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Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve… are you ready for some trees?

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We woke up on day 3 of vacation with a lovely pink beach sunrise.

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I have to say it’s not a bad way to start the day.

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Our first adventure found us at Botany Bay Heritage Preserve. A 4,000 acre property, open everyday and free to the public. Originally two cotton and timber plantations, it’s now a haven for wildlife and a wonderful place to explore by car, on foot or horseback.

Upon entry, it’s all about the trees.

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A mile long dirt road of nothing but glorious live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

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In spots they form a stunning canopy…

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And it feels like you’re stepping back in time.

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When I think of the south?

This is the image I see.

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They truly are magnificent things.

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Driving the loop trail through ruins and fields, we eventually found the water.

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Where oaks gave way to palms.

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And pelicans…

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20 thoughts on “Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve… are you ready for some trees?”

  5. Pelicans are very intelligent, fun-loving birds. At the locks on the Red River (Manitoba, not Texas!) pelicans gather on the feet of cement piles and spend hours a day in summer jumping into the water off the leading edge of the feet and letting the rapid current carry them along past the length of the entire foot. Then they scramble back onto the foot and do it again. That’s the fun part. The intelligent psrt is that there are about 25 birds on each foot, all doing the same thing. They form a line thst goes heel to toe, and noisily wait for the line to advsnce until they are at the front of the line, and back into the wzter they jump. They do this over and over for hours every dsy — with not one fight! They are very courteous beings, unlike humans who would be pushing and shoving with no one in charge.
    Why are they so noisy. I think they are just laughing and expressing their joy of living such a fun life, but it is possible they are all shouting at the bird at the front of the line to hurry up and jump — the faster they jump, the quicker the next bird in line gets to jump, and so on.
    (I have also seen snails in a fish tank/aquarium) doing a similar thing, riding the aerator bubbles up from the bottom to the top, and then crawling diwn the inside of the glass in line until they get back to the bottom and let go, to float back up to the top. However, unlike the pelicans, the snails play in silence!

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    1. For any real historians in the crowd, here is the real history of the song “Red River Valley” which Americans like to think is about the river that runs between Texas and Arkansas. That is wrong. The song belongs to the Red River Valley where those pelicans play evety summer now. Read on…
      https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A436543613&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=a89be30f#:~:text=%22Red%20River%20Valley%22%20was%20first,Hugh%20Cross%20and%20Riley%20Puckett.

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