Greetings All:
In hopes that we couldn't possibly have two miserably dry, birdless,
and butterflyless years in a row and in hopes of a) getting that
danged painting done and b) getting more of my historical data entered
into eBird I decided to repeat my attempt to document 40 butterfly, 0
amphibian, 2 reptile, 80 bird, and 4 mammal species - with 90% of the
species seen/heard photographed as well.
At the end of March, Lubbock was still far below average in terms of
rain to date but my yard had gone nuts with eight species of
wildlfower and two species of cultivar well in bloom and my hopes were
building. All of these flowers did not seem to do much though and,
whereas in a normal year I would be up to fifteen species of butterfly
this year has, thus far, kicked out only five! One can only hope all
of the bloomery will pay off in April.
During March I did manage to locate 5 species of butterfly, 0 species
of amphibian, 0 species of reptile, 22 species of bird, and 1 species
of mammal, getting up to 5 species of butterfly, 0 species of
amphibian, 0 species of reptile, 23 species of bird, and 1 species of
mammal for the year, hitting 12.5%, 0%, 0%, 28.75%, and 25% of my
annual goals in a positively stunning third month, well below where I
expected to be. Of the 28 species seen in the yard this year, I have
photographed 22, putting me at 78.5714% in terms of my photographic
goal.
The list follows coded as *=new, (y) = photographed
Cabbage White*(y)
Southern Dogface*
Sleepy Orange*
Phaon Crescent*(y)
Red Admiral*
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose
Eurasian Collared Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Black-chinned Hummingbird*
Ring-billed Gull (y)
Double-crested Cormorant (y)
Sharp-shinned Hawk (y)
Red-tailed Hawk
Blue Jay
American Robin (y)
Curve-billed Thrasher*(y)
Northern Mockingbird (y)
European Starling
House Sparrow
House Finch
Vesper Sparrow*(y)
Lincoln's Sparrow*(y)
White-crowned Sparrow*
Dark-eyed Junco*(y)
Great-tailed Grackle
Eastern Gray Squirrel
Anthony Hewetson; Lubbock