A President's Day Perspective On the San Antonio River Restoration Project

Monday, February 18, 2013

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, "Teddy" Roosevelt Park Trailhead,
once around the loop trail

Today's photos:

On President's Day last year, I walked at Eisenhower Park, so this year it was Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Park's turn. Teddy Roosevelt visited San Antonio on several occasions and always stayed at the Menger Hotel. His best known visit was in 1898 when he recruited the "Rough Riders" using the Menger Hotel bar as his "recruiting station."

Roosevelt's first visit to San Antonio, however, was in 1892 when he participated in a javelina hunt. Roosevelt was an avid hunter, but to the best of my knowledge (which is admittedly limited in this subject), there is no detailed record of where he hunted in the San Antonio area. I can't help but wonder if he spent some time hunting along the San Antonio River.

Of course, the habitat along the River has changed dramatically since Roosevelt's visits. One of the primary goals of the San Antonio River Restoration Project is to return the River to something of the character the River had around the time of Roosevelt's last visit to San Antonio about a hundred years ago.

This restoration process is still in the early stages. So here is a bit of what I saw and photographed today:

• The first photo is a Great Blue Heron.
• The second photo is a Little Blue Heron.
• The third, fourth and fifth photos are of a Spotted Sandpiper. If you look closely at its breast, the summer spotted plumage is beginning to return.
• The sixth photo is a Double-crested Cormorant.
• The seventh photo is an Eastern Black Nightshade. Like most nightshades, the fruit is toxic.
• The eighth photo is a Familiar Bluet damselfly.
• The ninth photo is a Firewheel flower. It is amazing the range of variation these flowers in the same species can have.
• The tenth photo is a pair of Red-tailed Hawks perched atop the old Lone Star Brewery smokestack.
• In the eleventh and twelfth photos, I had looked away from the smokestack for a minute or two and when I looked back, only the female red-tailed hawk remained perched at the top.
• The thirteenth photo is of two slider turtles sunning themselves on rocks in the River. This was a very warm sunny day and there were numerous turtles out on the rocks.
• The fourteenth photo is of a Texas Mountain Laurel in full bloom with a bee coming to gather nectar.
• The fifteenth photo* is an Anacacho Orchid Tree which is not actually an orchid, but a legume.
• The sixteenth photo is a male Gadwall.

* This post has been updated 2/19/2013 at 12:45 PM to provide the correct identification for the plant in this photo.