Greetings All:
This year the competition will feature three competitors and their counties
(Brandon Best with Hill County, Anthony Hewetson with Floyd County, and
Rich Kostecke with Lee County).
Again, we will be weighting our county totals to eBird county totals which,
at the end of 2017, stood at 225 species in Floyd County, 230 species in
Hill County, and 251 species in Lee County. Species added to the counties
during 2018 will not become a part of this weighting.
A change introduced this year - to make things fairer in terms of people's
work schedules - is that we only get two visits (to last no longer than one
day) to our counties per month.
The counties are close to each other in size and varieties of habitat
available with Hill County having the advantage of most permanent water,
Lee County having the advantage of a more southerly location, and Floyd
County having the advantage of a potentially better blend of eastern and
western species.
The results at the end of May: Anthony had a fairly solid lead with 200
species (out of 225) or 88.8889%, Rich was in second place with 202 species
(out of 251) or 80.4781%, and Brandon was in third place with 183 species
(out of 230) or 79.5652%.
June was not particularly inspiring for any of us.
Rich kicked things off with a visit to Lee County on 6/1/18, adding three
species (Northern Bobwhite, Laughing Gull, Prothonotary Warbler), bringing
him up to 205 species (81.6733%).
Anthony headed on out to Floyd County on 6/2/18, adding a whopping one
species (Common Poorwill), bringing his tally up to 201 species (89.3333%)
and then again on 6/3/18, adding one more whopping species (Yellow-breasted
Chat), bring his tally up to 202 species (89.7778%) and finishing his month
off.
Brandon put in his first visit on 6/9/18, picking up three new species
(Mississippi Kite, Bell's Vireo, Northern Bobwhite), bringing his tally up
to 186 species (80.8696%).
Mr. Best headed back out on 6/16/18, snagging one more species for his list
(Black-crowned Night Heron, bringing his Hill County list up to 187 species
for 2018 (81.3043%).
Mr. Kostecke got in his second Lee County visit on 6/17/18, also picking up
one more species (White-tailed Kite), bringing his list up to 206 species
for 2018 (82.0717%).
To sum up: after all was said and done Anthony remained in first place with
202 species in Floyd County (89.7778%), Rich held on to second place with
206 species in Lee County (82.0717%%), and Brandon remained in third place
with 187 species in Hill County (81.3043%).
We are all hoping that things kick up a bit in July ... as June was simply
brutal!
Anthony Hewetson; Lubbock
