Tag: Creatures Among Us

A spiky, ornate gem sat amid an expansive web projecting from the fence, arresting me in my tracks. I feel privileged whenever this decorative creature, the spinybacked orbweaver, sets up camp to ensnare tiny insects in my backyard.

During April, the peak of spring migration in South Texas, one often spots a summer, scarlet, or, occasionally, a western tanager resting on one of our low branches—to the delight of photographers unable to convince fluttery warblers to strike a pose. We are indeed fortunate hosts. In much of their nesting and wintering grounds, tanagers…

A cartoon animal springs to mind when I watch this round-headed, needle-billed, tuxedoed bird that, walking on pink stilts, rises above its fellow shorebirds probing the mud for edible treats.

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…