Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Seagulls?

When you think of Dallas/Fort Worth, you probably don't think of seagulls. We are, after all, a little over 300 miles from the nearest salt water. But they do show up here, flying inland from the Gulf to spend the winter. They seem to prefer flying over large parking lots... perhaps the vast gray expanse of pavement reminds them of the ocean. I took this pic over the Wal-mart lot just down the road from my house, where they were resting on one of the light poles.
They also seem a little better behaved than usual while they're here... along the coast, they'll swoop down and grab pieces of bread from your hand, here, they tend to stay as far away from you as possible.
I mentioned a couple of posts ago that the Trinity river isn't the most attractive of rivers. I took this pic in one of my favorite spots to pull over when I'm waiting in Ft. Worth... During the summer it's overgrown with weeds and full of birds and bugs and other fascinating things... this time of year, you can clearly see how the summer and autumn storms chew up the banks... and the primary reason that most don't find it particularly attractive...
By the way, the water isn't blue, that's a reflection of the sky. Not a lot of fishing in the Trinity. Since the Alligators are no longer here, it's overrun with turtles, primarily red ear sliders but there are soft shell and snappers also. They've thinned a huge amount of the fish out.

Just a quick post really, I've got a whole list of things to do, so I better get moving on.

3 comments:

  1. That is interesting that the gulls are there in the winter! COOL! I bet they are so beautiful flying around all of the trees there! The Trinity looks dry...are water levels low in the picture?

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  2. It's been a fairly dry winter... but the water level goes up and down like crazy... one of the reasons that the banks are so eaten up all the time.

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  3. I felt a lot of saddness on the banks of the Trinity. Strange...It was 1982.. near Dallas. occasionally a pelcan will land on our lake during the monsoon.

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