[texbirds] An update for this year's game

From: Anthony Hewetson <terrverts@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "leasbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <leasbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:09:21 -0800 (PST)
Greetings All:
As some of you may know, I hold Rich Kostecke as one of my nearest and dearest 
friends.  As he is a fellow birder this has occasionally led to some 
light-hearted competition.  For example we once went county to county for a 
year and I managed to squeak out a decent victory with my Southern High Plains 
County (Lubbock) versus his Hill Country County (Bell, I think it was).  Then, 
last year, we went patch to patch with patches centered on our homes in central 
Lubbock and north Austin.  Once again I managed - somewhat surprisingly - to 
squeak out a nice little victory (two hundred and sixty something to two 
hundred and forty something I believe).  


This year most likely belongs to Rich.  It is region versus region with my 
fifteen contiguous counties (Bailey, Lamb, Hale, Floyd, Motley, Cochran, 
Hockley, Lubbock, Crosby, Dickens, Yoakum, Terry, Lynn, Garza, Kent) weighing 
in at 13,608 square miles versus his fifteen contiguous counties (Bell, 
Williamson, Travis, Falls, Milam, Lee, Burleson, Washington, Fayette, Brazos, 
Austin, Colorado, Madison, Grimes, Waller) weighing in at 12,371 square miles.  
It was a bit harder for Rich to put his counties together - such wriggly 
borders the counties have down that way; must have something to do with all of 
those boundaries determined by water.  I am hoping to tally 300 species of 
birds in my region during the course of 2014.  Rich is easing me into what I 
suspect will be an outright slaughter with an estimated goal of 325 species for 
his region during the course of 2014.  As I have already seen more species in 
his region (during the TOS meeting) than I
 have seen in my region during the first month of the year I appreciate his 
easing me into things.

His advantages: water, a wider variety of habitats, water, a more active 
birding community, water, and - of course - water.  Did I forget to mention 
water?  And that he is wiry!  My advantages - only Joe Pesci could properly 
express my complete and utter lack of advantages and David would have to kick 
me off the listserv if I were to use such language.  Welcome to you are doomed; 
population me:)


Rich will provide me regular updates of his progress and I will fold them in 
with my monthly report regarding my regional efforts.  I suspect that he is 
currently ahead of me by at least fifty species - hopefully he will send me his 
January number sometime during the course of this week and I can get the first 
report out over the coming weekend.


Let the games begin!

Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock

P.S.  I thought of one advantage: Rich is going to spend a lot more time in 
traffic than am I:)
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[texbirds] An update for this year's game

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