Pure Enjoyment of the Moment

Friday, July 5, 2013

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Confluence Park Trailhead downstream
to the 3.6 mile marker*

Today's photos:

On this long 4th of July holiday weekend, here is a set of photographs to celebrate life:

• The first photo is an Alamo Vine flower.
• The second photo is a Snowy Egret searching for food at the top of a riffle.
• The third photo is an inflorescence of Sideoats Grama (the State Grass of Texas). A tiny caterpillar of some sort has woven itself inside a web pulling the spike of the  inflorescence into an oval. I would have liked to have seen how the caterpillar accomplished this.
• The fourth and fifth photos are of a Little Yellow butterfly on Orange Milkweed flowers. These milkweed blossoms were attracting numerous butterflies. Another common name for this plant is Butterfly-Weed, for obvious reasons.
• The sixth photo is a Bordered Patch butterfly on the Orange Milkweed.
• The seventh photo is a Bordered Patch butterfly on a Maximilian Sunflower. The Common Sunflowers have been in bloom for a couple of months, but the Maximilian Sunflowers are just beginning to flower.
• The eighth and ninth photos are of a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron.
• The tenth photo is a Killdeer.
• The eleventh photo is a Neotropic Cormorant.
• The twelfth photo is a Blue-fronted Dancer (Argia apicalis) damselfly I managed to photograph inflight. This damselfly was being very cooperative while I took its photo as it hovered in more or less the same location until I turned away.
• The thirteenth photo is a slider turtle sunning itself on the recently exposed bedrock along the riverbank. From this distance the rock appears to be a relatively soft limestone aggregate. This section of the bank on the west side of the River just south of the Theo Ave bridge was severely eroded by the May 25th flood, but it revealed this fascinating rock formation.
• The fourteenth through sixteenth photos are of Partridge Pea flowers.
• The seventeenth photo is a Standing Cypress that is still in bloom.

* Along the San Antonio River Greenway Trails, there are small, roughly three inch diameter circular bronze insets with a number embedded in the center of the trail generally every two-tenths of a mile. These numbers indicate the distance in miles from the center of Main Plaza downtown. So, the 3.6 marker on the east bank trail south of Theo Ave. is 3.6 miles along the trail from Main Plaza.

The mile markers, beginning with zero, also are located north of Main Plaza. If one started at the 2.4 marker north of downtown and walked downstream to the 3.6 marker south of Theo, the total distance walked would be six miles (2.4 miles + 3.6 miles).

A Killdeer on the Bank of the River

Monday, July 1, 2013

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Mission Rd Trailhead downstream

Today's photos:

I really have been out taking a plethora of photos since April, even if there has only been one post since Earth Day. As the saying goes, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Quite literally, there was a whole lot of water under the bridge during the major flood on May 25th with a record setting high crest on the San Antonio River under the Loop 410 South bridge.

The phrase "water under the bridge" typically refers to something in the past that is no longer important. All that has transpired since April 22nd is in the past, but still has significance both in the consequences of the events and in the lessons that must always be learned.

If all stays on course, I will discuss some of those events, their consequences and the lessons learned in an upcoming post. I have learned much in the past three months. For now, suffice it to say I did take a short walk along the River on Monday. I observed much, but took few photographs compared to my usual walks.

I'm not sure I can verbalize exactly why this Killdeer communicates my experience. I am probably projecting my own perceptions on it. Even after having had some time to study the photos, I still have a feeling this beautiful, wide-eyed bird was trying to re-orient itself to the changes in the post-flood river channel more than a month after the great flood of 2013.

Note:  The San Antonio River Authority (SARA) has made considerable progress in reopening the Mission Reach trails damaged in the flood, however there is still much work to be done. If you are planning to visit the Mission Reach during the 4th of July holiday, please check SARA's website where there is an update with a link to a map showing current trail closures.

Summer Solstice 2013

Friday, June 21, 2013

Hardberger Park, Oak Loop Trail

Today's photos:

Given all the rain that has fallen here the past couple months, the vegetation is about as green and lush as I've ever seen it along the Oak Loop Trail in Hardberger Park. I walked the trail today in preparation for leading a nature photography hike tomorrow morning.

Photography is the art of selection and elimination. Everything included in the frame of a "good" photograph should work together to communicate a unified theme. Generally, there is one dominant object or small set of objects that establish the theme of the photograph in much the way a topic sentence establishes the theme of a paragraph. Whether the photographer intends it or not, the viewer will interpret every else in the photograph in relation to the dominant object(s).

• The first photo is a Snapdragon Vine.
• The second photo is Two Leaved Senna.
• The third photo is a Common Buckeye in flight. I always try to take at least two and usually three to five frames of a photograph with slightly different focus in each frame, but sometimes, like this photo, there is only time to get one frame. This was one of the "lucky" ones were it worked.
• The fourth through sixth photos are a Texas Rose-bellied Lizard. Sometimes the animals cooperate. in this case, the lizard had run out on the trail in front of me, saw me coming then turned around and ran back to the top of a stump where it let me take a series of photos.
• The seventh and eighth photos are Zexmenia flowers.
• The ninth photo is a study in contrasting texture with the bark of a Live Oak tree in the foreground and an Ashe Juniper immediately behind the Live Oak.
• The tenth photo is a detail of a Tasajillo cactus with a small spider web woven on it.
• The eleventh and twelfth photos are blossoms on a Velvet-leaf Mallow.
• The thirteenth and fourteenth photos are a Sleepy Orange butterfly.
• The fifteenth photo is of the flowers on the top of a Whitebrush, also known as Beebrush. The way the sunlight was striking the flowers caught my eye initially, but I also realized fairly quickly there were no bees on the flowers. Given the well publicized declining bee population this is particularly worrisome. As the common name implies, theses flowers are particularly attractive to bees. These flowers appear barren without at least a few bees on them gathering nectar.
• The sixteenth and seventeenth photos are a Northern Mockingbird perched on the dead branch of a tree. There is only a slight, but significant difference in the composition of the two photos. In both, the bird and the tree are the related dominant objects. The first photo isolates the bird and the tree with only a hint of the distant horizon along the bottom of the frame. The second photo has the same basic theme, but includes more information. This particular tree is located on the side of a hill and is in an open area (there are no other trees close by surrounding it).
• The eighteenth photo is the inflorescence of Silver Bluestem.

Earth Day Along the Acequia de San Juan

Monday, April 22, 2013

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Mission San Juan Trailhead
upstream along the Acequia de San Juan to Acequia Park

Today's photos:

The recently opened section of greenway trails along the San Antonio River Mission Reach includes a trail located between the Acequia de San Juan on the east and the San Antonio River on the west side of the trail. The Acequia de San Juan and the Acequia de Espada to the west of the River are historic acequias built in the mid-1700s to supply water for irrigating the farmland that supplied the food for Mission San Juan and Mission Espada. These acequias are being restored in conjunction with the Mission Reach restoration project. 

This section of the trail was a perfect location for a hike to celebrate Earth Day:

• The first photo is a pair of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks.
• The second photo is a Red-shouldered Hawk.
• The third photo is a White Prickly Poppy.
• The fourth photo is a Common Streaky-Skipper butterfly on a Blackfoot Daisy.
• The fifth photo is a ripening Dewberry.
• The sixth and seventh photos are overviews of the vegetation on either side of the trail. The Acequia de San Juan is just out of sight behind the the fallen tree in the sixth photo. The flowers in the foreground of the seventh photo are Firewheel.
• The eighth photo is a Bordered Patch butterfly on a Firewheel.
• The ninth photo is a cluster of Prickly Pear Cactus. It is a bit difficult to see in the photo, but there are Scarlet Sage growing among the cactus.
• The tenth photo is a Checkered White butterfly. It is enjoying the nectar from a tiny white flower I have yet to identify.
• The eleventh and twelfth photos are a small Red-eared Slider Turtle on a post that has fallen into the acequia.
• The thirteenth photo is looking upstream along the San Antonio River. The Espada Dam and Mission Parkway crossing are near the horizon.
• The fourteenth photo is looking downstream along the River from the Mission Pkwy crossing.
• The fifteenth photo is an overview of the vegetation growing along the Acequia de Espada to the west of the River. The yellow flowers in this photo are Coreopsis sp.
• The sixteenth photo is a Red-winged Blackbird.