Author: M Kathy Raines
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Moon Jellyfish
With damp, flowery patterns agleam in the sunshine, hundreds of translucent moon jellyfish decorated the sands at Isla Blanca Park one late September afternoon, delighting, but slightly discomfiting my grandchildren, fretful they might be stung. So, rather than swim, my granddaughter and I played “baby crocodiles” in the shallowest of pools formed by the low…
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The Plain Chachalaca
photo by Charles Lorenz Many a chatty person in the Rio Grande Valley answers to the pet name “Chachalaca”—and it’s really no wonder. The birds’ cries of Cha-cha-lac, cha-cha-lac!— a rocking, overlapping call-and-response—resound from trees and shrubs, especially in spring and summertime mornings and evenings. Intermixed with the industrial whine of summer cicadas, nearby humans…
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Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes in the RGV
An S-shaped figure—with a triangle head, stripy rattle and Y-shaped tongue—illustrates this helpful warning in English and Spanish: “Caution: Watch for Snakes In Brush and Along Trail” at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park. I gaze ahead and tread carefully. Yet I, like many, have yearned to see a rattlesnake—at a safe distance. But,…
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Texas Spiny Lizard
A dapper male, armored in pinecone-colored scales, scurried by, then froze briefly amid limbs, twigs and yellow puffs of huisache blossoms at Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge in early March. A female popped up on crossed branches. The couple mated briefly, then dashed away into the spring foliage. This Texas spiny lizard—also called tree or fence…
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The Greater Roadrunner
Contrary to our early schooling from Looney Tunes, a roadrunner, no matter how clever, cannot outrun and escape the jaws of a hungry coyote. While this speedy bird can zip along at bursts of 20 mph—third only to the ostrich, at 43 and the emu, at 30—a coyote can clock 40 mph. Had Wile E.…
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Blue Land Crabs
A man on the beach gesticulated so wildly that I imagine the driver for Cameron County Beach Patrol, veering towards him, feared that someone was drowning, stung or, heaven forbid, bitten. But, no, the man sought to protect a beautifully adorned blue land crab crawling along the sand, coaxing it—using a plastic bucket as prod…