Prairie Coneflowers back in late spring. This adult is feeding on pollen and maybe some of the petals on this flower. You can't see it in my photo, but the eyes are notched and actually wrap around the base of the antennae. Longhorns are members of a beetle family that has over 20,000 species described worldwide and close to 1100 species in North America. In fact, 1 out of every 4 animals on earth is a beetle with maybe 3 million species worldwide. That's a lot of beetle diversity!

This is Greenthread or Thread-Leaf Thelesperma, a plant of dry prairies, roadsides, and disturbed sites and member of the sunflower family. It is now the dominant wildflower at Kirby, which is typical as we enter summer.

Summer Solstice 2026: First day of astronomical summer, longest day of the year! The solstice officially arrived at 3:24 a.m. this morning here in Abilene. The summer-inspired sunrise image is from June 2019 during the Saharan dust storm that blanketed much of the southern U.S. Image taken along the west-side lakeshore at Kirby.

Some images from yesterday's photo safari at Kirby Lake: Great Blue Heron, Familiar Bluet damselfly, and Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly. You can distinguish between a damselfly and dragonfly by looking at how the wings are displayed when they perch. A damselfly will hold their wings vertically over the back of their body while dragonflies hold their wings spread out flat and perpendicular to their bodies.

Plains Blackfoot Daisy continuing to bloom along the dam road. This is a wildflower that is normally very abundant in the spring and early summer when we have adequate rainfall over the preceding fall and winter. It's been a great spring for this species!

Ten-Petal Stickleaf (or Ten-Petal Mentzieia) now found in the usual spots where I have noted it over the last five years. Not as abundant as last year when there was a mega-crop. An interesting species whose flowers generally open around or after sunset. The pollinators of this prairie species are moths and other night flying insects. Flowers close by daybreak. We also have a second Stick-Leaf species at Kirby and I will introduce you soon!

Creeping Woodsorrel is a widespread and common native wildflower as we approach summer. You likely have it as a welcome or unwelcome inhabitant of your suburban lawn. Either way, this species is one of several woodsorrels that are native to Texas. This woodsorrel is a low mat-forming species that is supposedly a favorite delicacy for rabbits. Both the three-parted leaves and the flowers are relatively small, so this plant can go unnoticed. The leaves have a shape like a "three-leaf-clover" but woodsorrels are not related to clovers at all. The leaves usually close at night and open the next morning under sunny skies. I took these (not so great) photos on a cloudy morning and this is why the three-parted leaves are still closed.

Redbud showing off again along the main park road. This species is an April bloomer but reappears at various times during the year. A member of the olive family, Redbud only grows to about 5 to 6 inches in height so it can get hidden by the taller plants. I found a open patch!

This is Venus’ Looking Glass. This plant is an inconspicuous but attractive species. The stems are slender and unbranched and usually have only one open flower at the top. Below the open flower and running down the stem, there are a number of flowers that will never open (see the 3rd image). These flowers will be self-pollinating or fertilizing, and are a way to assure at least some seed production and contribution to the next generation. The one open flower undergoes normal flower s*x with a pollinator bringing in pollen from a neighboring flower. Seeds and offspring produced from this reproductive process may be genetically different form the parent. It’s the best of both reproductive worlds for Venus’ Looking Glass parents!