Alligators & Birding at Brazos Bend State Park (Texas)

I have to admit that if there was one state I never thought I would hike in, it would be Texas. Well, I’m in Texas, & I would definitely not call today’s walks hikes, even tho Texas Parks & Wildlife does. They were walks, strolls, meanders thru Texas’s version of wilderness.

There is certainly a lot of horizon in Texas. Don’t come here for the mountains, ‘coz there ain’t any. Oh, I think there are some on the western edge, but we’re in Houston (& took a side-trip to Dallas earlier this week), and the only elevation gain we’ve seen is on the 3-level freeway interchanges where you can look as far as the eye can see and swear you can see Canada to the north. When we were in Whistler this summer, we encountered a couple of gals from Texas wondering where the escalator was on the gentle incline of the “easy” trail we were on. Now I know why they were struggling. There are no hills here. It’s flat-flat-flat! I think I made my point. It’s flat in this, I dubbed, the Land of the Uninterrupted Horizon.

I think hiking books for Texas are ironic. My hiking experience involves mountains, or hills, or waterfalls (which imply hills) or some sort of reason to actually wear hiking boots instead of runners. I didn’t even pack my boots for this trip. But nevertheless, we did receive a couple of Texas hiking books for Christmas, and in one of the books is actually one of the walks we took today, the 40-Acre Lake Trail at Brazos Bend State Park (near Houston) which features, among other things, a vibrant alligator habitat.

Alligators?? Now that’s not something I’ve seen on a hike or walk or meander before. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen one in the wild before. Maybe in Florida many years ago, but I honestly can’t remember. I remember seeing wild manatees, but I don’t remember if I saw alligators.

But we saw alligators today.

First we saw them from a distance, and then one swam under the little fishing pier at 40 Acre Lake, so we got closer-up views…

 

There were all sorts of signs & literature about “alligator etiquette” which include such information as staying 30’ away from one of these guys. But there were no signs warning the alligators to stay away from us. There were a couple on the side of the path every now & then. One was a little too close for comfort. We didn’t “shoot” him (w/ the camera), but we took pictures of this moss-covered guy:

 

I wonder if moss is itchy.

There was other wildlife there, as well. Lots & lots of birds. We probably saw about 35 different species of birds & also squirrels & turtles. Here are some of our various pictures from the day:

Carolyn & Rich looking at some micro birds.

 Snowy Egret flying over a couple of Moor Hens (?) 

Moor Hen?

A couple of turtles sunning themselves in the primordial ooze.

The path along 4 Acre Lake

Picnic lunch w/ Carolyn’s portable picnic table

Hale Lake is an oxbow, & this is the tip.  Somewhere, toward the beginning of this walk, I was really starting to miss mountains. I was craving mountains; yes, even aching for mountains. But a funny thing happened. The more I looked for at at the birds, the less I missed the mountains.

Hale Lake

 

Red Shouldered Hawk

Anhinga (nope, I never heard of it either, but he’s beautiful!)

 

Carolyn, Rich & me in the gazebo on the tip of the oxbow

This log was full of turtles, wall-to-wall, until somebody (OK, me)  somehow scared about 1/2 of them off…

Hale Lake looks like a river, but it’s not.

Haha. At the Park Headquarters.

After our 2nd walk today, the Hale Lake Loop Trail, Carolyn asked me if I felt like I got some exercise today. Um… Activity, yes. Movement, yes. Exercise, no. I have to admit, I am not a birder. I have places to go & trails to hike & summits & waterfalls to get to. I like birds & I appreciate birds. I often would like to kinda know what I’m looking at besides a generic bird or a woodpecker or some sort of hawk or maybe it’s a falcon. I know eagles and black capped chickadee-dee-dees, but not much in between. Birding is not exercise, but you know, sometimes it’s not about target heart rates and burnt calories. Sometimes it’s about slowing down to not only see the tiny micro birds in the scrub next to the path, but taking up the time to learn their names. And isn’t it interesting that it took a stroll on a path in the land of uninterrupted horizons for me to see that (probably b/c I didn’t have anything else to look at, LOL). I think I’m gonna slip the bird book that my mom gave me into my pack when we get home…