Date: June 14, 2022

Place: San Gabriel River, near Liberty Hill, Williamson County (near Austin, Texas). Just northwest of Leander (dinosaur tracks), and near the river along a forest trail off County Road 266, near Leander, Texas (lizard nest).

Time: 7:45am – 8:30am (dinosaur tracks), and approx. 8:00pm (lizard nest)

Weather: 27.2 C, sunny, hazy with a relatively ‘cool’ wind. Last rained approx. two weeks ago.

Geology: limestone and gravel wash. Lower Cretaceous period (Albion stage).

Some additional observations (along river): Carolina Wren, Cardinal, swallows, turtles, dragonflies, King Fisher (calls), House Finch, Great Blue Heron

Dominant vegetation: Ashe Juniper, Scrub Oak, tall grasses

Description of the area: the river is mostly dried up revealing large flat areas of limestone. See the map below:

This is what the river bed looks like:

Dinosaur:

About a half mile west from the Hwy 183 bridge that crosses the South Fork of the San Gabriel River I found 12 dinosaur tracks in the limestone rock that were made by a carnivore. Apparently they have been there for many years. I made a rough sketch of the tracks where I measured: track length, width, stride, and trail width:

I took numerous photos:

You can see in this photo (and the next two photos), where someone has tried to chisel out the tracks but then gave up.

Looking at these tracks I can imagine that meeting such an animal would have been terrifying.

Miscellaneous photo:

I saw the following Wolf Spider ? (roughly 2 1/2 inches long) carrying her young:

Lizard nest:

The 2nd spot I tracked on (see address and time at the top) was along a dusty path in a forest near the San Gabriel River. A map is given below:

A family member saw some movement on the edge of the path as some animal ran off into the undergrowth (she didn’t see what it was). We think it was a lizard laying its eggs. In fact, one of the eggs was dropped as it was running away:

Here is a closeup of the eggs:

I do not know what type of lizard laid these eggs.

Reflections:

It was really exciting to see the dinosaur tracks and apply the same recording and measuring procedures as I did for the other animal tracks. I wonder if we can treat the dinosaur as a big bird and from the measurements I made estimate its size? The observation of the lizard laying its eggs was very lucky and a first for me.