Author: Anita Westervelt
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Anita’s Blog — Weavers, Flyers and Crawlers
There’s a lot of mystery here in our special Valley. On foggy, humid mornings, I wander out to a bejeweled, sparkling fairyland of — spider webs! Orbweaver webs — they’re everywhere — fences, vehicles, furniture, plants and…
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Anita’s Blog — Bugged by Bugs
Research is fun, but I’ve met my match with bugs, so please, correct me if I’ve wrongly identified any of the bugs in this blog. There are many Websites available with hundreds of bug images. When you get to orders and tribes and sub-orders, like beetles — sub-order Coleoptera — there are even more…
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Anita’s Blog — Gazilian Brazilian Peppertrees
A fascinating aspect as a Texas Master Naturalist is learning about invasive species. Prior to my beginning TMN classes, I didn’t realize it was a branch of study in and of itself. Sure, I knew about kudzu in Georgia. During the 1930s and 40s, Kudzu was encouraged as a way for farmers to control…
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Anita’s Blog — A Walk in the Arroyo Brush
On April 12, Christina Mild led a small group of Ramsey Park’s Ebony Loop Thursday morning volunteers along narrow, man-made trails through Old Growth Arroyo Brush in the acreage belonging to McAllen’s Dr. Glatz. This tour is not an exclusive opportunity for a select few. Fellow Texas Master Naturalist chapter member Dr. Glatz has…
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Anita’s Blog — What a Sight!
When opportunity lands, I’m always happy to zip off for a new and awesome adventure. Remember Stephanie Bilodeau? She spoke at our general meeting last year when she first hired on as the Coastal Bird Conservation Biologist in the Lower Laguna Madre. And what an enviable job she has — weekly cruises on a…
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Anita’s Blog — The Universe Aligns
Venus didn’t rise, Mars wasn’t in retrograde, the universe aligned with Karmic benevolence, nightfall brought the rains, the sun rose, the winds stilled and I captured a perfectly attuned shot for the first time in weeks. My early morning trek was muddy. I didn’t complain — the shoes will clean. San Benito savored a…