There are reportedly 10 million Great-tailed Grackles, ranging from northwestern Venezuela and Colombia, through Mexico and the U.S. and into southern Canada. In winter, many of the northern ones come south, swelling the Valley’s flocks to gargantuan proportions to upwards of half a million birds. They frequent sugarcane and corn fields and land freshly plowed.  A species…

The annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) came during the coldest days of the year when temperatures dropped below freezing and areas of the Valley experienced power outages. Despite the hardship, residents stocked their bird feeders, bundled themselves in layers of clothing and blankets and sat at their windows counting birds. The GBBC is an inter-organizational effort…

Instead of being active when it’s cold, lizards will seek somewhere to be warm, such as a hollowed out log, pile of leaves, sticks and other debris, or burrow into the ground. They then will enter a state of lessened activity called brumation.

You may have been following recent information about what photos to upload for the upcoming annual City Nature Challenge. Master Naturalists, Valley residents and Winter Texans alike are being encouraged to join the challenge and upload nature photographs to the www.iNaturalist.org website database to help document the diversity of the Valley’s habitat. An interesting and acceptable…