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

Posted on 29 de abril de 2023, 05:06 AM by