This is an archive of articles written by Anita Westervelt between 2015 and 2021 for the Rio Grande Valley Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist. To focus on the most current information, these earlier articles were retired from the original site. We are pleased to provide a permanent home for them here. Please note that the articles are preserved mainly in their original form and may contain outdated information or links. For Anita’s current work, please visit the South Texas Border Chapter’s blog: stbctmn.org/blog.
-
Anita’s Blog — Something’s Happening on the Resaca
January’s freezes led to some interesting resaca happenings. This particular tale happened to a friend who lives on a resaca near Bayview. After the first January freeze, frozen fish popped up to the water’s surface and drifted to the edge of the resaca where he could scoop them out and examine. Some of the…
-
Anita’s Blog — The Boringness of Flocks
While researching for the previous post about yellow-rumped warblers, the use of the word flock became monotonous and I was reminded that there are so many more fun and creative words to describe the gathering of more than two or three birds. It’s called collective bird nouns and they’ve been around since the 15th…
-
Anita’s Blog: Bring bird diversity to your garden with native trees
BY ANITA WESTERVELT Hosting our resident and winter-visiting birds is always fun here in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s possible to increase the variety of birds coming to your property by planting native trees. You may recognize the mantra, November through February is the ideal time to plant trees in the Valley. Cooler months help…
-
Anita’s Blog — Flashes of Yellow
Yellow-rumped Warblers are hosting a convention outside our kitchen window. It’s pretty cool. They’re doing exactly as the book says, fluttering out from the mesquite trees to catch flying insects some days and other days skimming insects from above the surface of the resaca. About 50 of the wee birds, barely bigger than…
-
Anita’s Blog — Snow in the Valley
The weather really played a trick on us in early December. As darkness turned into sunrise somewhere behind the cloud cover, white was accumulating on green palm fronds in my line of sight as I typed at my computer. I got the binoculars out to see what was happening. Amazingly, it was snowing. I…
-
Anita’s Blog — Merry Christmas from the Park
In our Rio Grande Valley native plant realm, we have a Christmas cactus. Fellow Master Naturalist Barbara Peet and I never get to show it off during our December guided native plant walks because it’s not done what all the books say about it, at least not since we’ve been giving our walks in…
-
Anita’s Blog — Totally Cool Insect Hotels
Is this just not totally cool? It’s a stack of pallets all decked out with a purpose. Read on . . . . Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Program Specialist, Dr. Wizzie Brown, presented a fascinating lecture recently entitled, Creating a Backyard Habitat for Insects. Most folks who know me know that I’m a die-hard…
-
Anita’s Blog — One-stop Shopping
It’s the time of year to start thinking about what you want to plant during the next four months. Right now, for butterflies, plant anything that’s blooming. Give them nectar and they will come! Busy nectar bushes in my yard right now are fall-blooming mist flower, scarlet sage, skeleton-leaf golden eye, cow pen daisy,…
-
Anita’s Blog — The Snake Incident
It was late, time to close up the house and go to bed. It was not the time to discover a coral snake in the garage two feet from the cat door. The cat door that enters the kitchen from the garage. Nor was it the time to see our young cat hovering over…