Recommended Day Trips
Scurry County, Texas
The Colorado River cuts across the southwestern quarter of Scurry County. Many of the headwater streams start at the edge of the Llano Estacado in Borden County. Bull Creek joins the Colorado River below Lake J.B. Thomas. Bull Creek drains the region south of Fluvanna and is one of the major tributaries of the upper Colorado River. The Bull Creek confluence was once the winter camp of the Comanche Indians. (It was the site of Quanah Parker’s surrender in the summer of 1875.) Hundreds of tipis would be scattered along the watercourses of the region from October to April. The men would raid into Mexico in late August, September, and October, returning to the winter camp with their plunder.
For a number of miles the river runs between rocky sandstone bluffs. Several creeks, including Bull Creek, join the river. It has remained “wild country,” ranch country still owned by families of some of the original settlers. Nowadays much of the land is used more as a hunting preserve than for livestock production. Oil wells dot the region. A few paved and unpaved county roads allow some access to the area.
Related:
- The rugged Scurry County landscape has hidden mysteries
- Scurry County Wildlife - Photos by Joe Carter
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Above the rocky bluffs of along the river, small draws lead down from the surrounding flatter land. Junipers grow on the rocky soil, along with little bluestem, which turns a beautiful reddish gold in the fall.
Liatris (gayfeather) is a common fall wallflower of the region. It grows from a corm that is easy to transplant to a personšs yard. There is little soil on the rocky ridges, so the ground is often bare.
The gentler slopes are covered with juniper, mesquite, prickly pear, little bluestem and other grasses. The gray leaved plant is Croton (doveweed), which is a major food source for mourning doves.
Water collects in crevices in the rocks and slowly breaks boulders loose. Mexican buckeye (which often turns golden yellow in the fall) prefers to grow at the base of boulders and bluffs. Scurry County is near its most northern limits of its range. In severe winters it will suffer freeze damage, so the plant becomes a multi-trunked shrub. (Down in Big Bend, it makes a tree.)
Eventually the rocky country gives way to sheer rock bluffs 15 to 30 feet tall. Juniper, live oak, hackberry, and mexican buckeye grow beneath the bluffs. Along the river salt cedar invaded in the latter half of the 20th century, and in recent years the state of Texas has spent millions spraying the salt cedar. Along the river can be seen the dead salt cedar. Salt cedar uses a lot of water, so to increase the amount of water in the reservoirs downstream, the decision was made to kill the salt cedar. Salt cedar can also make the soil underneath the plants more salty, when it drops its leaves each winter.
In several places bizarre rock pedestals were left on the smoother surface of the bluff. Behind the rock is a hackberry and beyond is a juniper covered hill.
The bedrock of the bluff extends back from the edge of the bluff for fifty feet or more, and slopes up the hill for another 5 to 10 feet in height. In this area, big chunks of rock are slowly detached.
In a number of places, the bedrock slope has eroded in this peculiar fashion. In the foreground is a water channel leading from the hillside above.
One of the water channels across the bluff ended in a miniature slot canyon at the edge of the bluff. A channel 2-3 feet deep formed and the water carved acurved channel. A paronychia (whitlowwort) grows out of the rock. Below the bluff are ancient junipers.
Several different colors of lichen are found on the rock. This blue gray species formed big streaks.
Some of the bedrock on the bluff exhibited distinctive "bedding." When the sand of the sandstone was deposited, it probably occurred after floods separated by periods of time. After the sandstone was exposed, the bedding caused this appearance.
In another watercourse on the bedrock of the bluff, enough sand has been deposited so that little bluestem grass and holy sage can find a place to grow. The subtle colors of fall in Scurry County are beautiful!
On the gravelly slopes above the bluff feather dalea is a common shrub. It grows 2-4 feet tall. The bright red balls are galls, caused by an insect, probably a wasp. The female wasp deposits an egg in the tissue of the plant and "plant cancer" grows around the egg to form the gall.
Hairy grama is a common grass in the gravelly soil of the "breaks and canyon" habitat. Polygala (white milkwort) is also a common wildflower of the habitat. It was used by Indians to improve lactation in nursing mothers. In the upper left and lower right is more paronychia.
Mexican buckeye with leaves beginning to turn are a wonderful counterpoint to the blue lichen. A few spots of red lichen are also visible.
A coyote left a pile of scat on the bluff. Upon examination, it was full of mesquite beans, prickly pear seeds, juniper berries, and some hair. The scat was wiggling, so the photographer tore it apart to find a dung beetle. Next to the large dung beetles were smaller dung beetles - could they be the young of the larger one, or a different species.
A loggerhead shrike stuck this green scarab beetle on a barbwire fence. In the spring, shrikes will put dozens of insects, mice, and small birds on a barbwire fence or mesquite bush to demonstrate to the females how successful their hunting skills are, but why did one do so in the fall? Practicing? Or as a sign of distaste, for it did not eat the beetle!
Another common feature of the gravelly soil habitats in West Texas are the webs of the funnel web spider.
Clammyweed is another plant often found in gravelly soils in the breaks and canyons habitat.
This appeared to be another paronychia, but the open bloom was a surprise. The Sibley staff will be poring over the plant identification books and searching the internet to make sure of the identification.
A young redberry (or Ashe) juniper grew at the base of a large split boulder. A young Mexican buckeye pokes up through the crack.
From above the boulder, the crack is seen in more detail, and beyond is more juniper on the hillside.
In another side draw a small tinijiti formed at the base of a sheer rock. It will hold water after a rain for a few days.
The oldtimers of the region believe that this channel cut across the bedrock was created by buffalo walking across the rock. It is 4 inches deep and 6 to 8 inches across.
At the edge of the bedrock are these steps, which do appear to be the right size for a buffalo hoof to fit.
The same steps from below - could a buffalo actually walk down these steps?
Below the "buffalo steps" was a live oak with a number of trunks. Live oaks often regenerate when the trunk is broken or cut.
In the center of the trunks there was indeed a very old stump - was it cut, or was it broken off (by lightning)?
Near the trunks were two much older stumps. Were these the remains of stumps from hundreds of years ago and are the evidence of fire?
This round boulder was not sitting on the bedrock, but firmly attached. Why did it not erode as did the rest of the bedrock?
This boulder looks like the head of a duck. In the foreground is ephedra (popotillo or Mormon tea). Use the website search engine to learn more about the ephedra.
The tall grass in the foreground is Arundo donax, a native of China, that was brought to the U.S. for erosion control, for creating a living fence, and to use to create thatched roofs. It has "escaped" and become part of the flora of the upper Colorado River basin.
A few miles away from the pictures above, there is a a few square miles of vegetated sanddunes. Shinoak is present, as it always is in West Texas sanddunes, as was the white annual buckwheat. A bit of little bluestem is visible on the right side of the picture, too. In the foreground is a species of senna that is not found in other sanddune habitat further west.
In closeup, the red stamens of the senna show up, as do the pinnate compound leaves of the plant.
With the rains of 2007, the sanddunes were covered with the annual grass, Munroa squarrosa, which had begun to turn yellow and brown as the summer temperatures cooled. The large green shrub in the center is sanddune rabbitbrush, another common sanddune plant. White annual buckwheat completes the picture.
A rather plain katydid skittered away from the photographer to land in the dirt county road. Other species are bright green, or have interesting patterns on its wings.
Some mesquites were also found in the sandy soil. Under one mesquite was more munroa, and a sunflower leaning against the trunk of the mesquite. The bright green is ragweed, which is also common in sandy soils.
The tall grass is yet to be identified by the Sibley Nature Center staff. It grew only in one swale in the sandy soil along one road. (Update: We've now identified this grass as "Indiangrass." For more pictures of Indiangrass, visit this Sibley Photo Essay.)
The sand abruptly ended at a bluff above one of the creeks. In the foreground are sunflowers and the silver leafed holy sage, and junipers cover the slope leading down to the creek.
In the valley mesquite trees grew away from the water, while the water was lined with dead salt cedars.
Bull Creek was diverted when Lake J.B. Thomas was built in the early 1950s. A trench up to 60 feet deep and over a mile long brings floodwaters from Bull Creek into the lake. In the 1990s a nine inch rain fell in the area around Fluvanna, Texas, and a wall of water five feet tall came swooping down the trench.
Southeast of the lake is the ghost town of Vincent, and along the highway, a beautiful blue morning glory lined the barditches, mixed in with the bright red tubes of Cypress Vine, another species of morning glory. The blue morning glory was also seen several other places in the region, but that was the only place the red cypress vine was seen.