Summer on the Bend

On Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park

Plus Land Bridges For Publicity, Not Necessary For Wildlife

July 10, 2022

There was an occasional surprise smell of mushrooms on the dirt path through the tangled woods on this early morning. Crows laughed and gossiped in the treetops. Cardinals and wrens flirted back and forth high in the blue sky. Down low there was an annoyed hissing and rapid rustling and hustling away in the crispy fallen leaves.

It was summer and time for our seasonal photograph of the Bend in the River in Houston’s great Memorial Park. But Big Jim, our devoted photographer, naturalist, and conservationist, was not in town, so it fell to the assistant to take the shot. We’ve been documenting the same bend in Buffalo Bayou throughout the seasons for the past eight years.

That bend in the bayou on a summer morning. Taken from the same high bank in Memorial Park where we have been documenting the stream throughout the seasons for the last eight years. Photo July 7, 2022, by SC

The Memorial Park Conservancy, preoccupied with bulldozing trees, pouring concrete, and hanging name plates, does its best to block access to this wild and peaceful southeastern section of our beloved people’s Memorial Park, throwing up wire fencing, tree limbs, and warning signs. But the simple, narrow paths are well-trodden and maintained by anonymous volunteers. Someone has restored the wood handle on the rope swing used by the adventurous to fly across the lovely, shaded creek that drains the center of the park. Further downstream someone else has hung a small rubber swing on the bayou bank.

A sweet little swing on the north bank of Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park. Photo July 7, 2022, by SC

There is a long Houston tradition of swings over the bayou, of course, thanks to the strong, gracious trees that grow near the sloping banks. Historically this was a thrill mainly available to those privileged to grow up in upscale neighborhoods on one of the only local bayous that hadn’t been stripped of its trees and straightened in misguided and counterproductive flood control projects. But Memorial Park belongs to everyone, and for many years there was a knotted rope swing hanging from the great arm of the ancient Southern Magnolia that still stands on the bank even further downstream. The rope disappeared years ago, and the massive tree is looking somewhat haggard. One of the world’s oldest plants, there are few magnolias left in the wild. This Magnolia grandiflora could be 200 years old. Could have been there when the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted passed through, noting the beauty and perfume of the magnolias on Buffalo Bayou. (p. 29)

Here’s a short video of the woods and the bayou taken from the bank, along with a glimpse of the sandy creek flowing nearby.

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