By Brandt Mannchen
Ten, excited and hardy souls met on June 11, 2022, to hike Hudson Woods, a unit of the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge, in the morning and visit Sea Center, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fish hatchery and learning center in the afternoon.
We started at Scoby Lake where we watched a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron perch on a log, above the water, and look for a tasty morsal. Next, we hiked to the environmental center and met Mike and Anne Lange. Mike is the one who bought Hudson Woods about 18 years ago for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect and manage.
Mike showed a map of the Columbia Bottomlands area and the progress that has been made since 1992 to protect the best remaining lands for wildlife and for public appreciation.
The Columbia Bottomlands is a unique coastal forest of Live Oak, Pecan, Shumard Oak, Burr Oak, Water Oak, Hackberry, Green Ash, and other trees. About 40,000 acres have been acquired by Fish and Wildlife Service, other agencies, and private land trusts, including the 1,150-acre Hudson Woods.
We left Mike and Anne and strolled through the woods. Water Oaks, Live Oaks, Hackberries, Deciduous Hollies, hawthorns, and other trees and shrubs formed a canopy over our heads and shaded us from the ever present sun.
It was insect and spider time and we admired the Gulf Fritillary and Giant Swallowtail Butterflies and long-tail skippers as they floated from plant to plant, including Trumpet Vines and Turk’s Caps, and looked for food or laid eggs for a new batch of butterflies.
Spider webs were everywhere and particularly those of the Golden Silk Spider and Golden Garden Spider. These spiders had woven extensive webs across the trails (open areas of the forest) in their attempt to capture prey.
Male spiders attempted the dangerous task of mating with the five times larger female spiders without becoming a meal for their out-sized loved-one. Good luck, I thought as I untangled myself from the mass of golden threads that made-up the web and which I was the first to meet as I lead the group.
We made it to the power-line easement and then walked a short distance to Oyster Creek. We walked up the trail near the creek and I searched and finally found the huge Live Oak tree I wanted to show everyone. We posed at the tree and continued our walk in the woods.
It got hotter and hotter as time passed and we made it to the road which took us back to the parking lot. We walked the road, staying in the shaded parts whose shadows were those of large Live Oaks, an oak alley if you will.
We finally reunited with Mike and Anne and drove into Lake Jackson and had a Chinese buffet at a local restaurant and cooled off. The air conditioning felt fine!
Then we were off to Sea Center, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fish hatchery, education center, aquarium, and wetlands demonstration project. We marveled at the myriad of fish species that swim in the brackish bays and Gulf waters in Southeast Texas.
Some of us played in the touch tank with sea anemones and hermit crabs just like kids do all over the world. We are a lot more connected and closer to each other than we think.
We visited the boardwalk at the wetlands demonstration project and saw native hibiscus, Salt Marsh Mallows, Crinum Lilies, and other wetland plants blooming in the hot sun.
By the time we left, happy, but glad of air conditioning, the temperature had climbed to 97 degrees. Hot, but not too hot to keep the Sierra Club from enjoying Nature and its’ secret treasures in the forest and waters of Brazoria County.