El Franco Lee Park

[houtex01]

Decided to make a late afternoon visit to local park in my area - El Franco Lee Park...for you not familiar with this park...it is a city park located off of Hall Road and Beltway 8 just West of I45...within the boundaries of this park is about 80 acres of protected wetlands...these wetlands and surroundings woods serve as a vital habitat for over 100 species of birds that have been identified in the park area...it has been a winter home for hundreds of different waterfowl...since the wetlands has no source of water, the city pumps water out of Clear Creek which runs next to the park to help maintain the level of water in the wetlands...the wetlands can be access by a nature trail which borders around about 2/3 of the wetland area...for me it has been an ideal location for photography...within 5 miles of my home...unfortunately these wetlands have come upon hard times due to a couple of events...drought and city budgets...what use to be 80 acres of water has now become about 60 acres of grassland...if you go back and view my thread over in the Landscape forum entitled "Sunrise Reflections" - Sunrise Reflections - the water area you see in the photos is now all grass...due to cuts in city budgets, money allowance for diesel to run the pump has reduced pumping from seven days a week 8 hours a day to 3-4 days a week 5 hours a day...combine this with the drought and extreme summer heat, the reduced pumping time has not been able to keep up with the evaporation rate...in late July, the wetlands almost went completely dry due to almost no puming of water from the creek...thanks to the persistence of several local birders that frequent the park partitioning the city parks department, pumping was increase to the current 3-4 days a week 5 hours a day level...I talked to one of the park attendants while I was out there...I asked him if he thought the water level would ever be brought back to previous level...his answer was no...apparently the city had a group of engineers come out and survey the wetland area and their decision was that the full 80 acres would no longer be flooded...instead only a partial number of acres would be covered with water leaving the remainder area as grassland area for habitat...this will certainly reduce the amount of water area that was accessable from the trail...well that gives you a little background on the park...here are a few photos that I captured during the afternoon visit...hope you enjoy...C/C always welcomed...

Ron

[Stargazer77517]

Cool shots as always Ron, looks like to good place to hangout.

[preames]

Nice series Ron. Looks like a good place to check out.

[houtex01]

Thanks Fred and Patrick for viewing and your comments...always enjoy reading them...although I have managed to capture some nice photos at this park, I have to say that I don't really consider this park to be photographic friendly...even when the water level of the wetlands was full exposing the water to most of the trail surrounding the wetlands, getting nice clean open shots is not easy due to lots of brush, weeds and trees along the trail...not like BBSP where you have lots of open area along the trails for shooting...and now with the water level much lower, I could only find two spots the other day where I could access the water to try to shoot some photos...but in spite of that I will continue to visit this park due to its proximity to my home...10 minutes travel time to shooting...if you're ever in the area I would suggest that you take some time to visit the park...

Ron

[TxPhotoShooter]

Loved your photos Ron! Well done!

[houtex01]

Originally Posted by TxPhotoShooter

Loved your photos Ron! Well done!

Thanks David...

Ron