Author: Anita Westervelt
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And he’s off again!
It was a late July Dog Day Afternoon – perfect for a tram ride at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission. South Texas Border Chapter Texas Master Naturalist, Jani McGee, drives the tram Thursday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., making rounds at the top of each hour. Bring a camera, grab a cold…
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Two pretty surprise plants
I had some fun this summer with two new pretty plants at the resaca bank. The plants sort of just appeared one week, about five feet apart, one yellow and one lavender. The yellow one goes by the name, Mexican primrose-willow (Ludwigia octovalvis). It is listed in Richardson, A., King, K., p. 338. 2011. Plants…
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The not so bad news about grasshoppers
I cringe every time I see a grasshopper. Sure, I’ll stop and photograph them, but then turn my back, quelling the panic that could so easily arise. Many Midwesterners recall the summer of the near defoliation in the 1990s by grasshoppers – if not the year, certainly the event. I had a cute little cloth…
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A brief look at a South Texas specialty bird – Couch’s Kingbird
Flashes of yellow dart through the branches of a honey mesquite tree outside my kitchen window in the late afternoon. They’re Couch’s Kingbird (Tyrannus couchii) and I think there’s one or two adults and possibly four young from this year’s brood. These birds are a permanent resident in the very tip of Texas. We’ve had two or three…
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Be on the Lookout
Native annuals are beginning to appear, like Pennsylvania pellitory, a benign, unassuming plant that doesn’t seem to do anything except exist. It’s a plant that once you see it and hear its name, you don’t have to remember it because it’s just always there, ready to be enunciated. Pennsylvania pellitory, like its alliterative eight-syllabic moniker…
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Butterflies are in the pink – pink mint, that is!
Several years ago, a pink mint plant (Stachys drummondii) popped up in front of the tropical sage patch in my yard. Our weekly volunteer team had just found them all abloom in various gardens in Harlingen’s Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, so I knew what it was. Pink mint was our harbinger of spring, foretelling warmer…