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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 | Serving Del Rio and Val Verde County: Since 1929
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Taking a field trip to the creek
Published March 2, 2008
Early Saturday afternoon, I took advantage of the balmy spring-like weather to take a walk along the creek.
I started off at the city property at the end of Magnolia Street. A pair of Great Kiskadees chased each other through the cane thickets along the creek there, but otherwise things were relatively quiet.
I scared up a flycatcher that might have been an Eastern Wood-Pewee, but I didn’t get a close enough or long enough look at it to be absolutely sure. Repeated pishing brought a reluctant Lincoln’s Sparrow up out of a tangle of brush at the base of a utility pole, but those were the only birds I found.
Oh, and trash. I found lots of that, strewn along the roads that cut into the property. I started to list it all in my notebook – tires, clothing, broken cell phones, Styrofoam clamshell food containers, potato chip bags, old tins of cat food and plastic bags.
(I know the city is planning another city-wide cleanup in April, and it won’t come a moment too soon.)
My next stop was at Rotary Park, where I parked near the Academy Street bridge and spent a few minutes watching a Belted Kingfisher and a Black Phoebe.
I walked along the creek to the back of the Casa De La Cultura on Brown Plaza.
I wasn’t the only one out in the park. Normally, I have these places to myself, but normally I go out at 7 in the morning, too. It was a nice change and gave me the chance to see other people using this beautiful little park.
A young man kept a watchful eye on a girl of 3 or 4 as she lay on her stomach to dip her little hand into the clear flowing water of the creek.
I declined a Bud Light kindly offered me by a one member of a trio of older men sitting at one of the concrete picnic tables along the creek. They had plenty for themselves, they assured me, and it looked as though they did.
I reminded them to throw all their trash away when they were through, and they told me that they take all their cans to recycle and they use the plastic bags the beer came in to carry the cans.
That’s the spirit, I told them and continued on my walk.
Walking back to my car, I came across a young man who’d found himself a shady spot on one of the picnic tables and was thoughtfully playing a guitar.
He told me that his name is Eli Treviño, that he is 19 years old and that he has been playing the guitar for about six years. He told me that he likes to hang out at the creek and play his guitar.
He nodded in the direction of the creek and said, “It sets your mind at ease.”
The he strummed out a melody that flowed in perfect counterpoint to the soft rush of water.
If you’d like to hear Eli’s music – and you should – he plays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at the Avanti restaurant at the “Y”.
Leave him a big tip, too.
Field Notes: John McNamara of Ft. Clark Springs called this week to tell me that the hummingbirds have returned to the fort.
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