What a tremendous year we’ve had! Y’all bought us a new tractor, so we can keep on growing, and we hosted the Biennial Members’ Meeting for the North American Butterfly Association. We had a U.S. Record butterfly sighting in the Alana White-Skipper (Heliopetes alana) and welcomed more visitors than we’ve had in any previous year! Productivity in our native plant nursery is greater than ever, as news of the benefits of native plants continues to spread, while our list of partners and projects keeps expanding, too.
If you’ve not come to see us, please plan to do so! The interest and enthusiasm of our members and guests fuels our mission to grow MORE connections, for conservation.
Your support means the world to us, sustains our outreach and education activities and allows us to impact the world today, and tomorrow. For this, we simply cannot THANK YOU enough!!
Save the Date
We continue to receive emails and phone calls requesting the dates of next year’s Texas Butterfly Festival. We know many of you must schedule time off work or budget personal finances in order to attend, so the 22nd Annual Texas Butterfly Festival will be Saturday, Nov. 4 – Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. As has been the case for the last couple years, the annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival will begin Wednesday or Thursday of the same week. This means visitors may choose to come, play and stay for all of the festivities!
We’ll post updates about the festival to the Texas Butterfly Festival website and Facebook page, so make sure to check back in late January or early February, for more information.
Warmth, It’s not just for Butterflies
Butterflies need sunshine and temperatures above 70F. It’s no surprise people like these conditions, too! Here’s a new blog from Marianna about warmth, with heartfelt wishes for you all year long:
This past Saturday, we celebrated Spike’s 14th birthday party. (He’s our giant, African Spurred Tortoise, in case you didn’t know.) The morning temperatures started in the 40s, and rose only slightly, which means we thin-blooded Valley folks were FREEZING!!
As I led a couple dozen Girl Scouts down the Hackberry Trail, we were stopped in our tracks, repeatedly, by downed butterflies; they, too, were freezing. Fortunately, the girls were careful not to step on these sleeping beauties, so I showed them how best to handle and relocate them to some place safe and warm. Read more
