Day One is Over!

By the time I got up and rolling this morning, several observers had already uploaded observations into the project. That's super. By the time I write this, almost midnight, we already have 673 observations of 375 species by 32 observers! The breakdown is:

Plants: 398 observations of 197 species
Fungi 24 of 11
Arachnids 12 of 10
Insects 142 of 88
Amphibians 2 of 1
Reptiles 7 of 7
Birds 67 of 49
Mammals 3 of 3 (sorry, Mark, I just couldn't accept the cats at A&M)
Mollusks 7 of 6
Other Animals 10 of 3 (pillbugs, springtails)

We had representation in all six counties:

Brazos 428 observations of 282 species by 25 observers
Burleson 75 of 46 by 1
Grimes 2 of 2 by 1
Leon 12 of 12 by 3
Madison 79 of 70 by 3
Robertson 67 of 66 by 1

I started making a list of all the species, but didn't get close to finishing, so, the most commonly observed plants were Indian Blanket, Common Hedge Parsley, and Yaupon Holly, each with 6 observations. The most commonly observed birds were Carolina wren, northern cardinal, and cerulean warbler(!), each with 3 observations. The most commonly observed insect was salt marsh moth, with 6 observations, all of the larva.

My favorite plant was northern bugleweed, Lycopus uniflorus, with 2 observations by shardintx. It's not a particularly showy plant, but I'd never heard of it, and the name is kind of catchy. My favorite bird was a tough one. There were some fantastic birds today, but how can you not give Bird of the Day to cerulean warbler?! Favorite insect was also a tough one. The beetle Pachybrachis stygicus has both charisma and the name going for it. The name might be beaten, though by Hackberry Nipplegall Psyllid. (Sounds painful!) A giant walkingstick also had to be a thrill to find.

I tried to knock off some of last year's worst misses, bird-wise, but failed on every count. I've had chimney swifts in the cul-de-sac every day for the past couple weeks, but this morning? Silence. Never found a rock pigeon. I did see a purple martin, but couldn't get it in the camera, and it didn't call. The only cormorant was a fly-by as I was driving. Oh, well, you win some, you lose some, and some get rained out. REALLY rained out!

Bruce Neville
Brazos Valley CBC Coordinator

Julkaistu huhtikuu 29, 2023 05:06 AP. käyttäjältä