Author: Anita Westervelt
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Anita’s Blog — Take Your Best Shot!
Phew! The Mexican Black-bellied Whistling Ducks made it back for the City Nature Challenge. Remember the dates: Friday, April 26 through Monday, April 29, this year! We have a new addition to our yard — a Screech-owl, holed up in cavity of a mesquite tree. It flies when I get the mower close to its…
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Anita’s Blog — Training for the Challenge
It’s easy! It’s fun! It’s important! Sunday’s training resulted in a lot of info and a lot of fun with Texas Master Naturalists and trainees from both Valley chapters. If you missed the iNaturalist training in Pharr (in preparation for the City Nature Challenge that takes place between 26 and 29 April) with the most…
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Anita’s Blog — Swoop of Swallows & Other Eaters
For all of you who joined the 2019 Great Backyard Bird Count — the many results categories are available at the below link! It’s a pretty exciting world-wide look at birds! https://gbbc.birdcount.org/all-summaries/2019-gbbc-summary/?utm_source=Cornell+Lab+eNews&utm_campaign=5221942c5d-GBBC_eNewsletter_Feb2017_1_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_47588b5758-5221942c5d-303444081 Closer to home: The Barn Swallows are back! Too late to include in my GBBC list, but fun all the same! They’re in…
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Anita’s Blog — That Time of Year
It’s That Time of Year — for the Harlingen Garden Show celebrating its Golden Anniversary. You don’t want to miss this two-day event! The flower show is at the Harlingen Cultural Arts Center — address: 576 ’76 Drive — next to the Harlingen Public Library. Exceptional horticulture specimens will be judged and displayed. Floral Designs,…
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Anita’s Blog — Egrets and Cormorants Team Up
March 1, the Great Backyard Bird Count data was due from participants around the world; exact tallies will soon be available. As of this posting, 201,153 checklists have been submitted, 6,588 species observed and 31,174,034 individual birds counted. Check out https://gbbc.birdcount.org/ for current submission tallies and link to Explore Data for regional information. This link…
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Anita’s Blog — Critter-A-Go-Go
Thanks to the cat, I finally captured a decent shot of one of our resident yard-fellows. During the recent Great Backyard Bird Count, I was out with the cats and camera just after sunrise on a foggy grey day, when suddenly, the cats did their something-wicked-this-way-comes pose: statue still, rigid side stance, arched back and…