Tag: June2022
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There’s a new book in town
An aura of grey-olive drab fur on the moth sheet caught my eye in the early dawn light. The lone moth was on the sheet long after the other night flyers had scarpered off to their daytime venues. I took advantage of the opportunity to capture photos from several angles. I rely on www.iNaturalist.org to…
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City Nature Challenge 2022 & Spiders
Observers in the 15 participating Texas regions identified 7,500+ species over the two phases of the challenge. Phase 1 was four days to photograph and make observations. Then we had the next week to finish uploading and get things identified on iNaturalist. This year, 2022, was our best year by far in observations and species…
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Spring Migration 2022 Champion Plants
Spring was back this year! There was so much missing in the landscape last spring after the “Big Texas Freeze” as the habitat struggled to recuperate through the season. I remember how the migratory birds had little to no food available for them in their passing. The insects were hardly there, and some of the…
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A Sticky Situation
One late spring, I was volunteering at Hugh Ramsey Nature Park in Harlingen and noticed a man walking along the trail followed by his three sons. The boys were each about two years apart and were in stair step order, the smallest one trying to keep up. As they passed me, the man asked me…
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Excitement grows at STEC
Since the opening of the South Texas Ecotourism Center (STEC) in Laguna Vista this past February, there has been a lot going on at the Center. We are receiving a steady amount of visitors to the Center as well as holding a number of events.
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Porpita porpita and the naming of things
Scientists, as we were taught in the early days of our Texas Master Naturalist training, use a two- name system called a Binomial Naming System, naming plants and animals using a system that describes the genus and species of the organism. The first word is the genus and the second is the species. It’s as…