“A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world.
Every living thing (and perhaps many a deal one as well) pays heed to that call.” – Aldo Leopold
They say March goes in like a lion and comes out like a lamb. This March proved to be no different.
At the beginning of the month, temperatures played their usual game: they would get up into the 70s or higher for a teasing couple of days, and then sink back down. However, toward the end of this month, temperatures remained consistently in the 70s and 80s throughout the daytime.
The warmer temperatures seemed to have brought new life to the area. When I visited my spot in Blunn Creek on March 21st around 7pm, I noticed a considerable amount of changes.
On my way to the creek, I noticed a rabbit that ran into the brush. In the creek itself, the minnows were around again, but this time more active and noticeable. There have always been quite a few insects around the creek, but there seemed to be more this time. Their presence, however, also coincided with the presence of some spiders that had made webs in tree branches that dangle over the creek – quite clever if you ask me.
(You may have to look closely, but you should be able to see the spider in its web in the center of the above photo. Also in this photo, although the glare makes it difficult, you can notice the amount of algae in the water below. I tried picking some up with a stick to gauge the amount and it was extremely dense.)
Although there was a new abundance of life in the nature of the creek, there was also something else that seemed to be in a new abundance: algae. The amount of algae definitely increased in the past month, likely due to the heat, but perhaps other factors as well.
Of course in Texas, this time of year means blue bonnets. The beautiful dash of color lined my pathway to and from my spot on the creek bed.