What Is My Ecoregion?
Find the ecological context beneath an address or landmark, then explore a sourced map of Texas Level III and IV ecoregions.
Try the finder →Field research / public tools / nature storytelling
Making nature easier to notice, understand, and act on.
Research and practical tools connecting people with ecoregions, native plants, seed libraries, climate conditions, and place.
Nature by discipline
Ten lenses for reading a living landscape.
Nature does not stay inside academic boundaries. Projects appear wherever their evidence and questions belong, so one place may reveal climate, soils, plants, birds, insects, and mammals at once.
01
Ecological Regions
Large patterns of land, water, climate, plants, and animals that explain why one Texas landscape differs from another.
Mitchell Lake Audubon Center
A Central Flyway wetland linking ecological regions through migration, water, and habitat.
Explore Mitchell Lake →Canyon Lake Gorge
A 2002 flood opened a 110-million-year rock record and a window into the Trinity Aquifer.
Explore the gorge →Honey Creek State Natural Area
Savanna, spring water, limestone, and riparian woodland form one carefully protected system.
Explore Honey Creek →02
Urban Ecosystems
How wildlife, water, food, public infrastructure, and human communities interact in cities and towns.
San Antonio Missions
Five mission landscapes shaped by river water, acequias, farming, stone, active communities, preservation, and urban change.
Explore the five missions →On a Mission
A six-month walking cohort for wellness startup founders, building toward the full Camino with intentions, mutual support, journals, and a collectible route-map bandana.
Explore the program →Seed Libraries as Climate Infrastructure
Free seeds, shared growing knowledge, and neighborhood resilience through public libraries.
Explore the research →Looking Closely in a Hot City
Species observation and heat-aware routes through a dense historic city.
Open the field guide →Crescent Bend Nature Park
A former neighborhood returned to floodplain habitat along Cibolo Creek.
Explore Crescent Bend →Blue Hole at Headwaters Sanctuary
A visitor guide and sourced timeline for the San Antonio River’s traditional headwaters.
Plan a visit →The 83× View
A practical Nikon P950 guide for documenting wildlife, water, weather, and place across South Central Texas.
Open the photography guide →Mitchell Lake Audubon Center
A former wastewater landscape restored as bird habitat, public refuge, and climate-resilience classroom.
Explore Mitchell Lake →Schertz Pollinator Garden
A compact civic-edge demonstration of native plants, host relationships, and insect habitat.
Explore the garden →Judson Nature Trails
Woodland paths, creek influence, birding, and a Monarch Waystation inside the city.
Explore Judson Trails →Fischer Park
Ponds, greenway trails, pollinator habitat, and nature education in a 62-acre hilltop park.
Explore Fischer Park →03
Geology and Soil
The stone, sediment, landform, and soil systems beneath ecological communities and human decisions.
What Is My Ecoregion?
Ecoregion boundaries connect landform, geology, soils, vegetation, climate, and hydrology.
Explore the map →Seguin AgriLife
A doorway to county-scale, research-based knowledge about soil, gardens, agriculture, and land stewardship.
Explore Seguin AgriLife →Canyon Lake Gorge
Exposed limestone, fossils, faults, fractures, and springs make Hill Country geology legible.
Explore the gorge →Carrizo–Wilcox Springs of Texas
Historic spring landscapes, public-access boundaries, and the one currently verified visitor destination tied to the Carrizo Formation.
Follow the aquifer →Honey Creek State Natural Area
Upland savanna, limestone, groundwater, and a spring-fed creek reveal a connected water system.
Explore Honey Creek →04
Weather and Climate
How heat, rainfall, water demand, and changing conditions shape organisms, fieldwork, and public life.
A Climate Garden Under Pressure
Growing trials document how extreme heat changes planting, germination, and water assumptions.
Open the field notes →Looking Closely in a Hot City
A field route designed around the practical reality that weather changes how people safely experience nature.
Open the field guide →Mitchell Lake Audubon Center
Water management, drought, extreme heat, and habitat restoration meet in a changing urban wetland.
Explore Mitchell Lake →Canyon Lake Gorge
More than 34 inches of rain in one week demonstrates how weather can reorganize a landscape.
Explore the gorge →05
Plants
Seeds, cultivated and wild plants, habitat value, adaptation, and the knowledge communities grow around them.
Garden Health Tracker
Track photos, growth, health, care, pests, treatments, and harvests for 81 individual plants plus one carrot seed batch. Records stay on your device.
Open the tracker →A Fall Garden, Measured
A field-oriented 20 × 20-foot planting grid for 81 plants and one carrot seed strip, with a six-foot herb spiral, mature spacing, hand-watering zones, and harvest tracking.
Open the garden plan →Magnolia Seed Usage
What red magnolia seeds and woody pods can—and cannot yet—support in medicine, beauty, pigment, textiles, and adornment.
Read the evidence →Mission San Juan Capistrano
A historic acequia, living demonstration farm, orchard, and river corridor reconnect food plants with the wider mission landscape.
Explore Mission San Juan →Seed Libraries as Climate Infrastructure
Community access to locally useful seeds and growing knowledge.
Explore the research →A Climate Garden Under Pressure
Heat, water, germination, adaptation, and the useful lessons inside failure.
Open the field notes →The Big Red Barn
Vegetable, herb, flower, and certified butterfly gardens within a working agricultural education site.
Explore the Big Red Barn →Seguin AgriLife
Seed exchange, horticultural education, and research-based local expertise.
Explore Seguin AgriLife →Schertz Pollinator Garden
Host plants, nectar, bloom timing, and heat-aware habitat choices at civic scale.
Explore the garden →Judson Nature Trails
Canopy, understory, creek influence, and a Monarch Waystation inside an urban trail system.
Explore Judson Trails →Fischer Park
A butterfly garden and pond-edge vegetation create approachable plant-learning opportunities.
Explore Fischer Park →Honey Creek State Natural Area
Live oak, Ashe juniper, Spanish moss, bald cypress, and savanna mark changing water conditions.
Explore Honey Creek →06
Ornithology (birds)
Bird life, habitat, migration, observation, and the landscapes that make avian diversity possible.
The 83× View
Settings, field exercises, and ethical long-lens practice for photographing birds without crowding them.
Open the photography guide →Crescent Bend Nature Park
Birding across creek, woodland, grassland, and recovered floodplain habitat.
Explore Crescent Bend →Mitchell Lake Audubon Center
More than 300 bird species use its wetlands, ponds, grasslands, and woody edges through the seasons.
Explore Mitchell Lake →Judson Nature Trails
Quiet natural-surface paths and monthly beginner walks support close urban bird observation.
Explore Judson Trails →Fischer Park
Two fishing ponds and park-edge habitat create an accessible place to watch everyday bird life.
Explore Fischer Park →Honey Creek State Natural Area
Seasonal bird walks connect protected savanna and riparian habitat with guided observation.
Explore Honey Creek →07
Entomology (insects)
Insects as pollinators, food-web participants, seasonal indicators, and neighbors.
NYC Bee Research
AMNH specimens, urban observations, native-plant sources, local networks, and New York identification guides.
Open the NYC hub →Texas Bee Research
South Texas seasonality, repeat field methods, habitat questions, and North American identification tools.
Open the Texas hub →Bee & Wasp Weekbook
A private-by-default weekly checklist with photo notes and a live month-by-month list of locally recorded species.
Open the weekbook →The Big Red Barn
A certified butterfly garden links agricultural education with pollinator habitat and observation.
Explore the Big Red Barn →Schertz Pollinator Garden
A demonstration garden designed to make plant–pollinator relationships visible.
Explore the garden →Judson Nature Trails
A butterfly garden adds migration habitat to a wooded urban trail system.
Explore Judson Trails →Fischer Park
Municipal nature education and pollinator habitat meet inside the city's largest park.
Explore Fischer Park →08
Ichthyology (fish)
Freshwater fish, aquatic habitat, watershed health, and the life beneath local creeks and rivers.
Developing area
No dedicated public field guide yet.
This section is reserved for sourced work centered on fish and aquatic habitat—not a borrowed mention from a project about something else.
09
Herpetology (amphibians & reptiles)
Amphibians and reptiles, their habitats, seasonal activity, conservation, and safe observation.
Developing area
No dedicated public field guide yet.
This section will grow when a project has enough species evidence, habitat context, and trustworthy sources to stand on its own.
10
Mammalogy (mammals)
Mammal behavior, migration, habitat, coexistence, and conservation.
Bracken Cave Preserve
Migration, managed access, protected habitat, and millions of Mexican free-tailed bats.
Explore Bracken Cave →Research cabinet
The Voynich Manuscript
Yale’s high-resolution scan, a confidence-labeled ownership timeline, competing decipherment hypotheses, and links to the researchers testing them.
Open the manuscript guide →Research cabinet
Menstrual Blood in Gardens & Medicine
A source-led history of Roman crop protection, women-linked remedies, later transmission, and the modern fertilizer claim the evidence does not support.
Read the evidence →Working method
Research deeply. Translate clearly. Design for action.
I bring editorial judgment, product thinking, and more than twenty years of communications and program leadership to public-interest nature work.
About Ilana and the practice →