Crescent Bend Nature Park, A Walk Along Cibolo Creek

Friday, February 3, 2012

Today's photos:

On today's walk at Crescent Bend Nature Park, I spent the entire time along Cibolo Creek. There was a flash flood warning for later in the evening with the possibility of thundershowers in the overnight forecast. The park seemed unusually quiet and I couldn't help but wonder if it really was the quiet before the storm.

There were a few ducks on the creek. I'll post photos of them at a later date. They were very skittish and flew further away as I approached to try to get better photos. The few perching birds I saw stayed far enough back in the brush I wasn't able to get their photos. The turtle in the two photos above is a Texas spiny softshell turtle.

The thunderstorms weren't forecast to go severe, but the soil is so saturated right now, it doesn't take much rain to cause flash flooding. This is in spite of the fact that South Texas is still in extreme drought because there hasn't been enough rain for the the aquifers and surface reservoirs to refill yet.

Little did I realize what would transpire later in the evening. This post is being published much later than usual because the core of a severe storm passed directly over Olmos Basin. The lightning became so intense, I finally shut down the computer.