Elm Fork Nature Preserve – February 2023
/I arrived at the Elm Fork Nature Preserve at the same time as a Texas Master Naturalist (I could tell by his hat!) which turned out to make the walk through the circuit into a guided hike. I didn’t take as many pictures as usual. The day was brisk and sunny…pleasant in a zipped-up jacket.
Toward the back of the loop are several areas of wetlands/open water. At least one of them was an oxbow of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River – now disconnected. There were ducks, grebes, and coots…and a cormorant in a tree. They were far enough away to be almost out of range of my camera, and I didn’t take the time to get better images stabilized with my monopod.
The area was owned by the same family from 1861 until it became the preserve and was always used for household wood (shelter, cooking, eating) until it became the preserve. It is a rare parcel in this part of Texas that has always been timbered. The trees are all different sizes and I found myself taking pictures of ones that were snags or pieces of trees. When the trees leaf out it will be a good place for canopy pictures --- looking up through the trees.
A tree that had fallen across the path and been cut was particularly interesting. It had wavy markings…like meandering rivers taken from above.
There is a structure, but it doesn’t appear to have been used recently; it is beginning to deteriorate. The place does not appear to get a lot of visitors (and the Master Naturalist told me that he’d been there a few times when he thought some of the people there were not nature lovers or fishing). So – I’d like to go again but it might not be a place to go on my own.
