Friday, February 3, 2012
Today's photos:
On today's walk at Crescent Bend Nature Park, I spent the entire time along Cibolo Creek. There was a flash flood warning for later in the evening with the possibility of thundershowers in the overnight forecast. The park seemed unusually quiet and I couldn't help but wonder if it really was the quiet before the storm.
There were a few ducks on the creek. I'll post photos of them at a later date. They were very skittish and flew further away as I approached to try to get better photos. The few perching birds I saw stayed far enough back in the brush I wasn't able to get their photos. The turtle in the two photos above is a Texas spiny softshell turtle.
The thunderstorms weren't forecast to go severe, but the soil is so saturated right now, it doesn't take much rain to cause flash flooding. This is in spite of the fact that South Texas is still in extreme drought because there hasn't been enough rain for the the aquifers and surface reservoirs to refill yet.
Little did I realize what would transpire later in the evening. This post is being published much later than usual because the core of a severe storm passed directly over Olmos Basin. The lightning became so intense, I finally shut down the computer.
Due to severe weather occurring on the north side of San Antonio tonight, the post for Friday, February 3 will be delayed. Hopefully it will be ready to be published by this afternoon (Saturday, February 4).
Thursday, February 2, 2012
This series of photos was taken on my walk yesterday a short distance from my return to the trailhead parking lot. These are black vultures which can fly at heights of over 10,000 feet. At that altitude they would not be visible from the ground. These two were probably somewhere between one and two thousand feet up and were barely visible without the telephoto lens.
Beyond that, I am left without words to adequately express the experience of seeing this awesome juxtaposition of bird and moon:
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The official January rainfall total for San Antonio was 3.99 inches with 0.74 inches of that Monday and yesterday. That is 2.23 inches above normal for the month. When I drove over the Salado Creek bridge on Nacogdoches Road this past Friday on my way to Comanche Lookout Park, I could see the ponding area under the bridge was quite full. That brought to mind the question: just how wet is the Salado Creek wetland with all the rain that has fallen?
Today's photos:
Where white-tailed deer peacefully grazed in November, ducks now feed in shallow streams and pools and dragonflies dance in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Needless to say, there will be several Tuesday / Thursday posts of photos from today's walk.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
While the robins predominated, there were numerous other species of birds active during my walk on the Leon Creek South Greenway yesterday:
