[texbirds] An interesting day on the outskirts of Lubbock

From: Anthony Hewetson <terrverts@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "leasbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <leasbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2013 11:07:51 -0800 (PST)
Greetings All:
One of the ways I have managed to have such a successful patch year has been to 
satisfy a resolution to find 100 species of birds within my patch each month.  
The only month that I figured I would not make it was June - and I squeaked by 
with exactly 100.  The only month I have missed so far was July: shorebirds 
pretty much did not stop in our area and, for the first time since I arrived in 
Lubbock in 1998, my June list (100) topped my July list (90).  


As of now, it looks like December might be another miss.  When I woke up this 
morning I looked at my list for the month and realized that I was stuck, with 
good effort at most of the hotpots, at 83 species.  Aside from Townsend's 
Solitaires, there are no winter irruptives in my patch this year (they all seem 
to be to the east - which bodes well for the White River Lake County but isn't 
helping me a bit in my patch) and songbirds, in general, are truly in short 
supply.  I hastily made a list of the misses for the month and figured that my 
best bet was to score some grassland/brushland species by working the western 
and southern portions of my patch.  I picked a target bird that would mark 
success in general - Prairie Falcon - and set out to work the portions of CR 
1246, CR 1700, Highway 179, CR 309, and CR 7500 that are in my patch.

Three hours of scanning every promising patch along those roads yielded exactly 
0 Prairie Falcons!  Just for giggles, though, I decided to track additions to 
the month list, one by one, to give y'all (I'm from Oregon - hope I spelled 
that correctly) an impression of just how rough it is this year.

CR 1246 gave me 2 Western Meadowlarks (by call - #84)1 Chihuahuan Raven (#85), 
and 2 Horned Larks (woowoo - #86).

CR 1700 gave me 1 Eastern Meadowlark (by call - #87) and, finally, 1 Bewick's 
Wren (#88).

Highway 179 gave me 7 Sandhill Cranes (#89), 2 Brown-headed Cowbirds (#90), 2 
Savannah Sparrows (#91), and 1 American Pipit (#92).

CR 309 gave me 1 Loggerhead Shrike (#93).

CR 7500 gave me 2 Vesper Sparrows (#94).  


At that point I was out of outskirt roads and in need of some caffeine and some 
hot food.

Note that not a single addition is even close to a highlight for the region and 
the pathos of my not finding most of these birds a lot earlier in the month.  I 
hope to spend some time looking for exciting things like Inca Dove, Carolina 
Wren, Cedar Waxwing, Hermit Thrush, Fox Sparrow, and Pine Siskin in the Tech 
Terrace neighborhood at some point this week.  Else-wise, I am hoping for 
chance sightings of Herring Gull, Barn Owl, and Prairie Falcon.  Any irruptive 
(Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Golden-crowned 
Kinglet, any bluebird) would also be welcome:)

Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock

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[texbirds] An interesting day on the outskirts of Lubbock

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