Greetings All:
With only two weekends left in the month and four surveys to go, I was
starting to get a bit anxious*. The rains that fell throughout the region
across the 11th/12th really made me wonder a bit so I mapped the rains,
decided that two routes (Plains i and Plains II) would be dry enough - if
no more rains fell - to start on Wednesday, one might be dry enough
(Dougherty) to get done on Friday, and the one that had been hit the
hardest (Floydada) might by dry enough to get done on Saturday. I didn't
want to count on having all four weekend dates be workable, so I took three
days of vacation time and dug in - what could be more fun than getting up
at 4:00 in the morning four days in a row, eh?
*As events are continuing, I was right to be nervous - I would not have
been able to get a survey done today due to high winds.
Accordingly, on 14 June 2017, I completed the Plains I BBS - straddling
Yoakum and Cochran Counties. This route starts at a point north of Plain
and runs, generally northward - with a few deviations east or west as
needed - to a point west of Lehman. The first nine points are in Yoakum
County; the last 41 points are in Cochran County. I separate the two
chunks out for eBird but not for these reports. Conditions were lusher
than has been typical during the last few years, a few chunks of road were
a bit sticky (or rutted by farm and oilfield equipment) but doable, and
critters were about what I was coming to expect for a year where rains and
wildflowers had peaked a bit early - short on butterflies and herps; big on
birds and mammals.
All in all, I tallied:
29 Checkered Whites
2 Orange Sulphurs
2 Sleepy Oranges
3 Marine Blues
2 Western Pygmy Blues
14 Reakirt's Blues
3 Variegated Fritillaries
2 Side-blotched Lizards
1 Texas Horned Lizard
45 Northern Bobwhites
27 Scaled Quails
3 Ring-necked Pheasants
10 Rock Pigeons
14 Eurasian Collared Doves
65 Mourning Doves
1 Greater Roadrunner
4 Common Nighthawks
6 Swainson's Hawks
31 Burrowing Owls
1 Ladder-backed Woodpecker
7 American Kestrels
2 Ash-throated Flycatchers
93 Western Kingbirds
5 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers
2 Loggerhead Shrikes
5 Chihuahuan Ravens
11 Horned Larks
3 Cliff Swallows
14 Barn Swallows
1 Bewick's Wren
3 Curve-billed Thrashers
22 Northern Mockingbirds
6 European Starlings
5 House Sparrows
28 Cassin's Sparrows
15 Lark Sparrows
2 Grasshopper Sparrows
7 Blue Grosbeaks
2 Dickcissels
1 Eastern Meadowlark
38 Western Meadowlarks
4 Common Grackles
3 Great-tailed Grackels
1 male Bronzed Cowbird
3 Brown-headed Cowbirds
18 Bullock's Orioles
6 Black-tailed Jackrabbits
15 Desert Cottontails
54 Black-tailed Prairie Dogs
5 Spotted Ground Squirrels
1 Coyote
4 Pronghorns
3 Mule Deers
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock
