Much to Celebrate

The Grand Opening celebration of the final completion of the Mission Reach Ecosystem Restoration and Recreation Project will be held this Saturday, October 5th. This is the largest urban riparian ecosystem restoration to be completed anywhere in the United States. While this celebration marks the completion of the infrastructure construction, an ecosystem restoration of this magnitude is generational, requiring up to 75 years to fully mature.

The project is the result of extraordinary cooperation involving the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bexar County, The City of San Antonio, the National Park Service, the San Antonio River Foundation and the San Antonio River Improvement Project with the San Antonio River Authority (SARA) serving as the managing partner. Kudos to all those at SARA who have worked so hard and continue to work to make this project a reality.

In celebration, all the posts here on While on a Walk this week and next will be of photographs taken along the Mission Reach.

The cormorants were very active along the river this past Monday. This is the time of year when the Double-crested Cormorants begin returning to spend the winter. Numerous flocks of  nine to fifteen Double-crested Cormorants were flying upstream in the V-shaped formations most people associate with geese.

Meanwhile, a pair of Neotropic Cormorants were flying downstream:

This set of photographs was taken along the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River not far downstream from the Southcross Blvd bridge on Monday, September 30, 2013.