Earth Day at River Legacy/ and CNC, and 2018 Projections

Last Saturday I went to River Legacy to help out with their Earth Day Celebration; I have been helping out with a lot of Earth Month stuff this month. April has been a busy time for me and boy has it been a fun month. On that day which was the 14th I was helping out with hikes. When I arrived there was not much to do but I did a little bit with Privet pull, and I did some other stuff but then it was time to do the hikes, my first hike I was showing the guests some of the insects that were starting to show up, I pointed out the plants I knew and stuff just to keep it interesting. The birds were chirping which made some interesting conversation. The first group I had was an good easy group. They seemed to be into my talk and hike tour. We didn't find that much that was that interesting on the first hike but it was the second hike that was really neat. I was the second in command on that hike. The leader had me kind of in the middle of the group to follow behind aways. On that hike we saw an Ornate Box Turtle. Me and the hike leader stood about arms-width apart or so and we were seeing if the kiddos could see it without us pointing it out. Some of the kids saw it automatically but others were not so sure where he was. It was down in the ground covered by leaves and things. It was a male because his eyes were blood red. He was trying to stay hidden because of the chill from the previous cold front that came in the day before. He was not going to have it with the chill. I took a few photos of it; making it my very first land turtle on my observations life list. I was so happy to have seen one; they are definitely a rarity since they are a Near Threatened species since their has been a lot going on with the accursed Pet Trade and the habitat destruction and all. To see one is hard to do but sometimes you can get lucky and spot one; you just have to know where to look when out on the trail. On the same hike I was able to find another rare one; in fact it is a first on iNaturalist for Tarrant County. We were near the finish line when my insect spotting skills found an strange creature. It was a moth that had really long antenna. They were black at the base and white on the rest. They were the craziest set of antenna I had ever seen on an insect; let a lone a moth. The thing was IDed as an Southern Longhorn Moth. I had never encountered one before but when he would fly it made me thing he was jumping rope like a school kid they were that long. Every time he would move direction they would bobble; giving him that weird skipping rope effect. It was so strange but I have seen stranger stuff in my life as an iNaturalist. I have 2438 observations on my page so far I have dozens of strange creatures. Not all are weird but some do fall under the odd category. I have to say that day was good and I was able to get a few new things to my ever growing life list.

I wonder what my next adventure will have in-store for me. I do have that CNC coming up and I am going to try and beat last years record of 266 observations. I am going to try and get 300+. For the whole year my goal is to try and get about 3000+ observations. I don't want to say 4000 because I can only do so much in a year and it took me a long time to get to 2000 but I have a good pace this year that by the end of the year I could have as much as 3300 or more but that is just a rough estimate and may not hold true by the winter. I have to keep strong and shoot for those big numbers that I like to get. 20s are okay but one a real good day I can get well into the 30s. I need to shoot for the 90s range but that is on a day when I go out to multiple places and get all the goods that day has to offer which is something I have only achieved once and it was a staggering 97 in total made on the first day of last year's CNC. I have to try and beat every record from that week. I am hoping there will be no rain so that way I can get the best numbers as i can. Last year during the CNC we had a day of rain in the DFW Metroplex and it brought me down to finding only 15 observations which was not what I wanted to make. Better than none but still not in the amounts I was getting. I was still on the top of my game afterwards but still that day of rain hurt my scores badly. I did manage a small rebound but this year I am going to work harder than ever to bring the heat and to try and help as much as I can bring the DFW area to victory. I need to find some new first timers those seem to always shake things up. I found a few firsts for iNaturalist last year but this year I need to try and find as many unusual animals that don't really come around here or just haven't been seen in the area. I am so ready to meet this challenge head on. I am looking forward to winning this again if we don't win first place for the globe we have a chance of winning solid for the US since the DFW is in a good mixed zone where we can get all kinds of interesting creatures and good cross sections. I am ready to take my stand and to get all of the best observations that I can. Hope my camera can take the heat. It is showin signs that it won't be long to get a new one. I am hoping that it will last this bioblitz and then maybe I can squeak out some more money to have it repaired or by a new one. I will have to think about it but hopefully my trusty Nikon Coolpix can take the heat from one more BioBlitz. That camera and I have been through thick and thin together. We have made countless observations and have seen some incredible creatures and have been on countless adventures since the year of 2015. I love that camera but it is beginning to show its age. The problem I am mainly having it the top telewide button is becoming sticky and will sometimes lock up on me. I have a second one of the outer side of the camera lens so and it still pretty much works but I still am worried that it will be harder to get stuff if I keep having button issues but I should be fine for the most part. Well I got to get some rest I didn't realize it was so late. This is Zachary Chapman AKA Galactic_Bug_Man signing off at 2:23 AM.

Julkaistu huhtikuu 20, 2018 07:23 AP. käyttäjältä galactic_bug_man galactic_bug_man

Havainnot

Kuvat / Äänet

Havainnoija

galactic_bug_man

Päivämäärä

Huhtikuu 2018

Paikka

Texas, US (Google, OSM)

Kuvaus

This was a real treat to see on Saturday when I was at the River Legacy Earth Day celebration. I was with Anne Alderfer leading hikes and we came a cross this guy trying to escape the cold. It was a bit nippy and this red-eyed male was not having any cold air come in to his mobile home. This is my first Terrestrial Turtle I have ever documented so far. Sure is a cool one to see. I have never seen a Box Turtle outside an enclosure before.

Kuvat / Äänet

Havainnoija

galactic_bug_man

Päivämäärä

Huhtikuu 14, 2018 12:52 CDT

Kuvaus

Here you are @sambiology the one I was talking about at the last Master Naturalist meeting. This thing had the most unusual antenna. It was as I said moth like but this thing had Antenna unlike any moth I have ever encountered. They were black at base, stripey at one point, and then they went to solid white. This guy was super active when I was conducting my part of the hike during the Earth Day Celebration at River Legacy. When this guy would fly it looked like he was skipping rope to me. Such a strange and odd little insect.

Kommentit

Sounds like a great season for you so far!

Lähettänyt troutlily57 melkein 6 vuotta sitten

Indeed my friend. It has been a great start to 2018. I have made quite a few lifers this year.

Lähettänyt galactic_bug_man melkein 6 vuotta sitten

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