Day 10-11 At Terlingua and Big Bend National Park TX

Day 10 Terlingua and into Big Bend National Park, TX

The warm weather is here again. Got up to 83 down here on the desert floor while up in the mountains (5600 feet) it was 55 F tops. So that’s a mile high. Down in the desert floor it is about 2400 feet.

The terrain on the way up to the Mountains is very spare desert and I might add that the Prickly Pear are dying. Now some rain could save them, but it looks quite disastrous. There are ocotillo (not a cactus) Prickly Pear, Mesquite, Yucca (100 types) and creosote as the main types of plants. Interestingly, the creosote  has seeds that have a toxin on them so that when they fall to the ground the other plants are intolerant of that area and keep their distance. The creosote bushes seem to be ”in rows”, and spaced apart evenly because of that. We did notice that the are much taller (4-5’) along the road  than ones further away as the road runoff from rain gives them more water and hence better growth.

Some Plants keys...

The candellila plant during rain, excretes a wax that coats the stem and in the drought protects it from the heat. 

The Ocotillo produces leaves many times  a year and when it is dry drops them  waiting for the next rain to grow more. 

Of course the cacti have spines instead of leaves so do not lose moisture and store it for those long dry spells.  It has shallow, spreading roots that soak up the rain when it does come. The thick, fleshy stems have minimal surface and reduce evaporation immensely.

Did you know that the desert floor can get up to 150 degrees F? Adaptation is the key for survival.

 Four Plant  types here
Christmas Cholla (back)
Englemann Prickly Pear  (center)
Mesquite (R and L)
Candellilia (Front)

The animals here are few but balanced, for nature’s way of keeping all in check, The Mountain Lion (there are about 20 in the Park) are the dominant species and keep the Javalina and the Jack Rabbit in control. Also the birds keep the Kangaroo Rat at tolerable numbers. The Rat survives by getting it’s moisture from seeds.This is the desert away from the Rio Grande floodplain where the animals and plant life changes immensely (We will see some of that tomorrow at Rio Grand Village where there is a camping ground and lodge) and we will examine any bird life we can find there. River life is another story.

Texas Blue Bonnet or Lupine

So after stopping at the Panther Junction Visitor Center for info, we had a “visitor’s survey” from a co-ed from Texas A and M about our travels, and drove up hill to the Chisos Basin and at 5400 feet the highest accessible road in the Park.  There are great vistas here of the mountains, rocks and passes. This is where the elevation changes the habitat and plant types considerably. At the lower elevation is the grass lands , the Century Plant and sotol and some green leafy shrubs (This means more moisture right?) Then the bushes get taller with evergreen sumac, mountain mahagony , Texas madrone and common beebush. (You can look those up!)

At about 4500 feet the taller trees appear in Juniper, small oak, and pinyon pine that now begin to make it look like a forest is closing in as the road winds its way steeply to the end.  This is the last remnants of the ice age as the dryer desert surrounded the mountains and cut it off from the desert. Hence there are some Carmen Mountain white tailed deer here as well. Only,here,and across the river in Mexico on those mountains are they found. (The Chiracahua Mtns. in Arizona

are another example of this type of mpuntain) Some few plant species are at the extreme southern limit of their U.S. ranges in these Chisos Mountains. They are ; Arizona Pine, Arizona Cypress, Quaking Aspen, and Bigtooth Maple. Two species grow only here and they are the Chisos Oak and the Drooping Juniper which looks like it needs watering.


We did arrive at the Chisos Basin (5400 feet) and did some short hikes although the place was a buzz with hikers, families, and day trippers as this was the start of “SPRING BREAK” here in TX. Our campground is 2/3 full as well. We saw few birds ,but are hopeful in traveling to the Rio Grande tomorrow and increasing that total. We are at about 61 species so far. (There is no goal to reach) . After lunch we spotted a Pyrruholoxia (that cardinal like bird) for a few minutes and watched a Say’s Phoebe chasing insects. Then we headed down the mountain for one more stop at an abandoned ranch.The land is so dry the bird expert at the Visitor Center at Chisos stated that even in the early morning she sees only 10-12 species these days. The animals must have water and they will go where that is, or die. (The Chisos Visitor Center gets its water from a spring as well as from rain run off from a pool and so shares it with the animals there.)

The Sam Nail Ranch is on the first few miles of a road to the Rio Grande so we stopped there as a last stop of the day. It is a grown over mesquite and cactus “front yard” of an abandoned ranch house where there is a working well and windmill (Aero) that attracts the birds. Again we were only able to see the Cassin’s Finch and the Northern Mockingbird at this time. We will stop here again in two days when we visit the Rio Grande at Castelon (the west end of the park). It was another sunny 83 degree day with no clouds in sight . End


PIcture download is VERY slow , so will try another approach.