Nature Journal: Part 6

On Wednesday, October 9th, I had the opportunity to spend my afternoon at the Fort Worth Nature Reserve & Refuge. Christian, Lexton, Hunter, and I carpooled together for the thirty-one-minute drive from campus. It was not long after exiting the interstate that I first started to see the beauty of the Texas countryside. Although we made it to the gate house without a problem, Lexton provided Hunter with incorrect directions and we ended up at the Buffalo enclosure. Unfortunately, we did not see any Buffalo’s from the car. After learning about the history of the reserve, we loaded up for the trip down to the river. On the way, we saw entire families of deer. Despite seeing close to fifteen doe’s, we did not see any buck’s. The animals did not seem to be particularly afraid of automobiles or people in general. Once the entire class arrived at the landing, we split into groups and helped load plants and equipment onto the ATV and started our trip to the site. The site was a good five to ten minute walk which provided me with the opportunity to look around the river and the surrounding forest. The river was forked near the landing. The reserve worker explained that the city of Fort Worth decided to split the river to prevent flooding. It was fascinating to hear the reasoning behind the city’s decision because I am currently enrolled in Ecology and we have talked a lot about flooding causes and preventions. Within minutes of getting to the site a classmate noticed there was an alligator sunning itself on the riverbank. The alligator was around eight or nine feet long and did not seem bothered by our presence. Later, we also saw a smaller alligator approach the same bank of the river. Aside from the alligators, almost every couple minutes you could see the splash of a fish that jumped out of the water. It is no wonder why we saw a fisherman loading back into his car at the landing. Outside of the river, a worker at the reserve showed myself and several other classmates a tree with leaves smelling of citrus that people used to treat toothaches. However, the reason we were there was to lay down erosion matts to prevent the riverbank from degrading. As I mentioned earlier, the city of Fort Worth uses this span of the Trinity river to control flooding. Despite the infrastructure they installed, portions of the river are still prone to flooding. On top of the erosion matts, we also strategically placed plants on dry, barren places of the riverbank in hopes of developing a natural erosion barrier.