Skip to main content

The Christmas Bird Count 2019

Image
By
The history of the Annual Christmas Bird Count is interesting for how it was a way to shift from annual contests of how many birds could be killed to how many birds can be counted.  So, for many years now, volunteers have been conducting bird counts in late December.  The count is conducted on the same day across broad parts of the country.  The 1600 acres which make up our community has been in the bird counting area for the last three years.  There is some fluctuations of the numbers of birds as well as the numbers of species.
Below is the summary of the data for the last three years:
                                                              2019       2018     2017
Number of Species                                 41            54        42

Number of Individuals                           350        1869      405


The details of the summarized data can be accessed at this link by right clicking and opening in a new window:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SKu9yobtQVYedCHGozUIGx-D5Wo3JEiq/view?usp=sharing
There are a few discernable differences from year to year.
  •   The high number of individuals in 2018 was due almost entirely to the observation of a flock of robins and cedar waxwings.  When these birds come through on their migrations, they come in large numbers, feeding and moving on.  So, its chance that one might encounter them on the day of the count.
  • 2019 was a dry year so there were fewer water based birds.
  • Because of the dry year of 2019, there were more of the broad family of sparrows.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aermotor Windmill Lives

By
The Aermotor windmill is probably the oldest iconic windmill In the United States today. We bought one that was very old at a seller's booth at the Round Top antique market. This was back in the late 1900s. So that makes it 20 years ago or so. We first erected this windmill In Fulshear in the backyard. We had to get Architectural Control Committee approval to do this. Because some of our neighbors may have some bad experiences with a neighboring windmill, we had to assure them that we would not let the brake slide and provide that nasty shrieking noise.  Other than that, there was no objection to looking at a windmill.  W e erected the windmill in Fulshear.  It was quite a chore for us as we had no idea where all the parts fit together and how they were arranged.  For example, we learned that the sail wheel with its struts is built with the same concept as a bicycle wheel with its spokes.  After much head scratching and consulting the internet we had it to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Wimberley Spoofie

By
 Of all the choice restaurants and cafes in the area for lunch, the likes of Dairy Queen, Whataburger, and others, we often choose to have lunch at the Quik Cafe.  Now, the Quik Cafe is no ordinary cafe, because here you can  not only have lunch at a real table, but can also buy all sorts of things that you don't need, but best of all, you can get your car fueled up with Exxon gasoline.  When we have guests in town, we take them to the Quik Cafe; well, maybe not for lunch but certainly for a coke or two.   The Quik Cafe's gasoline pumps are always in full use with cars and trucks filling up because the price is competitive with unbranded gasoline and is always 20 cents less than that of the other major brands in this small town. When we have lunch in the cafe section of the store, we always opt for the chicken tenders.  Often times, we can strike up a chat with some one of the more colorful characters who make Wimberley their home.  One time we ev...
Post a Comment
Read more

Market Forces in the Everyday

By
The world has been busy at the production of "stuff"---too busy in fact. This is taught to us everyday for those of us who are trying to divest ourselves of our "stuff", which has been collected over many years and now has to go---not sure to where, but has to go. Of course, all of this is too good to junk, but not good enough for a high end auction.  In between are the large number of other outlets like donation to charity, yard sale, gifting, etc. But, the question always arises:  What is this thing worth?  The answer is important to most, because if this "thing" is worth a lot, its a candidate for selling.  If not, then its a giveaway or charitable donation. The reality is that most of what is treasured is worth very little, all do to the phenomenon of over production. Like, who needs another cookbook?  As a case in point, we assisted yesterday with the semiannual FOL book sale. On the front door, the first day of the sale we posted the sign:  ALL ...
Post a Comment
Read more