A Climb to the Ridge

Friday, September 7, 2012

Friedrich Wilderness Park, Main Loop Trail

Today's photos:

Today I walked clockwise around the Main Loop Trail at Friedrich Wilderness Park. This is one of the more physically demanding, ADA level 4, nature trails in Bexar County. Just the fact that I am able to walk these trails at all, astounds me. According to the topographic map of the park, the trail ascends about 250 feet from an elevation of 1150 feet at the parking lot to the ridge of the main hill in the park at an elevation of 1400 feet.

This is the first of two sets of photos from this walk. I will post the second set, "Along the Ridge," on Tuesday. As I was doing the initial edit of the photos, I was a bit surprised to find that visually, there is an obvious difference between the two sets.

In this first set, two creatures are prominently featured, the first flora and the second fauna. The plant with the yellow flowers in the 4th and 7th through 10th photos is Lindheimer's Senna. Where gayfeather is a predominate fall blooming flower along the Leon Creek, Lindheimer's Senna predominates in the higher upland. This plant is named after Ferdinand Lindheimer who first identified it. Lindheimer is frequently referred to as the "Father of Texas Botany" and credited with the discovery of several hundred species of plants in Texas.

The last five photos in the series are of a rock squirrel. This was my first encounter in the park on my several walks there with a non-human mammal. I really did a double take when I first saw it, even though the park provides an ideal habitat for the squirrel. The vast majority of the parkland is away from the trails, so it is easy for the animals that live there to avoid human contact.

The Continuum

Thursday, September 6, 2012

"The Four Laws of Ecology:
     1.  Everything is connected to everything else.
     2.  Everything must go somewhere.
     3.  Nature knows best.
     4.  There is no such thing as a free lunch."
               - Barry Commoner,
                 The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology, 1971

These photos are the second set from my walk along the San Antonio River yesterday (Wednesday, September 5).

What's Up

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Mission Rd Trailhead
upstream to the Concepcíon Creek confluence

Today's photos:

I am not a morning person. I would be perfectly content if every day started at about noon. My aversion to mornings might have something to do with the fact that when I was on active duty in the Army, I had to report for morning formation at 4:30 AM on duty days. But then, it also just seems to be my natural rhythm.

All of that said to make the point that I arrived at the trailhead this morning at 7:45, about a half hour after sunrise. It is definitely the earliest in the morning I have begun a walk for this blog. This set of photos fairly accurately communicates not only the river's ever-present beauty and wonder, but also the feeling of the early morning.

Well Camouflaged Killdeer

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Killdeer can be found in a wide variety of habitats, generally but not always, close to water. These photos were taken on my walk along the San Antonio River on Friday, August 17. The killdeer like to feed along the river from the edges of the small rock and gravel islands that have formed in some shallow locations and in other locations along the banks of the river. They are very well camouflaged in these locations. How many killdeer can you find in this photo?

There are four of them. They are actually a bit easier to find when watching in person than when looking at the still photograph. Rocks generally don't move of their own volition, so a moving object is likely to be a bird.

Here are a few more photos where the killdeer are easier to see: