Skywatch Friday – Hiking Oxley Nature Center

A couple weeks ago I felt like moving around so I ventured off to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center on an overcast day to wander around and see what I could see.

Oxley during the week is great. Nobody is there!! I didn’t see too many critters though. Oh well.

They have great flat trails there. Hardly a rock to trip over anywhere. Don’t worry I trip over roots, stubs, branches, and my own feet.

A repurposed major highway cuts through Oxley as a big wide, sustainable trail. I’ve seen lots of critters from this over the years when the trails are really too muddy to walk on.

I found me a big mess of fungi. Google lens tells me that this could be turkey tail. They gave several other possibilities and I picked Turkey Tail cuz I liked the name.

I come across a bridge with its own poem. It’s called “This Drop” by Sasha A. Martin. She was the “Artist in Residence” at Oxley a few years ago. I never met her but I would like to do so.

When she left they posted her poems all over Oxley. I always love seeing them. She is on instagram and her handle is @thatsashamartin. She is super talented.

The birds were out chirping away but I couldn’t get more than a glimpse of any of them except for the cardinals. They are hard to miss but they don’t wait long enough for me to focus and get a photo. Still it was nice having the Merlin App so I could figure out what they are.

Another nice surprise was the lakes, creeks, and marshes being full of water. I couldn’t quite figure it out until I said something on social media about it and then several people piped up and said that the low water dam holding water on the park had failed in the last year or two and they finally got it repaired and working again a few months ago. I was like, ohh. I pride myself on knowing what is going with stuff like that and everyone but me knew.

My pride will recover, in the meantime I am happy with the water being restored to Oxley.

I love boardwalks across marshes.

Here is the Nature Center at the Nature Center. Very well informed volunteers hang out there. I usually bypass it because I know where I am going. If I had stopped and asked why the low water, I am sure they would have told me.