Sometimes exploring stretches as far as your own backyard, neighborhood or local green space. Here are a few of the North Texas Backyard Critters you’ll find.

The eastern cottontail is ubiquitous adjusting to North Texas’ changing landscape and creating habitat for itself in among suburban subdivisions.  On my neighborhood walks, I frequently spy at least one fluff-tailed critter. An herbivore, the rabbit dines on lawns and makes its home in shrubs.

I have formed an attachment to one green anole, a lizard, that enjoys soaking up sun rays on the brick ledge outside my bedroom window. I’ve named him Harry after the anole in the BBC series, Death in Paradise.

In August and September you’ll likely spot monarch butterflies. Much of the Lone Star state is along the migratory pathway of monarch butterflies heading south from Midwest states for warmer weather in Mexico. In fact, the monarch is Texas’ state butterfly.