[texbirds] My first TCC county - longish
- From: Anthony Hewetson <terrverts@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 10:34:28 -0700 (PDT)
Greetings All:
I was just wading through a bunch of my Texas Century Club data - I have made
it to 196 counties with 100 or more birds species - I believe that leaves me 58
short, should I live long enough, of the gold ring.
As I was wading through the data I thought it might be fun to figure out the
order in which I added counties to my TCC list and this wee bit of data
trolling led to some interesting discoveries.
A bit of prologue first, though. When I moved to Texas I had already been
county birding for many years. Oregon had, long ago, had a county hundreds
competition and, with only 36 counties, it did not take long for many of
Oregon's more active birders to meet the challenge. I wouldn't be at all
surprised to discover that a few of Oregon's most active birders got it done
within a year. Consequently, I have county lists for every state I have ever
birded in and I started county listing in Texas with my first pass in 1997 and,
with serious intent, as soon as I arrived as a resident in May of 1998.
Before I got into the data I guessed that my first county would, obviously, be
Lubbock County and that I probably actually nailed it down at some point in
1998. In fact, I figured that the majority of my first ten counties would be
from the fifteen county region of Texas I currently call home. Much to my
amazement, I discovered that I actually ticked my first Texas County in 1997,
it was not Lubbock County, and it was not one of the bird-rich counties along
the Gulf Coast! I also discovered, much to my surprise, that only two of my
first ten TCC counties were in my region - and that I didn't add the last
county in my region to my TCC list until 2006. I guess I didn't do as much
local birding, during the first few years in Texas, as I thought:)
My first Texas TCC county would probably surprise most of you. Given that it
took me completely by surprise, I would even be willing to hazard that most
texbirders wouldn't even guess the region correctly.
Howard County - 111 species in a single day - April of 1997.
That's right - HOWARD COUNTY - in desolate west central Texas - in a single day!
How the heck did that come to pass?
Those who want to know, keep reading. Those who are already bored, I won't be
offended if you hit the delete key.
Before I moved to Texas I spent a few months working as a field biologist in
Alabama. As I was a low-income field biologist living in the Pacific
Northwest, this involved a longish drive (in a close to thrashed 1986 Honda
Civic) from Corvallis, Oregon, to Auburn, Alabama, during the spring of 1997.
Naturally, with my brother (Martin Campbell) living in Lubbock at the time this
gave me a perfect opportunity to get in a little Texas birding along the way.
Martin, being an outstanding brother, asked me if there were any species I was
just dying to see and I picked Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Scissor-tailed
Flycatcher, and Painted Bunting. He said that he would do what he could but
that a) Lubbock itself didn't have tons of Golden-fronted Woodpeckers and that
b) I was probably coming through Texas a bit too early for the other two. He
did his best to let me down gently - before I even left Oregon.
I got to Lubbock very early in April and spent several days birding, on foot,
in Lubbock and, with Martin, a few of the local hotspots such as Buffalo
Springs Lake and Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge but had no luck on the three
'target' species. I enjoyed Lubbock (really - I did) but Martin could tell
that I was a bit, well, sad and came up with the solution.
One morning he said something along the lines of "I can get you all three
species but we will have to drive south a little bit.' I inquired as to how
far a 'little bit' was and he said something along the lines of 'Probably no
more than a couple of hundred miles.' This was my first experience with
Texas-sized distances - Oregon is something along the lines of 250 miles by 350
miles and a couple of hundred miles is a biggish trip. Nowadays, of course, I
think nothing of leaving Lubbock at 10:00 PM to get to Salineno before first
light the next morning but back then a couple of hundred miles to see three
relatively common species seemed, well, a bit much.
Martin, however, is nothing if not determined and before I knew it we had
talked ourselves into a camping trip! We left Lubbock sometime on the
afternoon of 5 April 1997 with the goal of camping at Moss Creek Lake (a mere
120 miles away) that night and finding the three target species the next
morning. We got to camp fairly early for us (around 11:00 PM), settled in,
and, beverages in hand and a toasty fire at our feet, spent a couple of hours
chatting and listening to birds. Thus our big day started at midnight and we
added Common Poorwill, Great Horned Owl, and Eastern Screech Owl before we fell
asleep.
We got all three of my target species in the campground while packing the
camping supplies the next morning! Martin figured Golden-fronted Woodpecker
and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher would be a cinch but was very happy that we
stumbled across a Painted Bunting so early in the season. I was about as happy
as poor, farm boy from Oregon could be and we hadn't even had breakfast yet:)
It may be that, at that point, Martin's subconscious kicked in and he started
thinking along the lines of 'how can I blow Anthony's mind?' or he might have
just decided it would be fun to really get to know Howard County. Martin's
mind is pretty mysterious and I have learned to roll with the whatever winds
might be wafting through his cranium.
I'm not going to bore folk with a complete list of everything we saw but we
birded Howard County for about thirteen hours (midnight to 1:00 AM, 6:00 AM to
6:00 PM) and we hit every habitat Martin could think of: a hike at Moss Creek
Lake, a hike at Big Spring State Park, a hike at Comanche Trail Park, a drive
around the fields and brushlands surrounding the Big Spring Airfield, and,
finally, a drive through the grasslands and brushlands along Highway 84 and FM
1584 from Big Spring to the Howard/Borden County line.
I dutifully transcribed the field notes the next day, typed them up a few
months later, entered them into my TCC spreadsheet over a decade further on,
but didn't realize, until yesterday, that Martin and I had racked up what might
well qualify for a big day in Howard County. Thanks to Martin we managed to
find lots of water (waterfowl, waders, shorebirds, and a surprising array of
swallows), lots of grasslands (sparrows and raptors, oh my), brushlands (here
dickey bird, here dickey bird), woodlands (to all the songbirds we'd missed
before), and, of course, the much needed city specialties (we may not much like
Rock Pigeons, European Starlings, and House Sparrows but that's three good
birds for a big day list). At the end of the day, 6 April 1997 had kicked out
111 species of bird within the probably not-too-frequently birded Howard County.
One hundred and eleven species in a single day in a not-particularly species
rich county (by Texas standards) and we didn't even realize how well we had
done. Even more interesting, looking at the day's list doesn't kick up
anything all that amazing - just another Texas County that can be added to
one's TCC list in a single day of solid, spring birding.
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock
P.S. I may share a few other musings from my TCC pursuit over the years. This
was pretty typical of the musings I will have to share. If you want to read
them, feel free to do so and let me know how I might make them more interesting
for texbirders. If you find them boring beyond endurance, I won't even know
that you hit the delete key:)
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