Rio Grande Valley Chapter

Author: Anita Westervelt

  • The Great Valley Challenge of 2018

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    Anita Westervelt

    By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist SAN BENITO, TEXAS–This is big! Mark your calendars for April 27 – 30. It’s the great international City Nature Challenge. Some call it a Bio-Blitz, and it’s worldwide for the first time. Given the Valley’s plant and animal diversity, the Valley’s Texas Master Naturalist chapters want the Valley to…

  • A banner year for Texas mountain laurel

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    Anita Westervelt

    By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist The calendar may not say it’s spring just yet, but the trees are talking with the news that winter’s over in the Deep South of Texas. The planets must have come into perfect alignment this year because the persnickety purple clusters of highly fragrant, early-spring-blooming Texas mountain laurel (Sophora…

  • Friends in low places – Texas Indigo snakes

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    Anita Westervelt

    By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist. If you’ve never seen a big, beautiful Texas Indigo snake, it’s an amazing sight. They are active in the day time, although much of their time is spent hiding. You are most likely to see one of these beauties in lightly vegetative areas near a permanent water source. They…

  • Lower Valley places 10th for species count in global nature challenge

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    Anita Westervelt

    By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist SAN BENITO, TEXAS–The Lower Rio Grande Valley placed 10th in a recent City Nature Challenge bioblitz in competition with 67 other cities around the globe. The challenge rated three levels of competition: most observations (of nature), most individual species and most people participating. The four counties of the Lower…

  • Cane toad — as toad’s go, it’s a giant

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    Anita Westervelt

    By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist The largest toad in the world calls the extreme south of Texas home. The cane toad (Rhinella marina), also known as giant toad, neo-tropical toad or marine toad, is a large land toad native in the Valley, south to Mexico, and into Central and South America. Cane toads are…

  • Colorful flowers bring a rainbow of butterflies

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    Anita Westervelt

    Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist September’s rains provided a tremendous favor for our fall kaleidoscope of butterflies. What’s rain got to do with it? It created a burst of blooms in our native plant communities. More blooms, more butterflies. The opposite is true in drought years. No rain, no blooms, butterflies…