Monarch Discovers Daisies on That Bend in the Bayou. Big Coral Snake Slithers By
Nov. 17, 2018
We were a little delayed for a fall photo of that Bend in the River. We have been documenting this particular place on Buffalo Bayou through the seasons for more than four years. Photographer Jim Olive has obligations elsewhere these days, so we had to go with the day he could be here and the early morning weather on that day.
It was overcast and the flow was a high, a little under 2,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). It had been raining. Base flow in the bayou–normal flow when it’s not raining–is about 150-200 cfs.
But we waited and waited for the right moment, which is what a professional photographer does. We were standing on that same high bank in Memorial Park in the middle of Houston looking at the bayou flowing downstream with River Oaks Country Club property on the opposite bank. It was the same location, but as you can see if you look at Jim’s series of photos, it has changed through the years. Nature is not static.
Jim Olive at work documenting that Bend in the Bayou from that same high bank in Memorial Park. Photo Nov. 6, 2018, by SC
Jim patiently shifted position and cameras and lenses. In the meantime, as usual, the photographer’s assistant wandered off, looking around, mainly for something edible to forage, and found some small puffball mushrooms growing on a rotting log. These little, round white mushrooms are variously described as “edible” or “choice.” The latter means delicious. “Edible” means they won’t kill you but they don’t necessarily taste good.
There were daisies growing on the high bank, and suddenly a big orange and black Monarch butterfly was fluttering there, feeding on the flowers on its way to Mexico. If you look closely, you can see where it had been in Jim’s photo.
Fall 2018 on that Bend in the River. Water was high and the morning was cloudy just after sunrise. Photo by Jim Olive on Nov. 6, 2018.
As we were leaving we encountered the most beautiful coral snake on the path through the woods, right where we had seen a gigantic, sleeping king snake coiled up in the old, broken drainage pipes left over from Camp Logan, the World War I training camp and military hospital that occupied this land back then. This snake was “red and yellow, kill a fellow” and not “red and black, all right, Jack,” so definitely a coral snake. Turns out there are numerous variations of this ditty we learned as children to distinguish a highly venomous coral snake from the harmless milk snake. But a coral snake is not aggressive. And it can hardly bite. So not really dangerous at all unless you try to pick it up. This one was very large and shiny. Jim, an expert naturalist, thought maybe it had just shed its skin.
Here is a video of the coral snake.
As for the little puffballs, they were okay. Ordinary, really. Not as delicious as the honey mushrooms or oyster mushrooms one can find growing in the park and along the bayou. The photographer’s assistant made a mushroom omelette.
Puffball omelette with scallions.
That’s a big coral snake.
Very big and beautiful.