San Antonio Botanical Gardens

Problem: Our flight to Chicago was at 2:15 pm. We didn’t need to be at the San Antonio airport until 12:30 or so. We had a morning to kill. We contemplated going to the top of the Tower of the Americas, but that would mean fighting morning rush-hour traffic to downtown San Antonio, spending another $7.00 for parking and $10.95 for admission, then driving all the way back to the airport. We thought about going to see the old missions south of town, but that would have meant the whole rush-hour thing again and besides, they didn’t look all that fascinating to us. What could we do that both of us would be interested in, that wouldn’t cost too much, and that was close to the airport?

Solution: The San Antonio Botanical Gardens. My sister enjoys taking photographs of flowers. I was hoping for one last shot at finding a Golden-fronted Woodpecker and botanical gardens are usually good places to see butterflies. It was about eight miles from our motel and five miles from the airport, and admission was cheap.

We arrived at 8:45, 15 minutes before it opened. The doors of the visitor center were open, so we wandered in. The guy behind the counter was aggressively friendly. When he found out I was interested in birds, he gave me an assignment. He handed me a list of birds found around San Antonio, a pen and a piece of paper and ordered me to write down the names of the common ones. I obeyed. He pulled out a map of the gardens and instructed me where to go to find the most birds — the East Texas Pineywoods section.

He wasn’t far wrong. I hadn’t even gotten into the woods when I spotted a lifer. But more on that later.

The gardens were very impressive. The whole place is only 33 acres, but they’ve packed a lot into it.

• Watersaver Lane — a row of tiny cottages, each with its own landscaping concept, all suitable for south Texas
• Four authentic, old Texas cottages that have been moved to the gardens and restored to their original appearance
• A conservatory complete with two cone-shaped greenhouses with spiraling walkways, a sunken atrium and pond
• A special exhibit of tree houses (I still think it looks like treewouses on the brochure)
• A hill in the center with a tower that gives a view of all San Antonio

OK, descriptions of gardens don’t sound that exciting, I know. Here are some photos that give you some idea.

This picture looks like it was taken in fall, which I guess, technically it was, but the color comes from trees that were half-dead.

All through the woods around this lake there were these strange statues that I referred to as “lurkers.” There was no explanation of what they were there for, but there were a couple dozen of them and I kept coming up on them unexpectedly. It was a bit disconcerting. When I took my first stroll around the pond, one of them was even lying in the water, but when I returned an hour or so later, it had been “rescued” and set somewhere to resume its lurking.

Here’s one of the restored cabins. I liked this one because the square-footage of the porch was about twice that of the house itself. If I lived in a hot climate, this is the kind of porch I’d want.

Two views of the Conservatory.

And here’s the view from the overlook. The Conservatory is on the far left. Behind and to the right of it, you can see downtown San Antonio with the Tower of the Americas. On the far right, there’s a martin house halfway down its pole. Just behind it is a small tree. That’s where I saw the lifer I mentioned earlier. (I knew you’d want to know.) The bizarre-looking structures on the lawn in the foreground are the backsides of Halloween decorations.

My sister and I had split up for the first couple hours to pursue our own interests, but we met by the pond. She pointed out a bird she’d just spotted along the shore — a Yellow-crowned Night Heron. It was walking slowly along the water’s edge among the cypress knees. It must not of thought much of us because, as we watched, it turned its back on us and fluffed.

On the way out toward the gate, we discovered a baby Eastern Fox Squirrel that couldn’t have been more than a day or two out of the nest. He found us as fascinating as we found him, and I was able to get within a foot or two to take this picture.