Tag: Creatures Among Us
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Our Native Javelinas
by M. Kathy Raines A javelina is not a pig. It’s not even in the same family. Though the rather pig-like javelina (Pecari tajacu)—a lean, compact native creature with a bristly salt-and-pepper coat—inhabits the same local brushlands as the invasive feral hog, the two certainly differ. And the javelina, mainly a fan of prickly pear…
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The Vital and Prolific Eastern Cottontail
by M. Kathy Raines The big-eyed cottontail, crouching amid a bed of purples, mimicked a garden statue. A four-foot bull snake sprawled nearby, alert to the slightest motion. Neither budged. I watched for twenty minutes, rooting for the rabbit, but never saw how the drama played out. Snakes can be mighty patient. Like other ready-to-eat…
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The Intriguing but Maligned Bronzed Cowbird
by M. Kathy Raines A bronzed cowbird is not a bad bird for depositing her eggs in the nest of an unwitting host, whose own brood often dies. No, the cowbird, like ourselves, does what it does to survive and prosper. An obligate brood parasite—like about 1% of bird species, including some cuckoos—a cowbird never…
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White-tailed Kites
by M. Kathy Raines Thinking they were seagulls, I once paid them little mind. Then a whitish gray “gull”, like a fluttering, suspended marionette, hovered for minutes, legs a-dangle, beating its wings mightily—a remarkable spectacle amidst swirls of pearly clouds. Now I frequently watch these raptors, white-tailed kites, as they perch or hover over fields,…
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The Black Skimmer
by M. Kathy Raines A slowly curving line, like the groove of an ice skate, invisibly traced the nighttime resaca. A glance upwards revealed the artist—a strange night bird, its massive lower beak slicing through surface waters. This handsome, distinguished fellow was a black skimmer, the only skimmer in our hemisphere and one of three…
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The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, our Beautiful Guest
by M. Kathy Raines The striking bird—its white chest seemingly splattered with crimson paint—hopped about with his female companion in the grass at the South Padre Island Convention Center last April, eating its fill, undaunted by ardent photographers. These rose-breasted grosbeaks, fatigued and famished, stop off here in April and early May to rest and…