Our first stop in the Texas hill country was Garner State Park. Immediately when we arrived there was so much to explore. Before we had even unloaded and set up camp, we found a lizard, baby armadillos, and a baby bird. After setting up camp we hiked down to the river. It was unlike any other river I have ever been in. The bottom was made of solid limestone, there were very few rocks rolling around, most of the substrate was solid rock (Figure 1.) As we waded in the water little fish nibbled on our feet. I could see why this was such a popular park, the water was crystal clear. Wildflowers were blooming all over the park and there were many species of birds.
We went “walking without a purpose” to see what we could see in the park. There were turkeys that were letting out their loud spring gobbles as we walked on the trails. That is always one of my favorite parts of spring. We saw many different birds such as a vermillion flycatcher (Figure 2), ash throated flycatcher, eastern bluebird, Carolina wren, black crested titmouse, and northern cardinals. I enjoyed having a lot of free time at Garner to explore.
The next morning we were woken by loud cracks of thunder and a sky that glowed purple with lightning. It wasn’t exactly how we wanted to start our first day of sampling, but it is what it is. We grabbed some breakfast and headed to our first sampling site at the Texas Tech Field Station in Junction, Texas
As soon as we got to the river chaos ensued. Everyone was so excited to be in the water to sample our first site. There were some struggles with some unexpectedly deep water as a group tried to sample along the bank that was covered with overhanging roots. We caught some beautiful green throat and orange throat darters (Figure 3.) We also caught a Guadalupe bass almost immediately. Genetically pure Guadalupe bass is only found in two rivers in the world, so it was cool to see this rare species right away. The point bars in the river were made of limestone rocks. We found fossils and lots of other cool rocks. I left with a handful of them. Pulling the seine through the water was addicting.
Each time we pulled it up we hoped for a new beautiful fish that was not found in North Dakota. We chased frogs and turtles to take pictures of. We completely lost track of time at this first site. We were here for about two to three hours. It was hard to get everyone together so that we could leave.
Our next site on the Llano River was similar to Garner State Park. The bottom was solid limestone. But the stream here was very wide. It was beautiful. We caught a Texas logperch and colored up black tail shiners.
My favorite stream of the day was the Guadalupe River in River Bend Park. There were giant cypress trees lining the banks. The water was aqua blue (Figure 4.).
It did not look like anything else we had seen on the trip. The water was flowing very fast here, and it was difficult to move through the water. It felt like we were transported somewhere completely different. The limestone rocks remained the same and I left with another handful of them.
The other exciting part of the hill country was that there was a surprise around every bend in the road. The wildflowers were covering the ditches, blue bonnets, delphinium, blanket flower, Indian paintbrush, and many more we drove by too quickly to identify. (Figure 5.) There were many high fence enclosures. It was always a surprise what each one contained. Many had different animals from Africa or other areas of the world.
If you ever wanted to go on a safari, you would only have to travel as far as Texas. As we passed each one, we all stared to see if any of us could identify what the high fences contained.