Karen Gleason
I visited several areas along the San Felipe Creek Saturday morning, starting on the FEMA property just downstream of the Casa De La Cultura.
Someone – I assume the city – has planted a number of trees in the small meadow between the
parking lot for the Casa and the creek itself. Several of the young trees are tagged with the names of donors.
The city has also installed a line of stout posts just beyond the edge of the parking lot, part of its ongoing effort to prevent people from driving their vehicles right up to the creek bank. This was identified as a problem by the city’s new parks and recreation advisory board several years ago after an embarrassing incident involving a portable toilet that was thrown into the creek.
I walked to the edge of the creek and stood for a few minutes admiring the water as it flowed past. I found several Cardinal Flower plants growing at the very edge of the water and took some photos.
Next, I drove to the Rincon Del Diablo, where all was quiet except for the muted whirr of locusts in the tall grass and the buzz of a few cicadas beginning to sing from the trees.
As I got out of the car, I startled a pair of White-tailed Deer does grazing in the pecan grove at the upstream edge of the Rincon and snapped a few photos before they bounded into the denser brush on the Joplin property.
Finally, I made my way to the FEMA property the city owns along Barron Street near the Academy Street Bridge.
The morning was resolving itself into another gorgeous summer day, and I paused to watch a half dozen Turkey Vultures circling higher and higher into the bright blue sky.
I walked along the edge of the carrizo and heard the piping calls of juvenile Northern Cardinals. In short order, the mother cardinal flew in, and the piping grew more intense as the youngsters begged for food.
Another call from the carrizo, a repeated wheep! wheep! wheep! An emphatic, distinctive note, with long pauses between. I whistled back, trying to match the exact tone of the call, and in a few minutes, a male Hooded Oriole hopped out onto one of the cane stalks. When he saw that I was the source of the responding call, he lost all interest and flew off.
I spent some more time on the FEMA property, finding several different, but familiar, species of dragonflies and damselflies and about a dozen different kinds of butterflies.
I don’t see anything new, but that’s perfectly fine with me. Everywhere I looked on my walk, I saw old friends, and it was great to spend a summer morning with them.
