Photoblog: Trinity River Audubon Center

It's summer in Texas.  It's your first week of a 6 week long vacation.  You want to get out, finally visit places that have been added to your DFW must-see list over the last year, and work on your photography.  Unfortunately, the high will be over 100, again.  What do you do?  If you're me, you get up early and go anyway.

The Trinity River Audubon Center is near the schools I worked at this past year, yet because of their operating hours I never visited.  When I arrived I found out I was the first visitor of the day (thought I might be the only one, but eventually some youth groups showed up).  If the heat didn't bother me, I could do both the left trails and the right; otherwise, the right trails were much shadier.  Since it was still in the mid 80s, I went left.

Of course, the draw to the center are the birds, and this morning there were egrets aplenty.  Unfortunately, they did not want to share the space with me, so I saw them flying away or perched in the distance.

My favorite animal encounter, though, was with a family of raccoons that were scurrying up a tree.  When one of them locked eyes with me and let me photograph with him, I wasn't sure if we were bonding or if he wanted to jump off and attack me, so I moved on...

Other wildlife was smaller and more unexpected... from grasshoppers and crickets constantly jumping across my path, to dragonflies and butterflies flying on and around me, to tiny frogs right at my feet.

Butterfly on flowers

Grasshopper

Frog on leaf

Of course, for all of this wildlife to exist there have to be beautiful landscapes.  I walked five miles of trails, around ponds and through forests that housed these creatures.

Finally, no trip outdoors would be complete if I didn't notice the flowers. :)

By the time I had walked the trails (and yes, I did every trail), it was over 90 degrees and even this crazy Southerner knew it was time to get into a cool building.  It's a beautiful site, and of course I took many more pictures.  I'm looking forward to many more adventures, no matter what the weather tries to throw at me :)