Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Draws of the Llano Estacado
December 28, 2005

Every west Texan should know the word “draw”, but most kids that visit the Sibley Nature Center only know of "the ditch." Midland has a network of ditches to drain rainfall from the streets, because, as everybody knows, this country is flat. Subtle changes of topography are hidden by buildings and urban forest, and are unrecognized. "Jal" Draw and several of its "accessory tributaries " run through the north side of town.

East of town the Jal Draw is better known as Midland Draw, and after joining Monahans Draw (which runs through Odessa and and south of Midland) it meets Johnson Draw at the county line on the highway to Garden City. Johnson Draw meets Mustang Draw southeast of Stanton. Most people do not have a mental map of the draws in Midland County. Why should they? Aside from the hydrological problems the asphalt plains of retail pose, why should anyone know anything about draws?

There are forests on the Llano Estacado; hidden forests, magical forests, private forests. Here and there a grove of trees line the bottom of a draw, a hundred yards wide and one-fourth a mile long.

For most of my life I participated in Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts that occur yearly on the southern Llano Estacado. For such purposes the Midland Naturalists have enjoyed access to private lands for over fifty years. For these counts I have just walked much of the lower end of Midland Draw, most of the distance of Mustang Draw east of the road south of Stanton, and a good hunk of the fork of Beal's Creek along Interstate 20 and the railroad.

Unexpected sights can happen -- wonderful, glorious sights that fill a human's soul with gratitude and rejoicing...

Years ago I led a Midland College Continuing Education class to an old home place in Midland Draw one spring. To the north of some ancient hackberries around the yard stock tank was the original hand-dug water well. Eight foot across and rock lined, the well had been crumbling and filling in for a long time, but down a dozen feet a bobcat had hollowed out a den. Four baby bobcats clambered in the old hackberries. Rabbit carcasses stripped of meat lay scattered among the mesquite thicket of the old horse trap.

One Christmas Count I began walking Mustang Draw so early I used a flashlight for a mile. 20-degree temperatures held wildlife down even as the sun broke over the horizon. I threaded my way through a grove of Hackberries, enjoying the plume of breath-smoke, stopping to pull the watchcap tighter and snugger on my head.

I became aware of being watched. At first I was a mite worried, for the owner of the land had told me of a mountain lion that had coursed through a few months before, and I had heard coyotes howling as I had walked. Part of the joy of such a hike is the intense alertness engendered by the goal of identifying and then counting every single bird seen. I sensed a fierce predatory gaze on me, from my left, and I tried not to change the pacing of my movements to turn and identify its source.

An adult Golden Eagle had been asleep on the top of the last hackberry of the thicket. My dark clothes in the gloaming light camouflaged by the shadows of the trees hid me. As soon as I identified the Eagle, it identified me as human. It immediately began to lurch into the sky, lifting its heavy wings and bending forward, but it slipped on the icy surface of the branch and had to awkwardly right itself. For several seconds the Eagle teetered, and when balanced again it seemed to have forgotten my presence. Its eye did not seem to focus on me until it did remember.

This time it merely glared at me. I did not move. From 40 feet away we waited for the other to redefine the engagement. From underneath the Eagle a Bewick's Wren began its characteristic hopping-with-fury fussing and scolding. It moved closer to the Eagle and as it did, its fussing alerted other birds. A Spotted Towhee mewed from the flood detritus at the base of the tree, and a Cactus Wren at the edge of the draw began to offer a querulous puzzled rattling. The resident Cardinals chinked a loud angry "shut up."

The Eagle listened to the flurry of bird noises and turned his glare from me. He seemed to realize that his sleep was ended. The passerines would mob him if he stayed, so with slow dignity he drew himself into launch position and then with three powerful flaps gained altitude and speed enough to glide down the draw. He swooped to the next trees, a ghost forest -- where natural causes had killed a hundred trees.

I grow all three species of "draw trees"; Hackberry, Soapberry, and Chittamwood Bumelia, at home. The memories of that morning (and other such mornings) spent in the forests of the draw come alive with the presence of the same tree species.

The most accessible draw forest is in Odessa at the Comanche Trails Park along Interstate 20 in Monahans Draw in Odessa. The draw is filled with Siberian elm, fruiting mulberry, Osage orange and other species of horticultural trees along with Soapberry and Hackberry. A paved mile-long trail gives a visitor the unusual (for West Texans) experience of walking in a forest.