Springing Back to "Normal"

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Padre Park Trailhead,
between the embayment upstream and downstream
beyond San Juan Dam and into Padre Park

Today's photos:

The first day of Spring blew in with the arrival of another cold front, dropping the temperature back to a seasonally "normal" range. There is a pattern to these temperature fluctuations that has a lot to do with the topography of the region. It really is predictable.

As a cold front approaches from the west or northwest, the wind ahead of the front shifts, coming from the west or southwest. Wind from those directions blows off the mountains of West Texas and Northern Mexico, so it is a downsloping wind that heats up as it descends off of the mountains. This is known as the downslope effect. Thus, two days or so before the arrival of a cold front, temperatures "normally" get unseasonably warm (hot).

Anyway, hot or cold, what better place is there to celebrate the first day of Spring than the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River?

• The first photo is a Pipevine Swallowtail. This butterfly was skimming across the ground, constantly beating its wings as swallowtails typically do. It never did perch, so I took a lot of frames hoping one might come out sharp enough to post. Fortunately, I was able to get this photo with its wings fully spread open.
• The second and third photos are a Double-crested Cormorant that has just caught a fish.
• The fourth photo is a Black-bellied Whistling Duck.
• The fifth photo is a Great Egret. There were a lot of birds flying along the river channel today.
• The sixth photo was taken looking upstream from San Juan Dam. The brand new pavilions at Mission County Park can be seen on the very left edge of the photo. The large building on the right side of the photo is the old hotel building at the Hot Wells Resort that was very popular in the early 1900s. Apparently, President Teddy Roosevelt did visit this resort on his trips to San Antonio.
• The seventh and eighth photos are a cluster of Coreopsis. The eighth photo is a closer view of the same plants in the seventh photo. If one looks closely at the top most flower in this close up, there is a Banded Hairstreak enjoying some nectar from the flower. The color pattern around the center of these flowers is very distinctive. I have been trying to determine which species these might be, but can't find any Coreopsis photos that precisely match this particular pattern.
• The ninth photo is an overview of the river with a Great Egret standing on the edge of the embayment on the west side of the river upstream from San Juan Dam. All I could see from this vantage point was its long neck and head.
• The tenth through the thirteenth photos are an American Wigeon (Anas americana). This duck is a close cousin of the Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata). When seen from a distance, it is easy to mistake one for the other.
• The fourteenth photo is, the best I can determine, a Fiery Skipper on a blade of grass. I have come to the conclusion that the skippers are to butterflies what sparrows are to birds; very difficult to identify one species from another. I think the only hope at "camouflage" this skipper has in this location is that maybe a predator would think it is a bright orange flower.
• The fifteenth photo is some high cirrus clouds that followed the cold front in the jet stream.