Richard Moore Outdoor Report: 2024 In the Outdoors

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas (ValleyCentral) — 2024 was a fascinating year in the South Texas outdoors from the backyard to the bay.

The year began with unusual visitors to the Rio Grande Valley, as several rare limpkins appeared in the Valley including one that spent a couple of months on this San Benito resaca.

Until their appearance, this tropical species native to Florida and Mexico had never been seen in the Valley, but the large heron-like bird seemed right at home prying open apple snails, freshwater clams, and mussels.

By early spring, limpkins departed and blooming yuccas began brightening wildlands with their creamy white flowering providing the perfect perch for a white-tailed kite.

As the sun set over flowering pitas, migrating monarchs made their March arrival and began laying eggs. Soon, striking yellow and black striped caterpillars commenced munching native milkweed before forming their exquisite emerald green chrysalis.

The transformation came full circle as after some two weeks a new generation of monarch butterflies miraculously emerged to morning light.

Carolina wrens once again housed their brood in the old ceramic sun on the backyard patio, and resident chachalacas raised a precocious youngster who wasted no time trekking through trees with his parents.

Red-crowned parrots and their yellow-head sidekick flocked to their favorite feeder with scores of white-winged doves sporting their beautiful blue eyeshade.

Summer sunrise on a tranquil Valley resaca is always a wonderful way to start the day, and dawn on the Laguna Madre beckons as the sun slowly slips above coastal islands.

Alligators were stacked tightly on remaining ponds in the lower Valley, but late summer rains finally brought relief providing ample wetlands for falls arrival of migratory waterfowl.

November sparkled with butterflies, and spectacular pixies graced the garden with their velvet black wings tipped in red and gold.

Out in the ranch country coyote chorus serenades the spirit of the wild as another year in the South Texas outdoors comes full circle.