Everyone but my dad set out for a hike Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. Dad stayed back to hang out with their dog Daisy. We weren’t sure exactly how long this trail was because unlike many other Texas state parks there wasn’t an individual trail map for the state park. The trail was on the campground map but there weren’t really any distinguishing marks to estimate the distance of the trail. And to make matters more complicated, wires were crossed between my brother and sister-in-law in regards to what the end-goal was for the hike: my brother was going for a hike and my sister-in-law thought the trail ended…

Up the Wolf Mountain Trail at the state park, not but a mile or so in, you cross Regal and Bee Creeks which feed down to the Twin Falls Creek. We only stopped shortly at Regal Creek, shown here with Chris flipping rocks over to find salamanders and other creek life, but spent more time scoping out Bee Creek which was wider and flowing more than Regal Creek. Bee Creek begged to be explored more. Chris poked around the creek for bit while I entertained Forest with a late morning snack in his backpack. On his explorations he found chatterbox orchids just out of reach of good photography range. Doesn’t…

Wildlife at Pedernales Falls State Park was fairly abundant. There were a ton of doves, more than I’ve heard at a campground in awhile. It was a constant cacophony of doves cooing in the junipers. Some of the doves started sounding like barred owls, at least to me. Chris gave me the side-eye on that observation, but really, sometimes they had a little ‘who cooks for you’ going on! Western scrub jays were a fun addition to our birding list for the day. We hoped to see golden-cheeked warblers but alas, none were found. The scrub jays were just like their Floridian counterparts, rather tame and willing to pose for…

After we took a bushwhacking trail down the side of the ‘mountain’ from the Twin Rivers Nature Trail, we found ourselves walking adjacent to the Pedernales River. We walked along a wide ATV trail before Chris found himself a spot to fish for a few minutes. Again, I took the time to find little scenes to photograph and hoped that Forest wouldn’t protest hanging out in his backpack for a few minutes. I hung out for a bit with some ants walking up and down the base of a cypress tree and managed to get a few decent photos. I love this photo of Forest as he scans the sky…

Clematis texensis The Twin Falls Nature Trail leads off from the southern loop of the campground at the state park. Not far down the trail, the terrain gets rocky and starts descending down into the creek canyon below. The trail leads to a waterfall coming off of Bee Creek and down into Twin Falls Creek. We did not see the second waterfall but I suspect it was a little further up the creek. Unfortunately the area down at the falls is closed to visitors in order to protect the habitat. We did see several trails leading down to the creek, though, which means some people don’t heed the warnings to…

We’re flashing back to February when we went camping at Village Creek State Park. Our morning walk along the Village Creek and Tupelo Trails was very quiet. Aside from encountering a few people near the primitive campsite near the trailhead, we found no one else on the trails that morning. There were plenty of Nyssa aquatica, tupelo, specimens lining the bayous and bottoms that drained out into Village Creek. Village Creek was calm and serene that morning. Adjacent to the trail we found a couple of jack-in-the-pulpits! The Village Creek trail deadended into the beach at Village Creek. We spent quite a bit of time scouting the edge of the…

Wetlands. They are highly undervalued but very awesome ecosystems. It was in college that I pinpointed the fact that I really loved wetlands and decided to focus on them as part of my marine biology degree. Looking more deeply, it was salt marshes that I had an affinity for, something I grew up loving as part of family vacations to the Texas and Florida coasts. Of course from there I learned about freshwater wetlands, and with our living in Florida for 8 years we became wetland maniacs. Wetlands are happening places! With our camping trip a few weekends ago, we took to the trails the morning we were to pack…