Del Rio News Herald

One of the many benefits humans derive from San Felipe Creek is recreation.

My dictionary, the “Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition,” the edition recommended for use in newsrooms around the world by the Associated Press, defines the noun “recreation” as “refreshment in mind or body, as after work, by some form of play, amusement or relaxation” and the verb “recreate” as “restore, refresh, create anew” and “create again or in a new fashion.”

Early Thursday morning, I drove to the creek for a few hours of “recreation” along its banks. It had been some time since I had walked from Tardy Dam to the U.S. 90 Bridge upstream. I wanted to see the some of the wonderful birds that can be found along its banks, but I also wanted to see firsthand the graffiti, vandalism and piles of trash that Dan Riley and Dora Alcalá had complained about during Tuesday night’s council meeting.

I arrived at the creek early enough to have the place all to myself.

During our hot summer months, I’ve found it’s better to get all your out-of-doors running around done as early in the day as possible, then retreat to the air-conditioned caves of home or office in the late morning and afternoon.

I found a Yellow-crowned Night Heron stalking through the water below Tardy Dam. Bird books don’t show this small, distinctive heron as a resident of the area, but this species nests regularly in south Del Rio’s towering pecans and is relatively common along the San Felipe Creek.

Farther upstream, near the Dr. Alfredo Gutierrez Jr. Amphitheatre, I watched a Double-crested Cormorant dive below the surface of the creek and come up with something small and struggling in its beak. The cormorant paddled swiftly to a large flat stone on the far bank, tossed the fish it had caught into the air, then deftly caught it in a way that allowed the bird to swallow it with greater ease.

I took several photos of this maneuver and when I zoomed in on the fish later, back at the office, I realized that the fish is one of the Hypostomus plecostomus armored catfishes bedeviling biologists because the devastating effect it is believed to be having on the native fishes in the creek. At least we know something is eating them.

The creek had a different feel to it on my walk back to San Felipe Lions Memorial Park from the U.S. 90 Bridge.

By 10 a.m., people were out in force, enjoying themselves along the creek before the onset of the afternoon’s blast furnace-like heat.

At Moore Park, the wind in the mature cottonwoods and sycamores is drowned out by the shrieks and laughter of children at the Moore Park Pool. A jogger puffs along a bend in the hike-and-bike trail across from Romanelli Park.

Two young mothers push baby strollers near the amphitheater, their older children racing ahead of them on scooters. Near the Losoya Street Bridge, a man and a woman keep close watch on two boys splashing in the creek and just downstream of the same bridge, two older men fish from the bank.

Lions Park is swarming with children when I return to my car, and at a picnic table along the creek, a young couple sits thigh-to-thigh and holding hands, obviously in love, oblivious to the world around them.

The creek has worked its magic on me again, as well, and I go on with the rest of the day feeling relaxed and at peace with myself and the universe.

Share | Save | Mail | Print

Serving Del Rio and Val Verde County since 1929

A Southern Newspapers publication.