2019--Out with the Old

Wow, it has been more than four months since I posted here.  We have been doing pretty routine things, so it did not seem appropriate to post about them.  However, things are picking up.  Before any posts on plans for the new year/decade, I thought I would include something about the past year.

Volunteering at LLELA.  Much of our time in 2019 has revolved around LLELA.  We continued to volunteer in the Visitor's Center once a month.  This year we also did turtle maintenance (cleaned water containers, added water and food) once a week during the spring, summer and fall, for the 24 juvenile turtles being raised in pens. This is part of the Box Turtle Recovery Project.  See here for an update on the turtle project.

iNaturalist.  However, by far our biggest involvement with LLELA was walking the trails and taking pictures of the fauna (and sometimes flora) we observed.

The Frog taking a picture of an armadillo on February 13, 2019

The Frog stalking a great blue heron (just above the water to the left of his left elbow) on an early morning walk on November 10, 2019--Redbud Trail next to the Trinity River at LLELA. 

We then posted the observations on iNaturalist. Click here for our 2019 iNaturalist stats.  It has cool graphics even if you don't care about the results.  Clicking on many of the graphs, including the circle presentations, brings up further data.

https://www.inaturalist.org/stats/2019/alchemist2000

As you can see, we had 2023 observations of 472 different species in 2019.  Most of those observations were at LLELA, although some were part of our spring trip to High Island.  You can easily see, when looking at the observations vs time, when I was having serious health problems in August, i.e. no observations.  But things have picked up again.

My favorite pics are usually the butterflies or dragonflies, but some of the most memorable observations this year would probably be the beavers on their lodge on October 23

Beaver on the beaver lodge from the boardwalk on the Bittern Marsh Trail, October 23, 2019

 
or the many deer this fall, including a mature buck and multiple does in one group on November 19.

Deer on the Redbud Trail, November 19, 2019

If you scan down the page on the iNaturalist stats link above, you can see our pictures for the most commented or most faved of our observations.  Two of my favorites among those are the kestrel, which we saw repeatedly last spring, and one of the many osprey over the river, this time with a fish.

Female American kestrel (otherwise known as N/N due to the id on her leg band) hovering over the dam on February 13, 2019.  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20328949

Osprey with fish on October 23, 2019. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/34874638

An easier way to look at our observations for 2019 is from the iNaturalist calendar for us for the year:  https://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/alchemist2000?year=2019

LLELA happenings for 2020.  What do we expect in 2020 relative to LLELA?  We will continue volunteering as needed, but our biggest involvement will likely continue to be walking the trails.  Part of LLELA will be closed in 2020 due to repairs to Lewisville Dam, but we still anticipate spending lots of time there.  AND...the new bird blind (with water drip, etc.) is to open this spring.  Hopefully this will provide many opportunities for photographing some of the smaller birds that are often hard to see.