Greetings All:
In compliance with Drew Harvey's request that I focus on a county lacking
herp records, I am going to be working Lynn County (the county just to the
south of Lubbock County) for critters and photographs of critters in 2017.
Lynn County is somewhat similar to Hockley County - lots of cropland,
almost no public land - but is different in one critical regard: there is
no publicly accessible permanent water. This doesn't mean that Lynn County
is dry, necessarily, but it does mean that my success with water-loving
species, from spadefoots to sandpipers, is going to be very dependent on
seasonal rainfall.
Stated numerical goals are, because of this, borderline hallucinatory.
That said, I will stick with goals of 50 species of butterfly, 5 species of
amphibian, 10 species of reptile, 200 species of bird, and 10 species of
mammal seen in Lynn County during 2017. As in 2016, I will also have the
goal of photographing at least 90% of the species seen.
I was a bit busy during the two middle weekends of March but I did get in
visits to Lynn County during the first and last weekends of the month, with
one visit focused on Tahoka Lake Pasture and the other more wide-ranging.
With a stunningly and consistently early (no weird late freezes) start to
spring, I did a lot better on some groups than would be expected this early
in the year, picking up 24 species of butterfly, 1 species of amphibian, 1
species of reptile, 86 species of bird, and 4 species of mammal, bringing
me up to 24 species of butterfly, 1 species of amphibian, 1 species of
reptile, 107 species of bird, and 6 species of mammal - moving the
respective percentages up to 48%, 20%, 10%, 54%, and 60%. Of the 139
species seen so far, I acquired identifiable photographs of 128 - making
for a 92% success rate. We should - soon - see an onslaught of herptilian
activity and success with birds will soon come down to my ability to get
acceptable photographs of skittish migrants in dense foliage - yay!
And on with the list (* = new to the list, y = photographed)
Juvenal's Duskywings*(y)
Funereal Duskywings*(y)
Common Checkered Skipper*(y)
Common Sootywings*(y)
Sachem*(y)
Black Swallowtail*(y)
Checkered White
Orange Sulphur
Southern Dogface
Lyside Sulphu*(y)
Sleepy Orange
Dainty Sulphur
Gray Hairstreak*(y)
Western Pygmy Blue*(y)
Reakirt's Bule*(y)
American Snout*(y)
Variegated Fritillary*(y)
Vesta Crescent*(y)
Phaon Crescent*(y)
Painted Crescent*(y)
Gorgone Checkerspot*(y)
Mourning Cloak*(y)
Red Admiral*
Goatweed Leafwing*(y)
Plains Leopard Frog*(y)
Red-eared Slider
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal*(y)
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Ruddy Duck
Scaled Quail*(y)
Wild Turkey
Pied-billed Grebe
Eared Grebe
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Greater Roadrunner
Virginia Rail*
Sora*
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
American Avocet
Snowy Plover
Killdeer
Least Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper*(y)
Semipalmated Sandpiper*(y)
Wilson's Snipe*(y)
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs*(y)
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret*(y)
Black-crowned Night Heron
White-faced Ibis*(y)
Turkey Vulture*(y)
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk
Great Horned Owl
Burrowing Owl
Belted Kingfisher
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
American Kestrel
Merlin
Say's Phoebe
Loggerhead Shrike
Blue Jay
American Crow
Chihuahuan Raven
Horned Lark
Barn Swallow*
Marsh Wren
Bewick's Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
American Robin
Curve-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
House Sparrow
American Pipit
House Finch
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Spotted Towhee*(y)
Field Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Pyrrhuloxia
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Western Meadowlark
Brewer's Blackbird
Great-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Eastern Cottontail
Black-tailed Prairie Dog
Coyote
White-tailed Deer
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock
