Our friend Bill Holston volunteered to work at the opening of the new Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center, where his faith in humanity was restored. No kidding.
Fun for the Whole Family at Dogwood Canyon
By Bill Holston
Have you noticed that the days are getting longer? I woke up at 5:30 am this Saturday. I became an early riser when my kids were little. One advantage is, even with the city lights, I get to see stars. This Saturday, I walked out on my crispy front “lawn,” to water my 2-year-old Shumard Oak, which is still looking nice and green despite the drought. I looked up and saw the belt of Orion stretched across the southern horizon. I looked straight over head and could just make out the cluster of the Pleiades. This is my favorite constellation. I love the fact that with binoculars you can make out the faint outline of the seven daughters of Atlas (Maia, Electra, Celaeno, Taygeta, Merope, Alcyone, and Sterope…. Girl’s names anyone?) who were transformed into stars. These constellations were once reflected on by the ancient prophets of the Middle East. From the prophet Amos: “He who made the Pleiades and Orion / And changes deep darkness into morning / Who also darkens day into night / Who calls for the waters of the sea / And pours them out on the surface of the earth / The LORD is His name.”
It was an inspiring start to an inspiring day, as this was the grand opening of Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center. I’ve been excited about this center opening for the last several years. David Hurt (owner of Wild Birds Unlimited) and his wife Kim bought land here to build their home. As they explored, they realized this was an extremely special place. In the middle of one of the canyons is a stand of flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida). I took a guided hike to see the flowering dogwoods a few years back and fell in love with these woods. This is a unique spot because it’s the only place in the world where you find eastern species like dogwoods growing in nesting grounds for the endangered Golden Cheeked Warbler, a western species. They have also seen other western species such as Black Capped Vireo and Black Chinned hummingbird. Rather than keep the place to himself, the Hurts began to work with the city of Cedar Hill and the Audubon Society to preserve the land. The result is this fantastic new nature center.
The center sits on more than 200 wooded acres. As a member of North Texas Master Naturalists, I volunteered along with other Master Naturalists to work at the opening. My first job was to greet people at the remote parking lot and direct them to the shuttles for a short ride. The vast majority of people were excited to be out and exploring this lovely spot. There was an occasional grumble that the parking lot wasn’t bigger. Thankfully, most people agree with Joni Mitchell that it’s really not cool to “pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” The minimal imprint on the area is reflected in all of the design and implementation of the center by Audubon. They began with a simple headquarters building. The 6,000-square-foot building was designed by Cunningham Architects (Dallas) and built by General Contractor Tegrus Construction. It features many environmentally friendly touches.
The first thing you notice is a huge cement pit. This was the site of an abandoned communications satellite. Rather pay to have it removed, the designers created a wetland, planted native trees and grasses, and designed the parking lot and building to drain into the space. The center is located in an already disturbed part of the property rather than farther up the canyon. The building juts gently into the topography and serves as an introduction to the woods. The wood used on the exterior is a product called Accoya, a sustainably sourced, durable, pest-resistant softwood pine. The deck in the basin is made of TREX decking, a product made entirely of recycled plastic bags and wood scraps. The center also utilizes other repurposed materials: the gates at the entrance of the center’s parking lot were repurposed from the original gates to the property; the sign is made of the old cattle guards; the pieces of concrete that form the wheel blocks in the parking lot were cut from existing concrete slabs, some present on site, some from another Tegrus worksite; and the surface of the parking lot is made from crushed recycled concrete.
The building contains multiple classrooms and meeting spaces. These will be used for educational programs for school and community groups. In addition, the center will be available for rent for special events. The best spot in the building, though, is the elevated viewing area to watch birds. Feeders were set up, and in just a few minutes we watched a ruby throated hummingbird, a black capped chickadee, and tufted titmouse. The windows in this area are tilted. This feature is intended to reduce bird strikes. It turns out bird watchers don’t enjoy seeing bird carcasses — well, unless they happen to be on a oven-fired pizza. But I digress.
As cool as the building is, the real star of this preserve is the canyon. I took a guided walk up the West Loop Trail. The entire trail is about 1.5 to 2.0 miles and is a great shaded walk. (There’s also a shorter trail in the canyon floor). The trail crosses an intermittent creek and then begins to climb up on the escarpment. Like the Cedar Ridge Preserve, this preserve is located on the White Rock Escarpment of Dallas County and is our version of the Hill Country. As I drove down that morning, I was struck with how unique the drive along 1382 is. If you’ve never driven this, you will be really surprised with just how pretty this area is. The escarpment was created when the soils and rocks were deposited here by a glacier, primarily in the Cretaceous Age (approximately 66 million to 144 million years ago). As ancient seas departed, they left multiple layers of sediment and rock. As the land tilted, it created these hills. Austin Chalk is the exposed white rock that you see in this area, most obviously as you climb the big hill on I-20. The rock is comprised of microscopic skeletons of microorganisms called Coccoliths. The escarpment rises 200 feet from the creek bottoms near Joe Pool Lake to an elevation of as much as 820 feet in Cedar Hill. These hills were originally part of the Ouachita Mountains, which even today stretch into Oklahoma and were once as high as the Himalayas.
There’s an incredible diversity of trees in this forest. My favorite trees here are the Shin Oaks (Quercus sinuata var. breviloba). This is a member of the White Oak Family. It often grows in a quaint cluster of trees. There are also lovely old Bur Oaks, (Quercus macrocarpa the name means large fruit, because of the huge acorns), and Shumard Red Oak (Quercus shumardii), Sugarberry or Hackberry, (Celtis laevigata), Black Walnut, (Juglans nigra, first big tree at trailhead), Pecan (carya illinoinensis), and Cedar Elm (Ulmus crassifolia). These trees are mixed with conifers. I’ve always heard these trees incorrectly referred to in these parts as cedars. We don’t have any true cedar trees in Texas, which live exclusively in the Old World, such as the historic Cedars of Lebanon. These trees are actually junipers. Would a cedar of any other name cause hay fever I wonder?
The fire intolerant Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) was previously controlled by periodic wildfires. Grasses recover quickly from low severity fires that are characteristic of prairies that kept the trees at bay. Our area was once a 12-million-acre blackland prairie. The prairie has mostly disappeared, and as the fires stopped with roads, plowed fields, and other fire breaks, these Junipers and other trees invaded. The other conifer is the Ashe Juniper (Juniperus ashei). The peeling bark is critical for the Golden Cheek Warbler, as nest material. Ashe Junipers are multi-trunked, with a leathery, peeling bark.
As I climbed up onto the top to the escarpment, I noticed quite a few smaller trees and shrubs. These will produce lovely blooms in the spring: Mexican Plum (Prunus Mexicana), Eve’s Necklace (Sophora affinis), Possum Haw Holly (Ilex deciduas, our native holly), Texas Redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis), and Rusty Blackhaw (Viburnum rufidulum ). The other dominant tree is the Mexican Buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa). I love this tree because of the pods of seeds that cover the plants. They seem to favor the top of the escarpment in this area. This will be a beautiful spot in the spring. The area around the intermittent stream, for instance, is covered with trout lilies, which will be among the earliest wildflowers to bloom in the area, in February.
Just before the trail reaches the top of the escarpment (about a 300-foot climb), it branches to create a loop hike. The hike has been carefully laid out to take advantage of several prominent overlooks. The first overlook has an expansive view. You can even see Cowboy Stadium. Although I have to say, for me, this is no advantage. I’d rather look at the expanses of woods that surround the entire area. We’re lucky that the early settlers of this area didn’t clear-cut this forest. My favorite spot of the whole hike is at the farthest point of the loop. There you can sit and hear absolutely nothing except the bird song. One of my fellow hikers identified the song of a White Eyed Vireo. You have a real sense of remoteness at this point.
Among my fellow hikers was Assistant City Manager Greg Porter and his wife, Pam. I had a great talk with Pam as we hiked. Their young son Josh was the star of the hike. He’s a 6-year-old budding naturalist. He enthusiastically talked about tarantulas and snakes. He answered questions and was just bubbling over with enthusiasm for nature. If there’s anything that illustrates why areas like this are so critical to preserve, it’s this young man. His mom raved about how great the center had been for nurturing his interest in the environment. As we hiked, I struck up conversations with several people new to the area. Everyone was in awe with just how beautiful the canyon was. Several shared my fatigue at hearing that “There’s nothing to do here in the Dallas area.” More than one person commented, “Yeah there is. You just have to get out and see it.”
I finished the day manning a water station on the side of the hill. I ran into several members of my 2011 Master Naturalist Class, either volunteering or just enjoying the hike. I sat on benches that had been constructed as an Eagle Scout project. I drank water and listened to the breeze in the Cedar Elms and Shin Oaks that surrounded us and looking out over one of the overlooks at the wooded canyon below us. I was struck by how diverse the crowd was. The bookend to young naturalist Josh was an older gentleman. He appeared to be in his 70s, wearing an old, weathered hat. His daughter said, “He won’t tell you, but he’s done a lot in his life.” He was a friend of Ned Fritz, the grandfather of Dallas master naturalists, and had been involved in protecting Guadalupe Mountains National Park and laying out the trails there. We shared stories of the Bigtooth Maples that fill the canyons there, and he told me about lying up on the roof of the Pratt Cabin with Ned Fritz, listening to the wind.
I thought about the fact that this hike was filled with 70-year-old adventurers and 6-year-old budding naturalists. Some of the newest naturalists were the babies and toddlers carried on the backs of moms and dads, hiking into these magnificent woods. It reminded me of the countless hours I spent hiking with my boys when they were younger. My son Fred said it all came back to him on a recent trip to Portland, Oregon, as he hiked through a rain forest to have a campfire on the Pacific. If you are a young parent, there’s hardly anything you can do that is as valuable as exposing your young ones to a walk in the woods. Okay, good nutrition, and reading, and vaccinations. Okay, there’s a lot of things.
The crowd was racially diverse, as well. An older Asian couple shared my bench with me and we talked about how pretty this spot was, enjoying the breeze. I detected accents from Germany, Mexico, and South Africa. It was a great reflection of generations, races, and nationalities all together, enjoying this beautiful park. It was completely inspiring.
Nick Kristoff in a recent New York Times column wrote: “Particularly in traumatic times like these, nature challenges us, revitalizes us, humbles us, exhilarates us, and restores our souls. It reminds us that we are part of a larger universe, stewards rather than masters of our world.”
That’s good for me. Like most lawyers, I’m a cynic. It seems I’ve spent 30 years dealing with the worst that people can do. My pro bono work has exposed me to hearing stories of torturers. It weighs on my view of mankind. So it’s really good for my soul to spend time in the woods. It’s great to meet young people excited to explore nature and older people still learning into their 80s. It’s especially good to be around the wonderful staff of Audubon, people like volunteer coordinator Dana Wilson, who greeted me with a hug. I’m glad there’s a place where an old cynic like me can sit on a bench in the shade of a cedar elm, and catch a breeze and regain a sense of hope for the future. We could all use a little of that, I think.
