keely – Page 35 – State of Wilderness

Spring Creek Greenway: Peckingpaugh Preserve

Yesterday, we were out checking out some places we plan on utilizing to prepare for this year’s Texas Challenge, and we decided on a whim to stop on at the new Nature Center off Riley Fuzzel Road in Spring. This Center is part of the Spring Creek Greenway system, a project managed by the Bayou Land Conservancy. The Spring Creek Greenway will eventually connect thirty three miles, encompassing 12,000 acres, offering protection for this valuable riparian habitat along the edges of Spring Creek. This will make it the largest continuous forested urban corridor in the U.S. The Greenway is 75% complete, and will eventually connect Burroughs Park in Tomball to Jesse Jones Park near Kingwood. The map here suggests it will actually then curve north and go all the way to what looks like New Caney (this discrepancy is the difference between what area will be part of the parks managed by the precincts, and what will be protected preserve land set aside by the Bayou Land Conservancy).

This particular Nature Center that we went to is about halfway, I would say, along that route. The $2.2 million facility was built with funds obtained from the sale of a community center and a grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife. Inside the Center, a volunteer told us about the literature that was available in the front part, which included what we came in here looking for – a map of the trail system. Then she told us about the exhibits they had in the Discovery Center, and my youngest child managed to get in on a short tour/education being given to some other children by another volunteer about the snakes being housed there. They told us that there had just been an Angler Education course, and there were still some animal exhibits on ice that they could show the kids, so we all ended up outside marveling over a small shark and sting ray. Another volunteer held them up and showed us some of the interesting features, then let the children touch them. Also, they had a bin of squid, shrimp, oysters, and other small aquatic creatures that the kids could touch.

After this, we took a short walk around the lake off to the side of the Nature Center. We looked for birds to identify and for a couple of geocaches. If we had time, we could have spent all day out here doing that, but we were on a limited time frame. Looking out on the lake initially, we spied a Great White Heron and Snowy Egret hanging out. A man we ran into at the park at the other end of the lake told us they had been hanging out there together for a couple of months. He also said that a bald eagle has been spotted flying over the lake. He sure seemed to know a lot about the day to day life here in this little corner of the park. I think he was a grandfather who lived nearby and took his grand kids to play here regularly, as he was with some little ones who played with ours as we looked for a nearby geocache.

On the way back to the parking lot, we saw a lot of bird activity. I thought we were seeing a new bird for us, until we looked it up later and realized what we were seeing was the female Eastern Bluebird. We also saw males. I saw two woodpeckers flying about trees together that I am fairly certain were ladderbacks. We also saw Yellow Rumped Warblers and what I think was a mix of Savannah and Chipping Sparrows. Kill Deer peeped as they flew across the lake in a trio. I am sure there were many new birds to us, but we aren’t that good at this yet.

I did identify some species near my house this week, most notably the European Starling. The grackels are out in FULL force, and I noticed when looking at them that the Boat Tailed and Great Tailed are mixed in with the Common. Rock pigeons fly up under the overpass at 99 and the Westpark, as well as other places in town. So with the Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, that brings the year total now to 42.

My younger son and I were most impressed with the Nature Center, although I think the others enjoyed it too. There is so much to see here, and I want to host a geocaching event here to experience it. I am considering hosting events at all the parks that are completed throughout the Greenway system on a rotating basis this next couple of years, so that my caching friends can go out and experience these places too (many of them already have, but not all of them have seen all the locations). This makes me feel excited about the future. I can’t wait to find more caches and more birds!

For more information on the center, see here:http://www.springcreekgreenway.org/naturecenter.htm

George Bush Park Hikes: Series #2

On a crisp winter morning, I met up with a friend from geocaching to head out to George Bush Park. We were specifically after a series of caches off the Noble Road, an old farm road from the turn of the century that was later converted to a three mile stretch of trail. This trail runs from Highway 6 to the hike and bike road leading to the Equestrian parking lot at the end of South Barker Cypress. It was the latter parking area that we parked at around seven thirty this morning.

I carried a lightweight pack and binoculars, but I realized pretty quickly that I was going to have to choose between hiking and caching, and watching birds. Last weekend J and I did a little of both, but we were only after two caches; today, my friend and I were trying to get 15-20 and we had a limited time frame, because I was headed to the Wildlife Center midday for a volunteer training.

The Wildlife Center’s motto is “A place to grow, a place to heal, a place to be wild”, and this is what I thought about this morning during our hike: not about the Center, but about this park. This 7,800 park is reported to be home to about 10,000-15,000 feral hogs, signs of which were apparent to us this morning. We saw several piles of what I believe to be scat from these guys, some quite fresh. We had some discussion on whether it was actually their scat, because there was hair in some of the piles. I was aware that pigs are omnivorous, but not sure if they actually consumed small mammals (I learned later that they will, on occasion). There was also the tell tale evidence of the rooting for food that these creatures do.

There were also other sets of tracks along the path, telling the oldest story of all: the relationship between predator and prey. I didn’t get a picture unfortunately, in the interest of expediency and regret it now. I am fairly certain what I was seeing were the tracks of a raccoon, who was being tailed by a coyote. I am not sure if both made it out alive.

Later, as we got past the curves and headed into the part of the trail that heads straight to Highway 6, we had our first and only encounter with actual wildlife. A doe was grazing as we came around the curve, then lifted her head and watched us for a minute before darting off into the thicket to the right. A few minutes later, an adolescent deer, most likely her fawn, came trotting out of the woods on the left. It was confused for a bit, and I think even mistook us for its mom, because it began running towards us. Then it stopped, and ran back, then towards us, back again, then from side to side along the path until it finally figured out how to also dart off into the right side of the thicket. We hoped he got reunited with his mom.

We also saw a lot of birds out here, but I was unable to identify all of them. We saw and heard crows, robins, cardinals, and sparrows. I was able to identify the Savannah and Chipping Sparrows. With that Chipping and some House Sparrows I was able to identify at J’s family’s house, that brings the bird species total to 39 now (maybe more, need to check my notes).

A place to grow and a place to be wild, that is what this park is; a sanctuary for wildlife in the middle of urban sprawl. We heard the gunshots from the range all morning and wondered if the animals who live here just get desensitized to the sound. Perhaps they never know what guns mean, seeing as that one recreational activity not allowed here is hunting; good news for the feral hogs, not so good news for the homeowners around the park that have yards torn up by these wild things.

Despite the lack of hunting, the deer still have a healthy fear of people. I was a little concerned by the young one running up so close to us before he found his way out into the forest, but the mom was quick to bolt, reminding me of this line from an Indigo Girls song, “they’re coming for us/cameras or guns/we don’t know which/but we got to run”….we just wanted to take her picture, poor thing.

Even though George Bush Park sometimes gets cursed under our breaths for its thorns and rough forest patches, it is still a wonderful thing to have so much land available here where the wild things can live without restraint, and where we can go looking for them by hoof, foot or bike.

What Does the Vulture Say

We were having a talk about vultures at lunch, my kids and I. The older one made a statement like, “no one wants to see vultures,” and the little one wanted to know why. It was postulated that seeing a high number of vultures could be an indication that something is wrong with the environment.

As it turns out, it might be the other way around, for it is the decline of vultures in other areas that may actually demonstrate a natural imbalance. While it is true that in North America, we have made the world a better place for vultures (by the increase in roadkill and decrease in vulture persecution by farmers), this is not a boon seen across the board. In fact, in India, the vulture population decreased by 99% by 2008, leaving very little of these large, although unsightly, incredibly useful birds.

Of all the reasons why these large carrion eaters have been reducing in such significant numbers in India, the biggest reason is the use of Diclofenac, which is a painkiller administered to cattle. The cattle carcasses were a large part of the diet of vultures in that area, and the painkiller was poisoning the birds. The birds do not have a critical enzyme needed to break down the medication and die within three days of renal failure after consuming this meat. The use of this drug was banned in 2006, and numbers show a slight increase between 2011 and 2012, so that is good news. DDT has also played a role, as this pesticide was dumped in high quantities in a national park in order to quell malaria rates. High levels of DDT were being found in the flesh of cows, left for vultures to feed on due to Hindu practices regarding the revered cud chewers.

However, it is not just India that has seen a significant decrease in vulture population. Nepal shares many of the same reasons for decline of the vulture population within its borders as India. Africa has also seen its fair share of vulture decline, also due in some part to the use of Diclofenac, but also due to the use of a pesticide called Furadan that farmers lace carcasses with to reduce herd loss from carnivores. Since each carcass can feed up to 150 vultures, this leaves a huge unintended consequence of the dying off of these useful birds. Some of the deaths are also attributed to the use of vultures by shamans in mystical ceremonies that commonly involve the use of this animals brain in ceremonies. It is believe that the vulture brain (either through smoking, eating, or smearing on the body) imbues on the recipient powers of clairvoyance or increased intelligence. The black market sale of these birds leads to the disappearance of roughly 59,000 birds a year.

In the US, we have also had our losses over the years. During 1946-1970, vulture numbers dropped off, like the other large birds of prey, due to the widespread use of DDT. This pesticide was discovered to thin the shells of these big birds, decreasing the ability of the offspring to survive. However, since the use of this has been banned, the numbers have rebounded, and it seems like here in Texas, you can’t hardly look at the sky without seeing one floating about.

I think it is interesting to note that before 1920, the ubiquitous Black Vulture was not common to Texas. It was not until a change in agricultural practices that they became permanent residents. The truth is also that the vulture population follows the white deer population. Since Texas has the largest population of white tailed deer of all the states, it makes sense that we would also see high numbers of vultures here.

So in our case, seeing the vultures IS something we want to see, because it indicates the health of the system, not the other way around, like we speculated at lunch. It means our wildlife is flourishing, and that pesticides (at leas those that affect the birds) are not leaking into the environment at such levels that they are having an impact on population levels, that our farmers aren’t leaving laced carcasses meant to discourage large predators, and that we don’t eat their brains.

It could just be, though, that no one wants to see the vultures because they are just not attractive birds. Their heads are bare to keep them clean when eating carcasses, but it makes them look funny. They don’t have flashy colors to their feathers, and their eating habits make us feel disgusted. However, they perform a useful task in cleaning up the environment of the collective dead things. Without them, the risk of disease spread goes up.

If you don’t believe me on this, ask India. They now have issues with increasing feral dog populations and water contamination from their lack of vultures.

I myself find the vultures boring and commonplace, but after today’s research (what better way to spend a non-snow snow day), I understand why there are so many of them, and it makes me feel comforted.

Things with Wings

This past week, we’ve been getting out and stretching our tendons, strengthening muscles weary from winter rests. It’s been a beautiful week, with mild temperatures and sunny skies. Birds have been tweeting sweet temptations from the trees, and we desired to go see the things they spoke of – branches, berries, bits of brittle wheat grass and little insects hopping on a forest floor.

And so we ended up at Addick’s Reservoir.

We were in search of the Elements – not just wind, water, earth and fire, although we did find the first three (and signs of a past fourth). No, this time we were seeking Copper and Zinc, as in two of the natural earth elements that are featured on the cache pages of these two in the Elements series by Z Malloc. These were two in a line that I could have gotten in a cache run on President’s Day some years ago, but couldn’t because they were past the water line.

Today we took a path that led down the side of the reservoir and towards the edge of the water line. Then we turned east and walked towards a stand of bare, gnarled trees, one of which held the cache. Yellow rumped warblers were too numerous to count, twittering in and out and all around the fields and trees. A few American Robins were spotted here and there. A hawk flew above us, either a red-tailed or a red-shouldered. The vultures were ever present to the east, just above the water that grew from a trickle where we stood to a little gully several feet across in the distance. If I was an artist, I would draw for you the sight I saw from my binoculars as I looked that way – the sight of three incongruous birds perched in a vertical line in the bare branches of the tallest tree; the lowest a blue heron with delicate neck in a s-shaped curve, the middle a white ibis with long curved bill, and the top unidentified, with the bill of an ibis but dark brown feathers. I wished I could see that mystery bird better, but we were also in a mission to keep going, find what we were looking for, not fall down, and get home in a reasonable time frame.

As we made our way east, we heard one, then another crack of a rifle to the north. We aren’t sure what was being hunted. We did see signs that, at night probably, the wild things were doing hunting of their own. I am fairly certain that in these collection of tracks below, besides the obvious raccoon, that a large cat was spending some time out here, perhaps bobcat. Also, a few piles of coyote scat were seen, as well as damage to the side of the reservoir from feral hogs

On the way home, we stopped to take a picture of a red-shouldered hawk perched all dejected-looking in a tree. I will have to post those shots once J gets them off his camera (all shots in here are from my phone). Also, I had him get a shot of a striking Northern Cardinal singing to the day at the top of a bare tree.

Later, we ended up in Cullinan Park on the south side of town. We were with kids and parents, armed with sets of binoculars and a birding book to see what was going on at Pumpkin Lake. We saw American Coots and Common Moorhen, with Great Egrets congregating at the back of the lake. More yellow rumped warblers flitting in the bushes, along with what appeared to be Song and Savannah Sparrows. There were probably a great many others, but identification is still difficult for me. We walked along the trails and found a cache, and talked about others that used to be here (that I never found, only J) and what the trails used to be like. Apparently this bridge used to go all the way across, but now stems the tide of trash down in the large creek:

Also this week, I have been spending quite a bit of time along the Willow Fork Trail Bayou Extension (?) that runs under 99 and to the west along the bayou just south of Westheimer Parkway near my house. I’ve been strengthening these muscles there, too, combining dog walking with geocaching and looking for birds.

One day, in the golden hour of light just before dusk begins, I had a rare moment where the multi-users of this trail had disappeared, and the birds felt comfortable enough to peek out and peep down the trail. A Downy Woodpecker flew past the Song Sparrows that were cheeping along looking for insects. Several Blue Jays were seen, one carrying what appeared to be a big muffin in his beak. Several birds were heard fluttering around on the forest floor, none of which I was able to get a good lock on.

With these birds, plus the Great Horned Owl sighting of earlier this week, it brings the yearly total of seen species to 37.