Author: Anita Westervelt
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Anita’s Blog — All in a Row
August and September are family reunion months. Clans get together all over the country catching up on family members not seen for a year. It’s no different on the resacas around San Benito. Mexican Black-bellied Whistling Ducks have arrived en masse as they do every year. Sure, bird migration is all about the food.…
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Anita’s Blog: Cane toad — as toads go, it’s a giant
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 Rio Grande Valley, south to Mexico and into Central and South America. Cane toads are in the Bufonidae family…
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Anita’s Blog – Dried and Salted
There are three salt lakes in the Valley. That’s where the latest road trip saw freelance travel writer and fellow Texas Master Naturalist Eileen Mattei and me. We ventured to the closest one very early one morning — the one with the shortest hike from the parking lot — La Sal del Rey, 18…
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Anita’s Blog — Whose Scat is That?
If you read the last blog post, you’ll note that I hadn’t yet found information about the Giant Toad that hopped in front of us as fellow Texas Master Naturalist Eileen Mattei and I traversed Lyford’s Hilltop Gardens. Recall, that big dude measured some five inches from snout to bum on my iNaturalist Nature…
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Anita’s Blog — Getting Out and About
The Sunday after our wild and wonderful rains had stopped, I was off on another assignment with magazine travel writer and fellow Texas Master Naturalist, Eileen Mattei. Travelling along Sixth Street in Brownsville, the road along the back of the zoo, Texas ebony trees were nearly unrecognizable so laden with blooms were they. Certainly,…
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Anita’s Blog — Raining in the Valley
A couple of weeks ago, I awoke to flashes of light visible even beneath closed eyelids, and a syncopated, steady sound I attributed to our younger cat, annoyingly delighted with one of his toys. I vaguely recall sleep-shouting, “Izzy,” into the darkness as my brain began to rouse itself into cognitive awareness. The pulsing…