STBC Leadership Team.
Tag: Mar2023
One night this December, I noticed two dazzling gems feeding upon the fruit of my backyard Turk’s cap. One, with its crimson head and patchwork of black, white and yellow on its abdomen, was a Turk’s cap red bug. The other, a smartly-dressed spot-sided coreid, wore nestled cream and brown triangles on its head and wing tops, which ended in beige.
Congratulations to those receiving certifications and milestones for December, January, and February 2023.
The Texas Master Naturalist classes offer insight into what’s going on in my own backyard. For example: mutualism. Years ago I noticed carpenter bees spending time at the base of the flowers in our backyard as opposed to entering the front door, so to speak. My son who studies entomology at Texas A&M said the bees were puncturing the base to draw out nectar.
With her eyes wide open for a rattlesnake, Akeye crawled on her stomach – the sharp thorns of the low blackbrush and mesquite branches scraping across her back as she gathered mesquite screw beans and Texas ebony bean pods. The strongest Coahuiltecans had disappeared with their bows, arrows and nets before sunrise.
For two years now, my husband, Jim, and I, have become Peregrine Falcons. When the aspen trees in our beloved home range of Colorado exchange their murmuring golden tresses for shimmering crystals of frost, we are now joining the peregrines on their autumn migration to warmer climes. Sometimes I wonder if the supersonic peregrines hunting along Texas 100 are the same ones we watched fledge their young from the red rock cliffs above our home.