Every morning, we send you a free email packed with Austin news, business, and entertainment. Join 16,000+ readers who wake up to Austonia's newsletter.
Featured
austonia newsletter
Most viewed
Bobcats were seen on the Violet Crown Trail in southwest Austin.
Prowling through the trees in southwest Austin, two bobcats were seen by an Austin cyclist, who snapped a rare picture after a run-in with the cats.
The spotted bobcats were seen just off the southern section of the Violet Crown Trail, near the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Sunday morning by long-time Austinite Maxwell Johnston. He was cycling down the trail when he saw what he thought was a house cat. He took a photo of one bobcat, feeling unthreatened, but just before he could snap a photo of the other one, it scurried away.
Bobcats are native to North America and are one of the most common wildcats in the region. While they reside throughout Texas and prefer habitats much like the Hill Country, bobcats are not often spotted in the wild in the Austin area, let alone captured on camera.
According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the rarity of sightings likely comes from the species' reclusiveness and largely nocturnal habits.
Johnston said that it was his first sighting of a big cat, but hopes to have the experience again.
"I've never seen any wild bobcats before, and I've lived here for 25 years," Johnston said. "(It was a) very cool experience and I would love to come across one again."
Even though they are not often seen by humans, Texas Parks and Wildlife state mammologist Jonah Evans said that bobcats are becoming more comfortable with people in state and national parks.
"There are parks where they've become pretty used to people and people can go see him fairly regularly," Evans said. "Obviously that's not ideal. We like animals to maintain their fear of humans, but there are places where you can see bobcats fairly regularly."
Evans has had some bobcat sightings himself and, like Johnston, has never felt endangered by their presence.
"I've seen maybe a handful of bobcats in the wild and I've always been excited when I did," Evans said. "(I) never had even a second of thought of like, 'Oh no, I might be in danger' or something like that. They just aren't really a threat to people."
More on Austin animals:
The grackle: Austin's most controversial bird is also the most inspiring- Animal rights activist Jeanne Daniels destroys the Tarrytown ... ›
- After a week of frigid weather, Austin bats are dying fast - austonia ›
- Cats get to keep their claws with new Austin city ordinance - austonia ›
- Austin man charged after trafficking Galapagos tortoises - austonia ›
- "Pandemic pups" are being returned to shelters as owners go back to work - austonia ›
- Esperanza is Austin's oldest chicken and biggest celebrity - austonia ›
- Chupie the cat: Austin's famous chupacabra just 'doesn't give a meow' - austonia ›
- At least 6 deer shot with crossbow in Northwest Austin neighborhood - austonia ›
- Bobcats and bats: A guide to backyard wildlife in Central Texas - austonia ›
Popular
(Pexels)
Our 15-year-old granddaughter and her sister, 12, have spent summer weeks with us, usually separately so that we could better get to know each individually. In visits focused on Austin and Port Aransas, the girls seemed to be developing an affection for Texas.
Houston and Dallas are two great American cities, the 4th and 9th largest, each loaded with cultural treasures, each standing in glittering and starchy contrast to Austin’s more louche, T-shirts and shorts ways.
Three hours up I-35, Dallas loomed before us as a set of gray skyscrapers in a filmy haze, accessed only through a concrete mixmaster of freeways, ramps and exits. I drove with false confidence. Be calm, I said to myself, it will all end in 10 minutes under the hotel entrance canopy. And it did.
The pool at the Crescent Court Hotel in Dallas. (Crescent Court Hotel)
We stayed three nights at the Crescent Court Hotel ($622 a night for two queens), a high-end hotel in Uptown, patronized by women in white blazers, business people in suits, and tall, lean professional athletes, their shiny Escalades and Corvettes darting in and out, and other celebrities like Bill Barr, the former attorney general who shoe-horned his ample self into a Toyota.
Each morning as I walked to Whole Foods for a cappuccino, a fellow identified by a bellman as Billy the Oilman arrived in his Rolls Royce Phantom. Where does he park? “Wherever he wants to. He likes the Starbucks here.”
We garaged our more modest set of wheels for the visit. We were chauffeured for tips by Matt Cooney and Alfonza “The Rev” Scott in the hotel’s black Audi sedan. They drove us to museums, restaurants and past the enclaves of the rich and famous. In Highland Park, The Rev pointed out the homes of the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman along with the family compound of the Hunts, oil and gas tycoons.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s “Cartier and Islam” exhibit (until Sept. 18) attracted an older crowd; the nearby Perot Museum of Nature and Science was a powerful whirlpool of kids’ groups ricocheting from the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the oil fracking exhibit. Watch your shins.
A Geogia O'Keeffe oil painting called "Ranchos Church, New Mexico" at the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art. (Rich Oppel)
For us, the best museum was the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, a 50-minute, madcap drive away via a 75 mph toll lane along I-30. Don’t try it during rush hour. The Carter has an exquisite collection of Remington paintings and sculptures and an excellent array of 19th and 20th-century paintings as well. Pick one museum? The Amon Carter. Peaceful, beautiful, uncrowded, free admission and small enough to manage in two hours.
The Fort Worth Stockyards, a place of history (with a dab of schmaltz), fun and good shopping, filled one of our mornings. The 98 acres brand the city as Cowboy Town, with a rodeo and a twice-daily (11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.) cattle drive. We shopped for boots, drank coffee and watched the “herd” of 18 longhorns. So languid was their progress that if this were a real market drive the beef would have been very tough and leathery before it hit the steakhouse dinner plate.
The cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Rich Oppel)
But we could identify: the temperature was 97. “I saw a dog chasing a cat today,” said the emcee, deploying a very old joke. “It was so hot that both were walking.”
With limited time, we chose three very different restaurants:
- Nobu, in the Crescent Court Hotel; Jia, a modern Chinese restaurant in Highland Park; and Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth. Nobu’s exotic Japanese menu set us back $480, with tip, for four (we had a guest), but it was worth it.
- Jia was an ordinary suburban strip mall restaurant, but with good food and a reasonable tab of $110 for four.
- Joe T.’s is an 85-year-old Fort Worth institution (think Matt’s El Rancho but larger), a fine Mexican restaurant where a meal with two drinks was $115.
Sushi at high-end restaurant Nobu. (Crescent Hotel)
It was all a splurge for a grandchild’s visit. Now we will get back to our ordinary road trips of Hampton Inns, where a room rate is closer to the Crescent Court’s overnight parking rate of $52. And to corner cafes in small towns.
Did Dallas change our 15-year-old’s view of Texas? “Yes. I think it’s a lot cooler than I did. The fashion, the food.” So, not only Austin is cool. Take Texas as a whole. It’s a big, complex, diverse and wonderful state.
