Rio Grande Valley Chapter

Author: Anita Westervelt

  • Anita’s Blog — Foretelling the Weather

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    Anita Westervelt
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    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…

  • Anita’s Blog — Achromatic Beauty

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    Anita Westervelt
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    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…

  • Moths of all sizes show up for moth week 2020

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    Anita Westervelt

    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…

  • The siren song summer

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    Anita Westervelt

    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…

  • Moth Week project

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    Anita Westervelt

    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…

  • Rattle purr, knock, knock, knock

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    Anita Westervelt

    Story by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist In the eerie stillness between late afternoon summer storms, I heard the soft guttural rattle of a rain crow — a vocal yet illusive summer visitor to our yard these past three or four years. I raced to the house, grabbed my camera and swiftly swept back into…