Greetings All:
The third day of the BBS marathon was under way dark and early (an eighty
minute drive to the first point - so, so early I rose).
This was a risky one as rains had fallen, patchily, throughout Floyd County
recently enough that the dirt roads traversed by the Dougherty BBS route
could easily be thrashed enough for a long enough stretch to make it
necessary to try again. The route runs from a point just south of
Dougherty westward to a point southwest of Floydada - almost crossing the
entire county ... and almost certainly traversing the position of the dry
line during the recent rain events.
I lucked out and was able to run the whole route though I had to stop a
couple of times to fill in ruts left by farm vehicles crossing dirt roads
(I can straddle ruts running along a road but can't jump perpendicular
ditches left by the big tractors) and really had to take care on the washed
out CR 121 as it traverses the White River.
This route had quite a bit of standing water but, due to the timing of
rains this year, not a ton of water-loving critters. It was the first BBS
I ran this year that performed well across taxa, though, and I was happy to
- finally - have some nifty butterflies and herps.
All in all, I tallied:
1 Common Checkered Skipper
2 Nysa Roadside Skippers
1 Pipevine Swallowtail
4 Black Swallowtails
14 Checkered Whites
3 Orange Sulphurs
4 Southern Dogfaces
2 Lyside Sulphurs
1 Sleepy Orange
1 Gray Hairstreak
2 Reakirt's Blues
1 Hackberry Emperor
2 Queens
2 Variegated Fritillaries
2 Pearl Crescents
1 Viceroy
1 Question Mark
1 Painted Lady
2 Great Plains Toads
4 Northern Cricket Frogs
1 Yellow Mud Turtle
2 Checkered Garter Snakes
6 Mallards
5 Blue-winged Teals
2 Northern Shovelers
1 Northern Pintail
3 Green-winged Teals
2 Redheads
20 Northern Bobwhites
1 Ring-necked Pheasant
4 Eurasian Collared Doves
54 Mourning Doves
1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo
2 Greater Roadrunners
2 Common Nighthawks
4 Black-necked Stilts
16 American Avocets
20 Killdeers
1 Great Blue Heron
23 Cattle Egrets
4 Black-crowned Night Herons
2 White-faced Ibises
7 Turkey Vultures
2 Mississippi Kites
10 Swainson's Hawks
9 Burrowing Owls
2 Golden-fronted Woodpeckers
2 Northern Flickers
4 American Kestrels
2 Ash-throated Flycatchers
95 Western Kingbirds
10 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers
84 Horned Larks
18 Purple Martins
9 Barn Swallows
2 American Robins
11 Northern Mockingbirds
15 House Sparrows
1 Lesser Goldfinch
9 Cassin's Sparrows
19 Lark Sparrows
13 Grasshopper Sparrows
1 Northern cardinal
1 Blue Grosbeak
3 Painted Buntings
15 Dickcissels
152 Red-winged Blackbirds
4 Eastern Meadowlarks
48 Western Meadowlarks
3 Yellow-headed Blackbirds
5 Common Grackles
20 Great-tailed Grackles
4 male Bronzed Cowbirds
3 Brown-headed Cowbirds
1 Orchard Oriole
8 Bullock's Orioles
12 Black-tailed Jackrabbits
2 Eastern Cottontails
4 Desert Cottontails
12 Black-tailed Prairie Dogs
1 Merriam's Pocket Mouse
1 Hispid Cotton Rat
1 Striped Skunk
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock
