DFW Urban Wildlife

A Year on the Creek

On a roughly annual basis I will venture out to the further reaches of the metroplex in pursuit of a special trail camera project or two. The LBJ National Grasslands in the northern part of Wise County is one of my usual targets. I like to set out a few of my oldest trail cameras in remote locations for these kinds of projects and just let them run undisturbed for about a year. Wise County is where my aged and obsolete trail cameras go to die.

And some of my geriatric cameras do die in this application. Some drain their batteries on false triggers. Some have technical failures. Some get swamped or experience weatherproofing failures. Some are tampered with by wildlife or people. But some persevere, and when they do the results can often be very interesting. A year’s worth of data can be quite enlightening!

For this project–begun in early January–I set one of my cameras low in a secluded Wise County creek bed. This felt like a risky thing to try at the time–I was worried about the camera getting swamped by flood waters.

You see, here in the the more urban parts of the metroplex, when the rains come, our creeks and branches are often subject to tremendous flash floods. The efficiency of our systems for collecting street runoff is astounding. In urbanized areas incredible amounts of water are directed into our creeks with very little opportunity for absorption. As a consequence, streams and tributaries that run through developed areas can turn into raging rivers after even brief intense storm. At these times the water can become quite deep and it can travel with great force. Any camera mounted too low is at risk of being swamped or washed away.

Fortunately, the signs of flooding are relatively easy to read. The maximum height of rising water during a flash flood is usually well marked by debris–vegetation and trash–caught in the branches of creek-side trees and bushes. Mount your trail camera above these markers and you should be reasonably safe.

The Wise County creek I chose for this project offered a shallow stream of sparkling clear water running over a firm sand and gravel bed for miles on end. The channel the creek had cut over the years was deep–maybe 10 to 15 feet or more along most of its course. But the signs of violent flash floods were not present. As near as I could tell, the water level rose on occasion, but never more than to about a foot deep. The camera should be safe here for the long term.

Further, the nature of this creek surely made it an attractive conduit for wildlife traffic. The shallow water and solid base created a natural highway through the woods–a preferable option to fighting through the dense vegetation in the forest proper up above. In the water itself, small fish, amphibians, and assorted aquatic invertebrates lived out their miniature lives. Altogether, the evidence suggested this creek bed would be a good place for a long term trail camera project. I set my camera and left to let it run undisturbed for the better part of the next year.

Towards the end of October this past fall I returned to collect this camera, and the pictures it recorded did not disappoint. I’m excited to share a selection of those photographs here, and it seems to me that the best way to do that is to show them in roughly chronological order.

But there is is another tempting way to divide up the pictures–by creek conditions. Over the course of the year, the character of the stream bed varied significantly with changes in the weather and seasons. One of the interesting aspects of this camera trapping project was observing how the resident wildlife responded to the ever changing conditions along the creek bed.

As I described earlier, the normal state of the creek was a relatively shallow stream of clear water, flowing slowly over a sandy base. The first major change occurred in mid January when the water in the creek froze solid for nearly an entire week. Then the spring and early summer rains came, changing the small creek into a fast moving, sediment laden stream of around a foot deep. Once the intense summer heat set in the water quickly evaporated, and the creek bed stayed dry for the rest of the year–save a brief respite caused by late August rains.

Winter

As the year–and this camera trap project–began in early January 2024 the creek was in what we can consider its normal state. A shallow stream of water flowed lazily along the course of the waterway. By this time of the year, winter cold had put much of the area’s vegetation in a dormant state. Leaves covered the forest floor and underbrush and grasses had died back. As a consequence, navigating the parcels of land surrounding the creek was much easier than in the spring and summer months–for both me and for the resident wildlife. Nonetheless, many animals still found the creek bed a convenient way to move around, and its use as a wildlife corridor continued through the early weeks of the new year.

Frozen

The first major change to the creek occurred about midway through January with the coming of a stretch of icy weather. The water in the creek froze solid and stayed that way for five days straight. The resident wildlife were surely confounded by this change, but North Texas critters are a tough lot, and they soldiered through.

A Little Wetter than Normal

After the freeze, the conditions of the creek returned to normal and stayed that way until some rain showers passed through the area in mid-February. The wetter conditions encouraged some of our aquatic mammal species to wander a little outside of their normal comfort zones.

Spring Rains

The stream returned to its normal state soon afterwards, and stayed that way until spring rains again caused the creek to rise. This time, regular rain showers ensured that the higher water levels would stick around for weeks instead of just days.

Early Summer

With the coming of summer, the rains abated and the creek returned to its more normal state. But by now, abundant springtime vegetation growth in the surrounding forests and prairies ensured that many animals would seek out the creek bed as a route through the woods.

Bone Dry

As the summer progressed, the unrelenting heat took its toll on the Wise County creek. By the middle of July, the stream bed was bone dry, and would stay that way for the rest of the year–save a brief respite in the form of a brief rain shower in August. The water that storm provided was badly needed, but it only muddied the creek bed, and just a few days later it was arid once again.

Orphaned Coyote Pup

Starting on the first of August we began recording pictures of a Coyote pup traveling along the creek bed from time to time. The little Coyote appeared in front of the camera with some regularity, but we never photographed him in the presence of his parents or siblings. Before long it became evident that the little pup was an orphan.

Normally a Coyote at this age would have started on solid foods, and would be beginning to patrol with its family group, but it would still be under its parent’s care. The pup’s mother and father would still be providing for it. Without their care survival would certainly be a challenge for this young Coyote, but it would not be impossible.

We tracked this Coyote for almost 40 days–from the beginning of August through the middle of September. Of course we are not sure what the pup’s ultimate fate was, but the fact that he made it on his own for such an extended time was a promising sign. Hopefully, he simply moved his daily routine away from the creek bed as he gained in skill and experience.