This busy little fellow’s rust and black feathers blend so seamlessly with the quartz and feldspar crystals embedded in the granite of the jetties, one might miss the creature were it not for its bright orange legs, white underparts and dappled head.  

Leaping from branch to branch, chasing one another and outwitting birdwatchers who try to block them from feeders, an expanding population of fox squirrels now thrives in the Rio Grande Valley.

by M. Kathy Raines Bzzzzz! scolded a plump black bee, swooping and darting at me as I hacked at the last stump of an unwanted bougainvillea. Yikes! I sped off, fearing it was a member of a gang of killer bees.  Gingerly, I returned—spying no evidence of its cohorts— and inspected a tidy, round hole…

by M. Kathy Raines A cry of “Mwee! Mwee!” sends an earnest cat-lover, shouting, “Here, kitty, kitty!” scrambling into bushes after a lost, forlorn kitten. But, no, it’s a Gray Catbird making its namesake call.  Besides mewing, the catbird—one of our occasional autumn and winter visitors— engages in an intricate array of songs, whistles, squeaks,…

by M. Kathy Raines The ornate creature in the soil-filled crotch of our ash tree appeared to be a decorated rock or a lost jewel, a pendant perhaps. Never had I seen such a thing—a beetle’s yellow carapace embossed with an ink rendering of an outspread tree, or maybe a Rorschach test.  Then I picked…

by M. Kathy Raines Our local sand dollar is the keyhole urchin (Mellita quinquiesperforata), which Spanish-speakers sometimes call galeta de mar (sea cookie) or dólar de arena (sand dollar). It thrives in the Gulf and Caribbean as well as warm, salty bays and Atlantic waters from Virginia to Brazil. This spiny-skinned creature is an echinoderm,…