Greetings All:
This year's competition finds Rich Kostecke working over 960 square miles
of Fayette County as Anthony Hewetson flails away at 902 square miles of
Crosby County. Both counties have a nice mix of habitats, though
Kostecke's is a bit less agricultural and a bit more wooded and watered.
On the other hand, Hewetson has some nice canyon cuts and, possibly, a
better selection of grasslands. To make things a bit more fair this year
lists are going to be weighted using the cumulative eBird total of ABA
countable for both birds as reported by 31 December 2016. That means that
Rich's efforts will be divided into a total of 264 species for Fayette
County whereas Anthony's efforts will be divided into a total of 290
species for Crosby County. Species we add to the county lists during 2017
will not cause these totals to go up: 264 and 290 remain fixed for purposes
of the contest.
The results for February are in. Rich paid one visit to his county in
February, adding five species (Great-tailed Grackle, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher,
Inca Dove, Forster's Tern, Bonaparte's Gull), bringing his total up to 110
species which - weighted to 264 - puts him at 42%. Anthony paid one and a
half visits to his county in February adding thirteen species (Cedar
Waxwings, Eastern Screech Owl, Carolina Wren, Downy Woodpecker, Winter
Wren, Spotted Sandpiper, Black-crowned Night Heron, Burrowing Owl, Common
Grackle, Eastern Phoebe, Ring-necked Pheasant, Sora, and Lesser
Yellowlegs), bringing his total up to 130 species which - weighted to 290 -
puts him at 45%.
Kostecke was in the lead at the end of January; Hewetson flipped that by
the end of February, March should belong to Kostecke (with a wider variety
of birds moving through the eastern portion of Texas in March than through
the western portion of Texas) but who knows. The real winner, I suppose,
will be eBird:)
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson; Lubbock
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