See the article in the March  2009 edition of TPWD magazine regarding our Haiku Hikes

Click Here

Native Texas Plants in Winter

January 19, 2008

   Members of the Friends of Government Canyon Education Committee, Bob Moyer and Carol Law, conducted a “talk and walk” to explore and discuss evergreen and other winter-adapted native Texas plants at GCSNA on a brisk morning in January.  Although the temperatures were in the 30s with a sharp breeze, these conditions did little to cool off the enthusiasm of this adventurous group!  The Friends volunteers thoughtfully provided hot cocoa and cookies and conducted a short talk to “warm up” the participants and the brilliant sunshine and cobalt sky were inviting us outside.

  Using specimens collected from his residential property adjoining GCSNA, Bob pointed out about a dozen of the most prevalent species that can be found with leaves, blooms, and fruit during the winter months.  The live oak trees, the largest and oldest plants in GCSNA, have already dropped their acorns that are an important food source for wildlife and the male junipers are orange with their small, but potent, pollen-packed cones.  The purple and fleshy female cones of the junipers are in abundance and, indeed, evidence found in animal droppings along the trail indicated how important they are for food as well.

  After a brief introductory stroll among the oak-persimmon-mountain laurel groves in the pavilion area, the adventurers were ready to embark across the bridge and onto the Recharge Trail.  The young hikers tested their new knowledge about the plants that they could see along the way – the similarities and differences between evergreen sumac and mountain laurel leaves; the plants that develop spiny points on their leaves to discourage browsing herbivores; the differences between the way parasitic mistletoe and non-parasitic “ball moss” bromeliads depend on their hosts.  Although the colors of the winter landscape are predominantly subdued, the occasional splashes of color – red-burnished sumac leaves and berries, orange blooming lichens, purple prickly pear fruit – were all the more appreciated.

  The walkers also noticed that, because of the lack of undergrowth, there were increased opportunities to observe evidence of wildlife activities and habitats.  Burrows among the roots of trees, trampled trails through the dormant grasses, bird nests – things that are usually quite hidden when plants and flowers emerge after winter.  By the end of our walk, everyone appeared happy and invigorated, and ready to find a warm place to enjoy the rest of the day!

January Hike to the Protected Habitat

Government Canyon State Natural Area

January 5, 2008

By Bob Moyer

  Visitors to Government Canyon State Natural Area have various reasons for coming.  As a member of the Friends of Government Canyon Education Committee, most of my participation has been on walks guided by interpreters who tend to discuss at length plants, wildlife, history, geology and other resources that the SNA has been created to preserve.  However, those participants engaged in events sponsored by the Recreation Committee typically have another focus – hike and bike the challenging trails of the highest ground in Bexar County!

  The adventurous and stalwart group I had the pleasure of accompanying the first Saturday of 2008 were appreciative of the beautiful and dry weather conditions.  Several of them recalled drearier skies on their previous outing to the Protected Habitat area (“Pro-Hab”) around the same date last year.  January 5, 2008 in the Canyon started rather cool and misty, but soon the clouds parted and hikers quickly shed their outer layers of clothing a few miles into the Canyon.

  Jo Ann Lieberman, the leader of the Pro-Hab hike, divided the participants into two groups of eight.  Wiedy led the group I joined.  I quickly became aware that I was outnumbered both by gender and by interest.  At the trail head, I offered a suggestion intended to allow a better chance of seeing wildlife during the early hours.  However, most of the hikers in the group were soon engaged in spirited conversation as we embarked upon the Joe Johnston Road.

  With the permission of Wiedy, I scouted ahead of the group into Wildcat Canyon to try and observe any creatures I might encounter and would quietly alert the rest of the hikers.  I was able to approach some male cardinals and wrens vocalizing in a woody grove, some chipping sparrows flitting among juniper breaks, and a white-eyed vireo in a portion of the Pro-Hab.  Although quite early to expect to see the famed, and endangered, golden-cheeked warblers, it was good practice anyway. 

  The hikers kept up a pace of about 2 miles an hour over rocky, and in some places steep, Hill Country terrain.  Stops to admire the view or particularly interesting areas, such as a patch of sotol yucca plants, or the green hills rolling away to the horizon, were relatively infrequent, but appreciated.  After about 3 hours and at least 6 miles, deep into the Pro-Hab on the Black Hill Loop, a decision point allowed the hikers the opportunity to start back out, or proceed for another 3-plus miles along the Cave Creek trail.  All were enthusiastic to continue to the northernmost reaches of GCSNA!

 After lunch in a shaded grove and seated upon convenient limestone boulder “recliners”, onward we marched first north to the Cave Creek trail and then south, following the widely spaced spider-festooned trail markers.  The sun was now in full force and directly into our faces, but fortunately this trail is quite well shaded.  Several hikers looked forward with anticipation to a visit to the remote restroom facilities in the Little Windmill area.  After another break and with only a few complaints of bodily soreness, the trekkers started off again just as Jo Ann’s second group arrived.  Passing the Zizelmann house, another decision point was suggested – who was ready to take a half-mile detour to the Canyon Overlook off Caroline’s Loop?  Six hardy individuals plus me, foot-worn as we were, proceeded up the path.  The views from the Overlook on such a spectacular day were well worth the extra blisters! 

  Rejoining the Joe Johnston Road our group was in its final stretch.  The total mileage I had recorded on my new pedometer as we came to the Visitor Center was 13.8 (almost 26,000 steps).  By that point, I realized that I was hiking with persons with extraordinary determination and stamina (and that I needed a better pair of hiking boots)!  The Recreation Committee leaders and individuals I had the privilege of walking with had a pre-determined plan to complete 12 to 13 miles of hiking in 6 hours, and did so with enthusiasm and panache!  I am quite sure that an attempt to cover a similar distance by intense natural area interpreters would have taken several hours longer, and in all probability would have been a bit more painful!

Field Report for GCSNA Walk

October 20, 2007

 By Robert Moyer

  An enthusiastic group of visitors led by TPWD interpreter Carl Green assisted by Friends of Government Canyon Education Committee members, Dianne Simpson and Catherine McKee, met at the visitor’s center at 8:30 for a walk focusing on trees and woody species of the Hill Country. There was more than plants in store for this group as the migrating Monarch butterflies and other winged species seemed to steal the show!

  Before the hike, one of the visitors asked if any Monarchs had been sighted yet. Carl answered that he had seen up to twenty recently near the visitor’s center. By the time the group had begun their walk, a host of the winged migrants greeted them at the Joe Johnston Route trailhead! And besides Monarchs, there were also queens, zebras, fritillaries, sulfurs, swallowtails, buckeyes, long-tail white stripes, and many other representatives of the Lepidoptera class.

  As we proceeded up the Johnston Route, Carl took a fairly casual approach to allow the visitors to ask questions and to keep the pace informal and unhurried. He pointed out particular specimens of woody species that were near the trail including the natives brazil, agarita, ash juniper, Texas persimmon, live oak, Spanish oak, cedar elm, hackberry, hoptree (or wafer ash), mesquite, huisache, acacias, Texas mountain laurel and the introduced chinaberry. He noted that the location of GCSNA is at the boundary of several biotic provinces including the Edwards Plateau, Gulf Coastal Plains, and Blackland Prairie. Depending of the soil type and availability of water at any particular location, all sorts of species from these provinces may be found within the Natural Area’s boundaries.

  Carl noted while examining a small hoptree that the giant swallowtail butterfly, largest butterfly species in the western US, lays its eggs only on this type of tree. In a matter of minutes, Carl found another hoptree with a strange looking caterpillar – the giant swallowtail! Carl gently nudged the little green fellow who immediately deployed his orange antenna and emitted a vinegary odor that could be detected by the group several feet away. Carl explained that this was a defense mechanism that discouraged predators and the hoptree was probably the source of the chemical. Later on, a deceased specimen of a giant swallowtail adult was also found near the area of the hoptrees.

  Carl discussed several of the adaptations that plants have to discourage animals from eating them, too. The spiny leaves of the agarita and young live oaks as well as the thorns on the brazil and catclaw shrubs are very efficient deterrents. Even the young cedar elm trees grow a sharp-edged barrier along their stems that would make it difficult to allow foraging. Besides the natural defenses of the plants, Carl mentioned that GCSNA does not seem to have the whitetail deer overpopulation problem. Many of the tender young plants that deer love, sometimes characterized as “ice cream” to grazing animals, survive quite well here. He noted that numerous predators, coyotes in particular, which survive in healthy numbers, probably control the deer population.

  We had not gone much farther than the Hoffman Hayfield area when it was already 11:30 and time to head back to the visitor center. Everyone in the group appeared to be satisfied that their time had been well spent as the fanfare of colorful butterflies waved goodbye among the yellow blooms of golden eye and broom weed flourishing nearly every step of the way!

Girl Scout Troop 617 gets batty!

Although several colonies of bats are known to live at GCSNA, with the coming of winter they have probably left for warmer climates south to Mexico and Central America. But the girls were exciting about making their own bats as Niki showed them some tricks for making a wing-flapping version of their own. Time flew by very quickly and our visitors had to leave, their scout leader saying that they would "turn into pumpkins" if they stayed too long!