Orange Dragonfly

I've already said how you identify a damselfly as a damselfly: thin 10 segmented abdomen, squarish thorax, big eyes, two sets of wings (same size).
But this appears to be a dragonfly.
How do you tell the difference?
1) The eyes are touching. Dragonflies eyes touch, while damselflies end up with a slightly hammerhead kind of look.
2) The wings were always resting open, damselflies generally hold theirs closed.
3) The "tail" doesn't have enough segments, if you can't get close enough to count just remember that damselflies' wings aren't long enough to cover the end of their abdomen - dragonflies' are pretty close. They usually have thicker bodies too.
4) The wings are not the same size, the rear wings are slightly bigger (not that you can tell from this picture though).

That being said, I'm not quite sure what kind of dragonfly it is... just that it is one and that it is orange.

House Sparrow

One of the more common birds around the Americas is the English Sparrow or House Sparrow. Native to Europe and Asia it has spread throughout the world and is now the most widely distributed wild bird. While they have a wide range from
They're about 5-7 inches long with stubby dark beaks and stocky bodies. The males have a grey stripe on the top of their heads, a small black stripe from the beak to the eyes, brown mullet, black goatee, white to grey belly, and orangy-brown wings, back, and tail. The females are shaped the same but look like someone took a can of brown spray paint and shoddily covered up the colors of the male.
The easiest way to tell a sparrow from farther away is to wait for it to fly. A sparrow flies like a bird who's had one too many drinks - with all its bobbing up and down during flight.

They are fairly noisy birds and are fierce protectors of their nests. Beware: if you get too close to a nest you may be dive bombed.
They are seed eaters and frequently may be found on the ground eating.

As the name "house" may suggest these birds only truly thrive near people, they are rarely found in uninhabited forests and prairies but are easily found in grasslands and trees around homes and farms. These Sparrows were first introduced in Brooklyn in 1851 when they let loose about a hundred sparrows from England. By 1900 they had reached the Rockies, that's how well they acclimated.

-And when I say wide range, these little brown birds can be found from the Northwest Territories in Canada to Argentina (though not really in a chunk of northern South America).

Greater Roadrunner

Don't let the name fool you, this is the only type in Texas. The Lesser Roadrunner is only found in Mexico and Central America.
I spotted one of these driving home the other day, it really caught my eye with it's messy head that looked like a bird with a bad haircut. On my double take the roadrunner obligingly came out of the long grass and gave me a good look. The one I saw was a juvenile, getting close to full grown but not quite there yet.
Roadrunners grow to an adult size of 18-24 inches. About half of their bodies are their tails that are held stiffly angling upward and are wide with white ends on the outer feathers. They resemble super-skinny chickens and are brown with white streaks throughout their upper body. They have long grey pointy beaks and long legs and feet. Their feet are different than other birds; instead of three toes in front and one in back, they have two in front and back. The unkempt look is from a small tuft on the top of their heads. They have a chattering call that sounds like clicking and like a woodpecker pecking.

Roadrunners are very useful birds, they are omnivores and like a nice snack of poisonous bug or snake. They like to eat scorpions, spiders, and rattlesnakes. According to the information I have found they will even team up to kill larger snakes. They will also capture, kill, and eat other birds as they sit at bird feeders.

Meep Meep - good runners they certainly are... up to 20mph sprinting. Understandably they generally prefer to run over flying.

Henbit

Apparently the extra warmth here after a period of not-as-warm has fooled a few plants into growing and blooming at the wrong time, though they look a little pathetic.
This is one. Henbit, or Henbit Deadnettle Mint, is usually a early spring bloomer and a winter annual, but among some of the patches I've been finding there have been one or two and there with a few blooms.
It's pretty obviously a mint, it has a stiffly perfect square stem and a strong smell when crushed. I'm not sure how to describe the smell, it's like a cross between pine and fresh catnip. They only grow between 4 and12 inches high and look quite flimsy with it's skinny stem and large leaves and top-heavy flower head. The stems are a dark purple color for the most part (not to be confused with Purple Deadnettle which has purple leaves as well), and the whole plant grows from a taproot*.
The leaves are opposite and lack petioles on the upper part of the plant. They're deeply incised with a scalloped (and crinkly) look to them. Where the leaves connect to the stem there's a fuzzy looking area that looks like it used to hold flowers.
The flowers are pink to purple and grow in whorls, they are tubular and about 1/4 - 2/3 of an inch long.
Henbit is more likely to be found growing in buffalo grass than the softer bluegass or other soft northern-type grasses. This means it can grow pretty much anywhere down here, but its range reaches up to Canada/Greenland and it has to compete a little more in some of it's range.

If you suspect you've found a mint in Texas, this website is quite nice. It has good descriptions along with photographs of all the species and subspecies.

*Taproot, in simple terms: a single root. Think carrot or dandelion, not tree or clover.

Whatsit called... Witch's Brooms

I was reading about these about a month ago, but I put it out of my mind until recently when I saw one.
It's a freak of nature - disease, deformity - that causes a woody plant to have an unusually dense patch of growth that looks similar to a nest or, in the case of some trees, the end of a witch's broom. They believe it may be caused by organisms introduced into the plant because when a piece of a witch's broom is grafted onto a healthy plant that formerly healthy plant goes nuts and gets its own witch's broom.

Red-Eared Slider

This is a turtle native to the United State's south, but has spread to many parts of the world due the use of these as pets. They're a type of pond turtle and spend a lot of their time in the water and mostly come out to bask in the sun or lay their eggs.
They grow between 8-12 inches, males are smaller, and have the distinctive red patch on the sides of it's head right near the ears. Their shells are flattened, which is one way to tell it apart from a box turtle, and is a dark brown-green with yellow to brown patterns. Their undersides are yellow with brown spots, not that you'd probably ever see it, but just in case. The visible skin - head, tail, and legs - are green with yellow lines that, while irregular, run pretty much head to tail and thigh to toe.


Fun Facts:
Apparently the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are supposedly red-eared sliders.
Turtle shells are primarily made of their ribs.
They do not hibernate, they brumate which is a type of lower activity with occasional waking up to drink water or occasionally surface and eat.

The Monarch

Probably one of the most recognizable butterflies ever, here we have the Monarch. They are multivoltine as well and most of the ones here right now are in the middle of their great migration.
The larvae have vertical yellow, white, and black stripes, but the adult (as you can see) is black with white spots. The chrysalis are smooth and bright green with what looks like a little necklace about 2/3 of the way up it. They adults have the stained glass look with the orange and black and the top tips of their wings are spotted like their bodies.

Monarchs are milkweed eaters and can be found anywhere where milkweed can be found from southern Canada to most of South America and even on many pacific islands - including Hawaii.