All of the typical park type activities: picnic areas, playgrounds, the zoo, ball fields, etc. are located along the San Antonio River at the North end of the park. This is where the human impact is most definitely present. At the same time, this section of the river has one of the most diverse wild bird populations that can be found anywhere in San Antonio.
When I returned to my car after walking the nature trails, I couldn't resist spending some time photographing along this section of the river. All of the birds in the photographs below are wild and native to South Texas. Some of the birds that one may see along this stretch of the river are migratory. The black-bellied whistling duck that opens this series is one of these, however, its habitat is expanding northward. It is spending longer parts of the year in South Texas than it did just a decade ago.
This is probably as good a time as any to point out that, while I know the common names for most of the fauna and a good part of the flora that appear in my photographs, I am intentionally not including them in my posts except when it is necessary to make a specific point. When I am photographing I am enjoying their presence, not thinking in terms of, "Oh, look. That is a ground skink."
As I have written elsewhere, my photographs are not documentary in a strict ecological sense, but are more in the tradition of Alfred Stieglitz's Equivalents. Or to express it another way as John Daido Loori aptly explains it in his book The Zen of Creativity, I am as much in the moment as I can be having a direct interaction with subject.
So, sit back, relax, and leave yourself open to allow wonder and delight to take hold and mature:
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