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Roseate Spoonbills and Egrets at Little Lemmon Lake, Dallas Texas, September 2013 The coda of brief sketches on the Trinity usually involves a note about sustainability or conservation for the future. More often than not pernicious future plans by some well meaning folk accidentally threaten to bump whatever is already inhabiting the woods down here …

Continue reading “Roseate Spoonbills — Annual Summer Pilgrimage To The Trinity River”

Wood Storks in Dallas, Texas, photo taken by James Cartwright, August 1936 Some seventy seven years ago, a man named James “Jim” Cartwright took a small camera out fishing with him to an old bow on the Trinity River turned fishing club named Lemmon Lake. Out there one afternoon he took a photo of some …

Continue reading “Wood Storks On The Rebound — The Rare Species Returns To The Great Trinity Forest”

Firework shells exploding over the Trinity River September 1, 2013 I suspect many a Dallas resident was bumped out of bed in the wee hours of September 1st 2013 by the rumbling concussion of six inch firework shells. The loud sounds of course were slightly unadvertised and I imagine caught many unaware. The fireworks were …

Continue reading “Fireworks Over Dallas — Megafest Summer Finale Over The Trinity River”

Coyotes hunting rabbits under the Continental Street Viaduct near Downtown Dallas, August 21, 2013 It’s a scene out of rural Texas. A coyote jump-hunting cottontail rabbits on a sun-soaked evening as the sun begins to set. A predator versus prey game that plays out countless times in a day across the state. The work done …

Continue reading “A Renewed Plan for a Trinity River Trail Downtown — Into The Wild With The Downtown Dallas Coyotes”

Union Pacific Big Boy 4018 along the railroad tracks near Rochester Park that serve as the western boundary of the Great Trinity Forest For almost fifty years the one million pound plus Big Boy 4018 locomotive stood as a silent and immovable monument in Fair Park. Fifty years of Texas-OU Weekends, Cotton Bowls and concerts …

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Yellow-Crowned Night Heron landing at a pond near the base of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Dallas, Texas Yellow-Crowned Night Heron Thunderstorms in the heat of a Texas summer are well known for turning a shadeless hundred degree evening into a dark wind blown affair.  As the quick growing towers of such storms rise into …

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Native Texas Woolly Rose Mallow Hibiscus (Hibiscus lasiocarpus) in the Great Trinity Forest, Dallas, Texas Sixty years ago, low income families were drawn to the land down here if you can believe it. Inexpensive land and inexpensive homes built on a mole hill of an elevation rise dividing Oak and White Rock Creeks from the …

Continue reading “Swamp Hibiscus In The Wetland Marshes of the Trinity River Bottom”

This is a land grant born from the heavy cost of a revolutionary war to gain independence from a tyrannical despotic regime. A great American from the State of Tennessee paid the ultimate price to have his name attached to the land here. His sacrifice forever consecrated this acreage of land with his family name. …

Continue reading “Trinity Forest Golf Course, The Horse Park and the Toxic Trinity River Dump”

The colorful male Painted Bunting Passerina ciris at Gateway Park Dowdy Ferry. Dallas, Texas The New World French Explorers called this bird the Passerin Nonpareil which loosely translated into English means “without equal”. The Painted Bunting. The swamps and wetlands those French once claimed for their King Louis XIV in what is now Louisiana centuries …

Continue reading “Painted Buntings at the mouth of Five Mile Creek — Dowdy Ferry Southern Gateway Park”

A Crested Coralroot Orchid Hexalectris spicata in the Great Trinity Forest, June 2013 The needles in the haystack. The drinking straw sized plants so obscure that many would walk right past them without notice. They are the native Hexalectris spicata, the Coralroot Orchid. The rarity of these orchids make for a difficult search in the …

Continue reading “The Rare Hexalectris Orchids of the Great Trinity Forest”