Category Archives: Outdoor Adventures

Rory Meyers Children’s Garden

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Calling it a children’s garden is misleading. A visit to the Rory Meyers Children’s Garden at the Dallas Arboretum is like a visit to an outdoor, natural science museum. And best of all, you don’t need to a kid to have fun here!

North Texas Ramblings Rory Meyers Children's GardenCovering eight acres, the Rory Meyers Children’s Garden is so chocked full of activities that we spent hours exploring its outdoor (and indoor) exhibits.

Pure Energy. Located at the bottom of the garden, Pure Energy is a favorite spot during hot summer days. Explore renewable energy from solar, wind, and water on a stage surrounded by a small pond. Little kids enjoy getting wet with the hands-on water exhibit. Adults and older kids can experience a tornado and learn more about wind turbines.

Texas Wetlands. While we didn’t see much in the way of living wildlife (aside from birds and squirrels), bronze animal statues populate the area around the wetlands. And we learned all about the vital role different plants play in filtering and cleaning wetlands. Who knew cattails purify water better than my faucet filter?

First Adventure. Located just at the Rory Meyers garden entrance, the First Adventure area is what you would expect from a children’s garden.  It’s a play area for the littlest garden explorers. Kids crawl on giant whimsical ants, play with exhibits set at toddler height, and plant table-top vegetable gardens.

OmniGlobe. One of only five in Texas, my family’s favorite exhibit was the OmniGlobe located inside the Exploration Center. This unique system projects simulations onto a spherical (think Earth) display. We watched continental formation over hundred millions of years, and simulations of tsunamis and hurricanes. The OmniGlobe displays astronomical phenomenon, too. My teenager thought this exhibit alone was worth the visit.

Secret Garden. Children (and even adults) looking for an adventure quest will enjoy this garden maze. While there were no dragons, we used our imagination as we wove our way towards the castle at the center of the maze.

When you go. Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Dallas Arboretum is at 8525 Garland Road. Admission is $15 for adults and $10 for children. Admission to the Rory Meyers Children’s Garden is an additional $3. Situated just outside the children’s garden, the Garden Cafe by Two Sisters sells a wide variety of pre-packaged snacks and sandwiches, along with drinks and ice cream bars.

Visitor Tip: A Dallas Arboretum membership can pay for itself after just two visits. The family membership is $125. Sounds expensive, but members can bring a total of six people with them each time they visit the arboretum (and the guests do not have to be family).

Congress Avenue Bats

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Now is a great time to visit Austin and see some of the city’s unique, seasonal visitors. In fact, the city’s population swells by an additional 750,000 between March and October. It’s not a hoard of legislators or even lobbyists besieging the capital. These seasonal visitors north texas ramblings congress bridge batsare Mexican Free Tail bats, and their home of choice is beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge, just blocks from the Texas State Capital.

Bat Bridge

The winged mammals took up residence after a bridge modification in the early 1980s. The bats fit nicely into slots cut underneath the bridge. Each spring, pregnant bats arrive in March to give birth. According to Bat Conservation International, Congress Avenue Bridge is one of the largest urban bat nurseries in the United States.  The bridge can support as many as 500 bats per square foot!

Bat Moms and Pups

At dusk, the mother bats leave their individual pups up under the bridge and fly off to hunt. It’s this dusk flight that draws a different type of animal — tourists — to Congress Bridge. To avoid predators, the bat colony begins its nightly hunt in mass.  As the bats emerge, they form an aerial river of winged mammals flowing out from under the bridge. The bats head east to forage on bugs, nightly consuming 5 to 15 tons of insects helping to keep mosquito populations in check.  After an evening of bug hunting, mom returns to the bridge.  She finds her pup by its unique sound and smell.

Around July, the young bats join mom in the nightly flight. It’s a perilous endeavor for the little critters. Aerodynamically, the bats begin flight by dropping from their perch. If grounded, they are not able to get airborne again. Each night several of the little bats plop into Town Lake. The lucky ones get plucked out of the water with nets by the tour boats and placed on the bridge pilings. Here they can climb high enough to drop and attempt flight again.

Bat Viewing Tips. There are several ways to view the Congress Bridge bat colony. Capital Cruises Austin offers nightly boat excursions. This is a great way to see the bats up close. Reservations are required and can be made at 512-480-9264. You can see the bats from land, too. The east side of Congress Bridge just before dusk is an ideal viewing location.  You can also see the bats quite nicely along the Ann and Ray Butler Hike and Bike trail just below the Four Seasons hotel. Bat Conservation International’s website at batcon.org posts current time frames for the bats’ nightly appearances.

Waco Mammoth Site

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Visit Waco Mammoth site and travel back in time 68,000 years. It’s the Ice Age but without the ice. Instead grassy plains cover Central Texas and ice age animals like the Columbian North Texas Ramblings Waco Mammoth Sitemammoth, camel and saber-tooth cat roam the grasslands.  A nursery herd of mammoth (cows and calves) peacefully graze along a creek bed until a flash flood buries the entire herd. Fast forward to 1978 when two teenage boys, looking for arrowheads, spot a bone embedded in the dry creek bed. That’s the story behind Waco Mammoth Site. The boys’ find became the largest nursery herd of Columbian mammoth (19 mammoths and a camel) to be discovered.

Baylor University paleontologists worked the site for years, uncovering mammoth from not just one flood event but a total of three separate floods that trapped these prehistoric animals over thousands of years. In total 28 mammoth, camels and a young saber-tooth cat have been found.

In 2009, Baylor University and the City of Waco opened the Waco Mammoth Site to the public. Docent-led tours give visitors fascinating facts about Ice Age Texas and its inhabitants. You also gain insights into a paleontologists’ world. While most bones have been jacketed and transported for further study, many have been left in place.A climate-controlled building surrounds the dig site and a boardwalk pathway winds through the building allowing visitors to see mammoth bones as they were found. Tiered excavations stair step the dig site displaying finds from the three major flood events. Wall murals illustrate the Colombian mammoths’ size and appearance.

The visitors center and dig site are located within a scenic parkland along the banks of the Bosque River. The Waco Mammoth Site (6220 Steinbeck Bend Road, Waco) is open Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children.

 

Texas Backyard Naturalist – Butterflies

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In August and September you’ll likely spot monarch butterflies. Much of the Lone Star state is along the migratory pathway of monarch butterflies heading south from Midwest states Texas Backyard Naturalist Monarch Butterflyto warmer winter weather in Mexico. In fact, the monarch is the Texas state butterfly.

Few backyard visitors bring more delight than the graceful butterfly. Texas backyard naturalists are fortunate to live in a state with such a wide diversity of butterfly species – 495 in all. Here are some tips for making your garden butterfly friendly.

Gardening for Butterflies. Butterfly gardens are chocked full of colorful flowers.  Butterflies like nectar plants with shallow flower tubes, and are attracted to large groupings of red, yellow, orange and purple flowers. Unlike the hummingbird who feeds at the flower while hovering, butterflies require a flower that allows them to land and feed in place. Purple coneflower, butterfly weed, mealy blue sage, phlox and lantana are all native Texas plants that invite butterflies to visit. For the best results, include a wide variety of nectar plants with varied blooming seasons – that way the garden can feed butterflies in spring, summer and fall.

Butterflies also need warm temperatures — between 85 and 100 degrees – to thrive. Ideally, a sunny spot is best for the garden.

The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) publishes a comprehensive list of plants suitable for butterflies in specific regions. Their plant list includes both native and non-native plants, along with information on flower blooming seasons.

Finally, butterflies need a small sandy wet garden spot to puddle. It’s from these sandy or muddy garden spots the butterfly gets the salts and minerals it needs that aren’t in plant nectar.

Gardening for Caterpillars. It takes more than brightly colored flowers and a puddling spot for a successful butterfly garden.

Like all insects, butterflies undergo metamorphosis, changing from egg, to larvae (caterpillar), to pupae (chrysalis) to adult (beautiful butterfly). Accommodating all phases of the butterfly life cycle keeps butterflies in the garden. And while adult butterflies feed on a variety of nectar producing flowers, they lay eggs only on select host plants. Some butterflies, like monarchs, lay eggs only on a single variety of plant.

Adult butterflies know which plants are suitable by taste. The adult butterfly tastes the plant with its feet. Yes, that’s right, the adult butterfly lands on a host plant and through its feet determines if the plant is correct for its eggs.

To encourage butterflies to lay their eggs in your garden, consider planting milkweed (monarch), dill and parsley (swallowtail), passion vine (fritillary) or thistle (painted lady).  Caterpillars have their own special beauty with colorful bandings. These voracious eaters can munch a plant down to its stem, but rarely does this kill the host plant.

If you want butterfly caterpillars, do not use any pesticides near your larval host plants as these will kill the caterpillars.

 

Eastern Cottontail

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If Nature held beauty contests, the eastern cottontail would win by a tail.  The small rabbits endear themselves to Texas naturalists with their long ears, saucer-sized brown eyes and cute little white cotton puff tail.

Eastern cottontails are a sure sign of spring in North Texas.  Read more