On a beautiful December 24th last year, I sat on a bench in a little pocket of prairie at Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge, and wrote about it in this blog. This year the refuge seemed the perfect place to spend part of the winter solstice. With Barbara and her kids, I spent the afternoon up on the ridge overlooking the lake, and then at the marsh boardwalk just before sunset. Today, the day after Christmas, was a clear and warm day and I had to go back to that same bench that charmed me last year. And so, here are some notes and some photos of the refuge and some of the birds we saw there.
On the 21st, the first thing I saw was a group of vultures, apparently riding rising thermal air currents. My field notes included the following: 11:55am – There were numerous black vultures flying low through the area (the lake shore) and they converged over the water, were joined by a few turkey vultures – and 20 became 30 as they flew in a tight circle and gained altitude, working their way past Greer Island, high in the sky.
When the others arrived, we started our visit at Lone Point, the stone shell of a shelter built long ago by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It overlooks Lake Worth, and on this day it was a popular vantage point for more vultures. Below us on the water, and above us in the sky, there were American white pelicans with their black-edged wings and big pouched bills.
At the end of the day, the boardwalk and surrounding marsh were alive with many bird species. On the water there were American coots, mallards, American wigeons, great egrets, and a belted kingfisher that soared over the marsh and landed not far off, then flew further away before I could get a photo.
Closer to us, at the muddy margins of the marsh, we were amazed at the birds that kept popping up in front of us or down below the boardwalk. One species entirely new to Barbara and me was a sora, a secretive marsh bird that tends to stay among grasses and reeds looking for seeds and aquatic invertebrates to eat. There was also a swamp sparrow hopping around the water’s edge, and a common yellowthroat.
Higher up in the Phragmites stems was a handsome song sparrow, although the photo I was able to get hardly did it justice. And higher up, flitting among tree branches and the tops of the reeds, was a ruby-crowned kinglet. These are gorgeous little birds who don’t sit still long, although they’ll spend long enough at my suet feeder for me to get a good look, sometimes even seeing the little red patch of feathers on the crown of the head that gives them their name.
When I returned after Christmas and four days into winter, once again it was clear and warm. I walked the trail up through woodlands to that spot where a live oak overhangs a bench that looks over a little patch of little bluestem grasses. It is one of several places I am strongly drawn to at the refuge. I got there a little after 2:00pm, and my field notes included these entries: It is breezy – even windy enough to shake the treetops in a sort of slow motion way. The bare tops of oaks and other trees stiffly swayed as if nodding greetings all around.
It was still and the sun at my back warmed my shirt. And then the breeze would come, slightly cool, and making a rushing sound especially through the live oaks with their leaves intact. I could hear the breeze rolling through this part of the woods like a wave of moving air. It was otherwise as peaceful and quiet as I have found it to be before.
I walked back through some woodland to get a look at a favorite patch of savannah. As I walked through the woods, I saw the only substantial bird life of this day – birds that mostly included the American Robin, moving from place to place eating berries from vines and mistletoe.
The savannah was beautiful, with waist-high prairie grasses such as little bluestem and split-beard bluestem.
Our Lives In Nature 