While researching for the previous post about yellow-rumped warblers, the use of the word flock became monotonous and I was reminded that there are so many more fun and creative words to describe the gathering of more than two or three birds. It’s called collective bird nouns and they’ve been around since the 15th…

    Yellow-rumped Warblers are hosting a convention outside our kitchen window. It’s pretty cool. They’re doing exactly as the book says, fluttering out from the mesquite trees to catch flying insects some days and other days skimming insects from above the surface of the resaca. About 50 of the wee birds, barely bigger than…

  The weather really played a trick on us in early December. As darkness turned into sunrise somewhere behind the cloud cover, white was accumulating on green palm fronds in my line of sight as I typed at my computer. I got the binoculars out to see what was happening. Amazingly, it was snowing. I…

  In our Rio Grande Valley native plant realm, we have a Christmas cactus. Fellow Master Naturalist Barbara Peet and I never get to show it off during our December guided native plant walks because it’s not done what all the books say about it, at least not since we’ve been giving our walks in…

  Is this just not totally cool? It’s a stack of pallets all decked out with a purpose. Read on . . . . Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Program Specialist, Dr. Wizzie Brown, presented a fascinating lecture recently entitled, Creating a Backyard Habitat for Insects. Most folks who know me know that I’m a die-hard…