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 Please note that the articles are preserved mainly in their original form and may contain outdated information or links.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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Two Valley frogs
— Night hunters help control the insect population Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist The Lower Rio Grande Valley is the northern most range of the common Mexican tree frog, Smilisca baudinii. Their range includes the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, Cameron and Hidalgo counties in Texas and south to Costa Rica. They…
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Anita’s Blog — Signs of Autumn
Amazingly, summer noticeably turned into fall here in the Deep South of Texas for a couple of days. This short cold front gave us a fall-like respite for tending to outdoor chores. Most notably making yard work fun again on our small squiredom are the legions of dragonflies. Hundreds of them are flying over the…
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It’s a rare treat when the wood storks visit
Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist Wood stork, Mycteria Americana, is the only member of the stork family (Ciconiidae) native to America. There are 20 species in the Ciconiidae family, all generally found in temperate and tropical regions. In America, wood storks breed primarily in the Florida Everglades and along the coasts…
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Fun fungi to find
Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist Heavy summer rain in the Deep South of Texas makes for hot, dripping-humid days and sultry, mosquito-infested hours at dawn and dusk. Only the brave and curious venture out to find the odd surprises that nature bestows on the land. Those hot, humid conditions, so annoying…
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Anita’s Blog — Foretelling the Weather
The moon belies what the rain crow says. If the moon looks like it’s tipped on its back cradling water, it won’t rain. If it’s tipped forward so water can spill out, it will rain — so I was told by a retired nurse when I first moved to the Valley. The call of a…
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Anita’s Blog — Achromatic Beauty
There it was! The long-awaited for visitor — the giant leopard moth — in all its achromatic beauty, perched on the moth sheet. Giant Leopard Moth, Hypercompe scribonia (Tiger moths tribe) Genus Hypercompe — one of seven species in the genus in North America. Wingspan — 2 ¼ to 3 ½ inches — males are…
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Moths of all sizes show up for moth week 2020
Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist National Moth Week 2020 saw people around the Valley putting together moth-attracting set-ups to see what flies our nightly skies. https://www.stbctmn.org/post/mothing While some moths that were attracted to a blacklight and moth sheet set-up were as tiny as a grain of rice, most had a wingspan…
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The siren song summer
Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist Last summer brought us the superb dog-day cicada, Neotibicen superbus and its nostalgic, resonating song. Another Texas songster is filling the night air this summer with decibel-alarming pitch: the giant cicada, Quesada gigas, the widest ranging cicada in the Western Hemisphere — and quite possibly, the…
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Moth Week project
Set up a simple moth-attracting activity for a summer project — National Moth Week is July 18 – 26 Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist The number of moths far outweighs the number of butterflies around the world with a suspected 200,000 species existing to only 17,500 species of butterflies, according…