Have you ever heard the sun?

I dunno, I just find that sentence funny.  Anywaaaay -- with the creek by the house being filled with a recent storm there's an abundance of neat riparian critters to be studied and carefully inspected.  Yesterday the boys (husband and son) and I went down to one of the spillways and netted up lots of different fish.  We were a bit surprised to find anything more than your basic Drum (Sciaenidae).  We've never known anyone to get anything out of it but Drum.  Granted there was nothing over 3 inches in size, we did scoop up bass (smallmouth & maybe Guadalupe - both of these are actually Sunfish), minnow (Texas Shiner & Fathead), some shad and probably others I can't identify or remember. 

I've also noticed a definite return of more of the birds that usually frequent the creek area.  Poor birds.  On the other side of the creek is a big county park and it's a designated birding area.  (Not to toot the area's horn but serious birders come from all over the country and other countries to visit the birding areas here.)  Since we had been in the midst of a serious drought for many months the creek had all but dried completely and the usual array of fantastic and sometimes unusal birds had dwindled seriously.  Once I spot my Anhingas again I'll know things are kind of back to normal.  (It really hasn't helped that there have been a number of "creekside lots" cleared and houses built in the last couple years.  They've destroyed nests and trees, created constant noise and human commotion, and generally made the creek bank a very unwelcome place for all that wonderful wildlife.)

Now, to get back to the subject line of this post... all around the sandy soil of the creek and even up in our yard sometimes we often see the approximately 1" hole in the ground that is the shelter of fiddler crabs.  When it rains big they, like the toads, get flooded out of those holes!  The first few days after a big rain we've got little sideways runners everywhere.  My son managed to capture a couple - one male and one female - and decided he simply must keep them, at least a while, to give them a thorough once-over.  Did you know that only the male has that one large claw while the females claws are both small?  Did you know that they are lighter in color during the day than at night?  Did you know there are over 90 species & subspecies known as "fiddlers"?  Well, you might have known those things... but we didn't until this week!  :-)