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 Please note that the articles are preserved mainly in their original form and may contain outdated information or links.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.
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Anita’s Blog — Gazilian Brazilian Peppertrees
A fascinating aspect as a Texas Master Naturalist is learning about invasive species. Prior to my beginning TMN classes, I didn’t realize it was a branch of study in and of itself. Sure, I knew about kudzu in Georgia. During the 1930s and 40s, Kudzu was encouraged as a way for farmers to control…
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Anita’s Blog — A Walk in the Arroyo Brush
On April 12, Christina Mild led a small group of Ramsey Park’s Ebony Loop Thursday morning volunteers along narrow, man-made trails through Old Growth Arroyo Brush in the acreage belonging to McAllen’s Dr. Glatz. This tour is not an exclusive opportunity for a select few. Fellow Texas Master Naturalist chapter member Dr. Glatz has…
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Anita’s Blog — What a Sight!
When opportunity lands, I’m always happy to zip off for a new and awesome adventure. Remember Stephanie Bilodeau? She spoke at our general meeting last year when she first hired on as the Coastal Bird Conservation Biologist in the Lower Laguna Madre. And what an enviable job she has — weekly cruises on a…
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Anita’s Blog — The Universe Aligns
Venus didn’t rise, Mars wasn’t in retrograde, the universe aligned with Karmic benevolence, nightfall brought the rains, the sun rose, the winds stilled and I captured a perfectly attuned shot for the first time in weeks. My early morning trek was muddy. I didn’t complain — the shoes will clean. San Benito savored a…
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Anita’s Blog — The Winter of the Birds
This has been an exciting winter on the Resaca. Our little horseshoe lake, as the map calls it, has attracted new visitors. Last year, an Osprey moved in. He’s commandeered a wonderful perch on a dead branch of a huge mesquite tree between the driveway and the Resaca. On sunny days, I see him…
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Anita’s Blog — Harbingers of Spring
If you ask the trees in Ramsey Park which blooms announce a Rio Grande Valley spring, the Texas huisache, Acacia farnesiana, will say they are the traditional harbingers of spring. Pink Mint, Stachys drummondii, also pushing out their tiny pink blooms typically announce spring from the lower realm of native plants. In the real…
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Anita’s Blog — Terminology is a Beautiful Thing
Exact terminology is important when words are defined in regard to specific disciplines. For those logophiles (people who love words) who insist on knowing, without question, what something means in context to what one is learning, here are words commonly encountered when listening to native plant lectures or reading favorite plant books. Native —…
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Anita’s Blog — The Vultures are Back!
“I like vultures,” a friend said when I mentioned my blog idea. “They kettle and they’re easily identified.” They are, except when not yet in full adult uniform and hulking on a dead mesquite branch, head hunched Dracula-cape-esque. A sight I had one morning exiting the garage. Up close, the hulk was huge. Condor…
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Anita’s Blog — Nature’s Wicked Spooky Fun House
Black cats, jack-o-lanterns, spooky noises and folklore signify the fun fall festival of Hallowe’en. If you use your imagination, nature has its own fall fun, depending on which side of the prickle you find yourself. Let your imagination wander along a shadowy walk under a waning moon through a Rio Grande Valley thorn-scrub forest.…