Our Wildlife Sightings--The good, the very bad, and the ugly!

We are moving slowly through the Central Texas, and we have our eyes focused on a visit to Burnet. We found out that the locals pronounce the town name, "burn it," so now we are ready to live like the locals. We took advantage of the blue skies to explore our new home town of Burnet, not knowing that today would be filled with wild wildlife sightings. But first, the city visitor center suggested a stop at Fort Croghan. We enjoy free local museums, and this one has a great backyard filled with log cabins that have been moved into town.

When you add a few bluebonnets and a handsome man outside, Denisa thinks that makes a great picture!

We took the drive heading west out of town, and it was one of the best wildflower drives ever! We pulled into the national fish hatchery, hoping to see more flowers and we actually found hiking trails too.

We made it to the top of the viewpoint trail, where we could look down to see hatchery ponds that looked like jigsaw puzzle pieces from above.

This would be a day of wildlife and wildflowers. We took our first wildlife pictures among the pink rocks of the viewpoint trail. With his rough scaly body, we're going to call this lizard "the ugly" wildlife of the day.

Our next trail took us to the meadows, where the purple winecups are blooming among the bluebonnets.

We see evidence that the bluebonnets are nearing the end of their season. Some of the plants in the meadow have exchanged blooms for seed pods. Those fuzzy bean-like pods will burst open and spread ripe seeds, insuring that next year's crop will be just as abundant.

The warm days are hard on the bluebonnets, but they have brought the Indian blankets into bloom.

We took the meadow trail to the bird blind, where the hummers entertained us as they battled over the feeder.

We have to include at least two pictures of these tiny hummingbirds, since Denisa took more than two dozen pictures of them. We're going to call these graceful petite beauties the "good wildlife" of the day.

Our last hike was at Inks Lake State Park, and we were in search of Devil's Water Hole. We did some rock scrambling to follow the creek that runs through the park.

The creek widened, and we made it to the deeper section of the river known by its devilish name. It's hard to see her, but Denisa is enjoying the view sitting on the rocks on the right side of the picture.

On the walk back to the car, it was easy to get distracted by the fields of wildflower blooms like the one on the right side of the trail. But wait, what is that lying in the middle of the trail?

Mark was in the lead, and he was only two steps away when he looked away from the flowers. He almost looked down too late when he saw the snake.

That is a rattlesnake, and just like us, he was enjoying a beautiful day on the trail. We have no doubt that this guy is "the very bad" wildlife of the day.

We like finding little lizards and hummingbirds, but this is NOT the kind of wildlife we want to see. The snake showed no signs of moving, so Mark got a stick to urge him off the trail. The snake didn't like the prodding, and coiled into attack pose.

The rattlesnake did eventually take Mark's prodding and retreated to the grass so we could finish our hike. After that nasty wildlife picture, we need a few pretty wildflower pictures. We found our first brown bitterweed blooms today, and the butterflies have also found them.

But the butterflies' favorite meal comes from this interesting bloom.

Our final stop of the day was an unexpected find. When we approached the new cement bridge over the Colorado River, we noticed that the old metal bridge had been turned into a pedestrian walkway. Denisa likes old bridges, but this one had a really fun addition.

Someone had strung up a swing from the tall overhead braces.

We've had an eventful day of hikes with beautiful wildflowers and the good, the bad, and the ugly wildlife. It seems to be a fitting end to another day of wandering to be swinging on the centerline.