Native Wild Animals of Texas

This week Denzil asks us to show wild animals for his Nature Photo Challenge #28. That is a huge topic and I think this will be a three-part series!

I see lots of wild animals on the two properties that belong to our family.  The one where we live full time is in East Texas, where we get about 43 inches of rain a year.  The trees are Loblolly Pine with a hardwood mix of Sugar Hackberry, Winged Elm, Sweet Gum and various oaks. It is about 50 miles from downtown Houston, which of course is growing this way as fast as it can.  The place looks like this:

This place has belonged to my husband’s family for 60 years, but we didn’t move up here until 14 years ago.   Two animals that I was surprised to see here were the American Beaver (I wrote more here) and the North American River Otter.  I have seen them both only twice, eleven years apart, but friends who live on a nearby lake tell me that they are very common.

Our other place is about 150 miles west of San Antonio, in the Hill Country of Central Texas, and it gets only 22 inches a year on average.  The trees are Ashe Juniper (also called cedar), Netleaf Hackberry, and Shin Oak.  It is basically a weekend place — part of a larger ranch was subdivided into small wildlife properties, and it looks like this:

Being that the Hill Country place is much less densely populated by humans, the animals are not as wary and they are easier to find and photograph there.

I see the native Whitetail deer both places.  Here a doe and fawn were surprised to see me, but went back to browsing in just a few minutes:

Elk (Cervus canadensis) were native to Texas but their range was reduced to far West Texas.  Sometime in the early 2000s, some were brought into our ranchita neighborhood.  I have heard them bugle but not seen them in person, but they show up often on our game cameras.  Often just their legs:

A small mammal I have enjoyed seeing is the North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum).

Unfortunately one of my dogs got into a porcupine once.  Back then there wasn’t any cell phone service at our place, so I headed to the newspaper office in town, thinking that they could tell me where a veterinarian would be.  The newspaper lady told me the closest vet was an hour away, and I might not get there before they closed for the day.  Then she stepped out into the street, hailed a passing truck and borrowed a pliers from them, then went to my dog in the back seat of my truck, and pulled all the quills out right then! My hero!

In addition to our family places, we often travel to natural areas and parks.

One of my favorite spots is Smith Oaks Rookery, where I have seen lots of American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis).

Another amazing spot is the Port Aransas south jetty, where you can sea turtles swimming and eating the sea grass.  I have seen Green Sea Turtles there, and hope to see a Kemp’s Ridley some day.

My favorite spot to go is Big Bend National Park.  I got to be a seasonal ranger out there in 2006 and 2008, and I got to see many wild animals, including this javalina that would come up in the back yard.

And I think I should finish with this well-known symbol of Texas, the Nine-banded Armadillo.  Like Javalina, they don’t have very good eyesight, which means that often you can get up close and get a good picture.

I am enjoying writing about this topic because it is motivating me to upload tons of pictures to my Flickr account, and tag them and everything, so that I can find them more easily in the future!

Next up I am going to write about native North American animals, and then about all the exotics that have been imported into Texas and  have found a home here.