Say “snake” and “West Texas” – and the mind buzzes with the image of a certain venomous character. But rattlers are hardly the full picture. Our region's truly distinctive snakes are less fearsome, but more striking.

The gray-banded kingsnake is one of them. Ringed in bands of lustrous orange, it combines beauty with mystery. Sightings are rare.

In the 1970s, a Sul Ross State University student turned his attention to this secretive animal. Dennie Miller went on to have a varied career – including a quarter century as director of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute. But in his early work, he laid the foundation for understanding a unique West Texas creature.

In the ...

It's dawn in late January, near Marfa, and the grasslands on Mimms Ranch are radiant, swaying like a thick, golden mane in the sporadic breeze.

Across the plateau treks a 20-person team – scientists, birders, volunteers.

A pair holding radio antennas leads the way. Soon, they locate a signal. Technicians swiftly raise a net – and the rest of the group moves into formation, creating a semicircle.

Quietly, they advance, closing in on the signal's unseen source.

Suddenly, it rises, in a flurry: a tiny grassland sparrow. The bird darts skyward – and then flies just outside the net.

It's a narrow miss. But as the morning continues, this team – led by Alpine's Borderland...

Nineteenth and early 20th century naturalists found them “fantastic,” “curious,” “bizarre.” The male's face is marked by swirls of black and white – and with their wild patterning, they were called “harlequin quail,” “fool quail,” “crazy quail.” They were recognized as distinctive to arid North America – found from Mexico to the Trans-Pecos, southern Arizona to the Edwards Plateau.

Montezuma quail are one of the region's most charismatic birds. They're also one of its most mysterious. Despite their striking plumage, they can vanish into grassy slopes and mountainsides. Little is known of their ecology and behavior.

Scientists at Alpine's Borderlands Research...

Daunting in its vistas, its haggard peaks, Far West Texas strikes some as barren, unwelcoming – certainly no place to linger. Others, however, are entranced by that very starkness. But even for those seized by the beauty of the Trans-Pecos, explaining it, communicating it to others, can be a challenge.

Mary Baxter has been painting in Far West Texas for more than two decades. When it comes to capturing the elusive essence of the arid desert-mountain country, she has few peers. Her impressionistic paintings transmit the landscape's haunting allure, its intoxicating loneliness.

Far West Texans not native to the place often recall when they first felt its magic. Baxter was born in L...

They sail in on wingspans of 7 feet, arriving in groups of three and four. The massive birds stake out their roosts for the night, and they jostle, cry and call.

As the sun sets, the assembly swells into the thousands. The birds' wild, rolling cries fill the sky. Visitors look on from just a few yards away.

It's like something out of an African safari. But this scene – one of the planet's great natural spectacles – is in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, on the Rio Grande near Socorro, New Mexico, was created as a sanctuary for migrating waterfowl. Each winter, it's home to as many as 15,000 greater sandhill cranes, tens of thousands of geese and...

“Oh, how I wish I had the power to describe the wonderful country as I saw it then!”

So wrote Texas Ranger James Gillett. He kept the peace in 1880s El Paso, ranched near Alpine. “For one who loved nature and God's own creation,” he wrote, “all of western Texas... was a paradise on earth.”

No part of that “wonderful country” has changed as dramatically as El Paso. From a valley of farms and Spanish missions, its metropolitan area now has a million people.

But undeveloped mountains, thorny arroyos and agricultural rhythms remain. The Frontera Land Alliance, an El Paso nonprofit, is working to preserve those pockets of open space.

On El Paso's west side, the Wakeem/...

The rains have ended. The weather is bracing. On prairies and grasslands, green gives way to gold. Winter is coming to West Texas, and nature herself seems to quiet and still.

But even as arid months begin, a wave of commanding predators arrives in our region. They are the birds of prey. If you thrill to the sight of a hawk, eagle or falcon above the West Texas landscape, winter is your time.

Kelly Bryan is an ornithologist, and former Davis Mountains State Park superintendent.

“We have a pretty decent contingent of breeding raptors in West Texas,” Bryan said, “but it's always enhanced every year by hawks and falcons from the north migrating to the Trans-Pecos region of Texas ...

A century ago, archeologists believed human beings had occupied the Americas for just 3,000 years. Then, a series of discoveries on the plains of West Texas and eastern New Mexico transformed that view.

In 1932, archeologists excavated the remains of a mammoth in Blackwater Draw, near Portales, New Mexico. Among the bones, they found a spearpoint. It was proof that humans had lived in North America as far as back as the Ice Age – and had shared the continent with a stunning array of now-vanished mammals.

At Blackwater Draw National Landmark, and Blackwater Draw Museum at Eastern New Mexico University, visitors glimpse the Paleolithic past.

In 1875, Quanah Parker and his Comanches ...

West Texas boasts among the greatest diversity of hummingbirds of any region in the country. Each year in late summer, birders convene in Fort Davis for the Davis Mountains Hummingbird Celebration, as thousands of hummingbirds pass through on great migrations.

But in West Texas, hummingbirds aren't just a summer phenomenon. Some of these charismatic, high-energy creatures winter here – and their numbers are growing.

For those who hang hummingbird feeders – and for other nature lovers – it's a fact to be mindful of.

Hummingbirds are remarkable creatures. Peerless in their maneuverability, they're also peerless in their metabolism – their hearts beat a thousand times a minute....

They form a sophisticated society, with intricate communication. Prairie dogs are remarkable for their intelligence and sociability. And they're a “keystone species” – a foundation of biodiversity – on the West Texas plains.

They nearly disappeared. Our region was once home to half a billion prairie dogs. Less than 2 percent remain.

For one West Texan, conserving these iconic animals is a profession. She's known as “the prairie dog lady.” During 35 years, Lynda Watson has rescued and relocated 110,000 prairie dogs.

What does it mean for an animal to be a “keystone species”? To understand, visit a prairie dog town.

“Have you ever got to see a really big prairie d...