gcwarbler's Journal

I don’t know what was “mini” about it!

Making the observations and hanging out with all our iNat friends is the exquisite fun of a bioblitz. Now comes the hard part: the uploads and identifications and corrections and discussions and cussin’. It’s fun in it’s own way—what a tremendous learning experience even well after the field effort—but we all know it can be an intellectual, mental, and physical challenge. (I got in better shape by hiking around in the Big Thicket—despite @sambiology force-feeding me hotdogs; now I’m spending my time sitting at a computer for hours, (voluntarily) eating junk food and getting no exercise.)

So what is your routine like at this stage of a bioblitz? Here’s where I find myself: I sit in my home office surrounded by hundreds of books, with literally 20+ of the most relevant ones piled right at my elbow(s) for ready access. My desk is groaning from the weight of knowledge in print form. This includes, of course, such volumes as the Manual of Vascular Plants of Texas, the Flora of North Central Texas, the Flora of East Texas Vol. 1, Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Texas, wildflower guides, fern guides, butterfly guides, herp guides, grasshopper guides, along with other guides and checklists to just about everything under the sun.

Then there’s my computer desktop on which I keep open my own array of images (on iPhoto), documents such as Stuart Marcus’s moth list for Trinity River NWR, and a browser with at a minimum 8 or 10 tabs open simultaneously: (1) My Observations on iNat, (2) iNat Upload page, (3) Moth Photographer’s Group, (4) BugGuide, (5) Lepidopterist’s Seasonal Summary Query Page, (6) Barcode of Life Database (BOLD), (7) BONAP county maps, (8) Integrated Taxonomic Info System (ITIS), (9) USDA PLANTS Database, (10) Google Images (usually a couple of tabs for different things), Then there’s other online refs to open (e.g., pdf’s of obscure original literature, checklists of whatever, etc.). It’s information overload to revel in.

In the meantime, I’m burning my blacklights and MV bulb outside to see what else I can document on my own backporch.

Ain’t life as an iNaturalist grand!

Are you ready for some more West Texas botanizing?

I’ve finally finished uploading all the “critter” images from my West Texas trip of June 1-15 and have now begun to organize and upload my thousands of plant images. The first batch of about 15 or 20 species is from a quick stop at a Rest Area along US 190 near the Pecos River east of Iraan, TX (Crockett Co.). Very quickly, the uploads will turn to my images from TNC’s Davis Mountains Preserve where I spent three full days and parts of two others birding, botanizing, and generally iNatting in the higher mountains at 6000 to 8300+ ft of elevation (June 1-5). We then relocated to a private ranch in the north part of the Davis Mountains at somewhat lower elevation where the bioblitzing continued (including another several hundred plant images, June 5-8). On June 8, after departing the Davis Mountains, I made a full circuit around Balmorhea Lake, taking the opportunity to photograph some of the plants of the wetlands and saline flats surrounding that waterbody. A final chapter in this Trans-Pecos trip will be a set of uploads from the Fort Stockton area (Pecos Co., June 9-16) while I suffered through a week-long “hotel arrest” waiting for truck repairs so that I could finally head home.

I’m hoping some of my botanically-inclined iNat friends and followers can help confirm a lot of these plant images. Some will be easier than others. The Davis Mountains has a very interesting botanical array with many endemics and lots of species found only in the “sky islands” of the Trans-Pecos within Texas.

I'll supplement this Journal entry with some of the more interesting images as they get uploaded.

Have fun with these!

At about 5:15 p.m. on the evening of March 4, I located a Hermit Thrush in the underbrush along the Leon River in Hamilton County, Texas.
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2750685
By my calculation at the time, it represented the 100th species on my Hamilton County bird list, and that county was my 100th county in which I'd accomplished that task, thus qualifying me for the symbolic "Texas Century Club", sponsored by the Texas Ornithological Society (TOS).

The Texas Century Club

The Texas Century Club is an effort, dreamed up I believe by TOS member David Sarkozi, to challenge birders to widen their birdwatching focus beyond just their own home turf and the well-known birding destinations such as state and national parks, wildlife refuges, etc. This arose at about the same time that the eBird database of Cornell University was really taking off as a repository for bird sightings and checklists.
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
http://ebird.org/content/tx/
It wasn’t surprising that vast areas of Texas have been underbirded, being skipped over by birders traveling to far-flung, high visibility destinations. Consider this: From any one of the major population centers in Texas (where birder’s residences are also concentrated), how many different counties would a birder pass through on their way to get to Big Bend National Park, Palo Duro State Park, High Island, or the Lower Rio Grande Valley? More revealing, how many counties would they miss and never traverse? Any examination of the data being accumulated on eBird showed huge gaps in our detailed knowledge of bird distribution and seasonality over vast swaths of the Texas landscape.

To fill in those gaps, birders were challenged to spend enough time and effort in underbirded counties and habitats to see if they could accumulate a personal bird list of at least 100 species in a given county and to upload the results into eBird. This is theoretically an achievable goal in virtually any and every Texas county—easy in any coastal county and those with diverse habitats such as Big Bend (Brewster County) but tougher as one goes inland and into drier and more uniform regions (e.g. parts of the Texas High Plains).

And we were challenged to see if we could accomplish this task in at least 100 of Texas’s 254 counties.

Listing and Listers: A Sport or a Clinical Diagnosis?

At this point it seems useful to insert a sidebar about the diversity of birders. There are as many ways to enjoy birds and birdwatching as their are nature enthusiasts out there. Every one of those ways is perfectly fine because the enjoyment of birds arises from within us. We may notice colorful birds passively as we work in the back yard or during some other diversion such as hunting or fishing. Or, at the other end of the birding spectrum, we may chase all over the place with the particular goal of seeing more birds (in a county, a state, a country, or the whole world).

And now for some armchair psychology. There is the innate need in all of us to put a name to a thing. Naming and classifying objects in our world gives us a set of handles by which we can retrieve information and memories about all these “things” we have encountered.

Separate from naming things, humans to varying degrees are collectors. Of necessity we accumulate food, clothing, and shelter. Optionally, we accumulate goods, property, wealth, baseball cards, knickknacks, memorabilia.

And finally, we all have an innate drive to accomplish, to meet goals, to achieve.

Applying all this to birding, i.e., naming, collecting, and achieving, leads to bird lists. Very naturally, bird listing will express itself to the degree that one is motivated by each of those three separate, underlying human characters I’ve just mentioned. You may seek your own place and balance on this scale of effort and also find a balance of your own energy that you might expend on this tiny subset of life’s diversions vis-a-vis everything else you have to do in the modern world.

I, Lister

As for me, on the aforementioned scale of listing, I have to plead that I’m a 10-10-10…or maybe some of those closest to me would say I occasionally dial it “up to eleven”. I am obsessed with naming things. I am an accumulator—some would say pack rat. And I set myself goals, especially now in retirement, if for no other reason than to stave off boredom. The result when applied to my birding efforts is that I jumped on the Texas Century Club wagon with gusto.

The recent excursion of several of us to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas offered a particularly good example of how we citizen scientists (even though I’m a retired professional) can push the boundaries of knowledge on many faunal groups. Since we were palling around with a cadre of distinguished authorities like Ro Wauer and Jim Brock, the predominant focus of the group naturally was on butterflies, but as iNatters, we were documenting just about anything and everything that came into focus*. I am grateful to all of the following and others for their companionship and enthusiasm on this field trip: @kueda, @robberfly, @maractwin, @greglasley, @krancmm, @upupamartin, @mksexton, @cullen, and particularly Jim & Lynne Weber for prompting all of us to come along.

Given my particular interests, I turned my attention to moths whenever the opportunity arose. This was particularly the case for the “blacklighting” efforts (actually with a mercury vapor lamp) at a residential location where several of the group were staying, and at one particular wall at the HQ of Santa Ana NWR. I knew that the LRGV moth fauna would include any number of species which would be new to me and that some number of them would be “Valley specialties” but the outcome exceeded my expectations. It’s not that the moth fauna of the LRGV is unknown to the lepidopterist world; quite the contrary. Through the efforts of early collectors and in recent decades that of Ed Knudson, Charles Bordelon, and others, we have a pretty good idea of the moths in the LRGV. Diversity patterns parallel those of birds and butterflies with a great many tropical species that enter into the United States just in the southern tier of counties in Texas.

The exciting aspect of this to me is that we had the opportunity to document living examples of so many species which have heretofore been known only from collected specimens, i.e. they’ve almost never been “seen” or photographed alive. In no particular order, here are some of those rarely photographed species:

Agaraea semivitrea (Arctiinae), about 3rd living individual, 1st iNat U.S. record
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370267

Schaus' Tussock Moth, Halysidota schausi (Arctiinae), 1st iNat records for a LRGV specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2375497

Delightful Donacaula Moth, Donacaula melinella (Crambidae), 1st TX record on BG and 1st LRGV record of a widespread moth,
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2377192

Okra Leafworm Moth, Anomis illita (Erebidae), 1st LRGV records for a moth of the s.e. US†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370006

Bendisodes aeolia (Erebidae), 1st & 2nd iNat photos, about 6 photos of living specimens, known from only two counties in U.S.†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2355777
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2376210

Helia agna (Erebidae), about 4th living individual of a LRGV/tropical specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2355709

Isogona natatrix (Erebidae), 2nd living individual of a LRGV specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2355744

Isogona scindens (Erebidae), known in U.S. only from TX and FL†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2377200

Isogona snowi (Erebidae), 1st iNat record for U.S. for a South Texas specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2376866

Matigramma obscurior (Erebidae), about 4th living individual, 2nd iNat record
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370073

Chlorochlamys appellaria (Geometridae), about 2nd TX record of this southwestern looper
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2355857

Chloropteryx nordicaria (Geometridae), 2nd U.S. photographed record†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2377221

Psamatodes trientata (Geometridae), about 4th living individual (if correctly IDed)†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2379943

Rindgea flaviterminata (Geometridae), 1st iNat record of this LRGV specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2376997

Streptopalpia minusculalis (Pyralidae), 1st LRGV and 3rd TX record for a FL/Caribbean specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370260

Bactra furfurana (Tortricidae), 1st LRGV and BG record for TX of a widespread species†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370257

Not to mention other insect groups:

Brownsville Short-winged Grasshopper, Melanoplus cameronis (Acrididae), 1st iNat photo of this LRGV specialty†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370077

Atrypanius irrorellus (Cerambycidae), 1st Hidalgo record, 4th living individual (BG)†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2370276

ADDENDUM: Here's another "convenient" rare species, photographed at George West on the way home:
Hypena vetustalis, 2nd photo of living specimen, 2nd Texas record (?)†
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2383509

† Pending confirmation of their IDs, these are all first iNaturalist observations.

• Except birds. The avifauna was only peripherally examined, even by us hardcore birders among the group. Had we been more focused on that group, we might have chased such LRGV rarities as Whooping Crane, Blue-throated Hummingbird, Greater Pewee, and Pacific-coast Flycatcher among others, all of which were reported in/near localities that we visited. This brings up a whole other topic regarding the intensity of focus versus the breadth of focus, a topic for another journal entry perhaps.

I’d previously written an overview of our visit to South Florida: http://www.inaturalist.org/journal/gcwarbler/4713
including an introduction to some of our experiences shelling on Sanibel Island. I recently uploaded a few teaser observations of “mollusks” in order to describe what it was like to do some serious shelling at that world-renowned location.
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2277245
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2278355
Now it is time for the nitty gritty. I have taken advantage of a rainy spell here in Texas to finish the cropping, editing, and identifying of several hundred mollusk images. In rapid succession, I’ll now be uploading those observations.

Within Sanibel Island, sites where we did major shelling efforts included Blind Pass, Bowman’s Beach, and along West Gulf Drive near our residence. We made smaller collections at Gulfside Beach City Park, Lighthouse Beach Park, and on the Causeway Islands. We studied mollusks (and all other life forms) wherever we were so I have additional images of various species on the mangroves of Ding Darling NWR and even on the Calusa Indian Shell Mound Trail there.

Identifying all the shells has been a huge learning experience for us. I have some basic familiarity with shell families from my decades on beaches in California, Texas, and elsewhere but a great many of the species on Sanibel were new to us. As I previously mentioned, the handiest local published guide has been “Florida’s Seashells, A Beachcomber’s Guide” by Blair and Dawn Witherington (2007, Pineapple Press, Sarasota). A major reference here at home has been my recently-purchased “Encyclopedia of Texas Seashells” by John W. Tunnell Jr. et al. (2010, Texas A&M University Press, College Station). The detailed technical information in that comprehensive work is invaluable since probably 90-95% of the common shells we encountered in Florida also occur in Texas waters; the taxonomy is just a bit newer and updated as well. I’ll defer to whatever taxonomy iNat is currently following. I’ll be adding a few English common names from the above-referenced sources as appropriate.

The most relevant online resource for shell identification might be Jose H. Leal’s “Southwest Florida Shells with Emphasis on Sanibel & Captiva” hosted by the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum site at: http://www.shellmuseum.org/shells/southwest-florida-shells. That site is more comprehensive than the Witherington guide, but it’s not particularly user-friendly. You can search through 330+ species images about two dozen per page, but if you want to focus in on a group, the only “filters” available are by Latin family names; thus you’d need to know the scientific family name you’re seeking. A simpler search function is desperately needed there.

At latest count, we’ve identified upwards of 80 species of mollusks from our Florida trip and there are at least a half dozen remaining to pin down. Excluding a few applesnails here and there and a Cuban brown snail on the house, all the remaining animals are from saltwater or brackish habitats at Sanibel. I don’t yet have a breakdown by classes, orders, or families, but the findings were very diverse, ranging from the Atlantic abra (Abra aequalis) to the aforementioned non-native land snail (Zachrysia provisoria).
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2305506
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2305515
Where we searched, mostly on sandy outer beaches, bivalves far outnumbered gastropods. The biggest shells on the beach were invariably the innumerable stiff pen shells (Atrina rigida), unbroken examples of which ranged up to a foot or more in length,
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2305743
down to a 1.6-mm snail I just found in a sample of beach sand which might be something in the genus Odostomia: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2309420
I have a bowl-full of small bivalves in the 5 to 10-mm range yet to be identified and I am still sorting through a cache of shell and sand debris to look for more micros. (I think a good dissecting microscope will be on my Christmas wish list.) All images will be shown with a mm rule adjacent to the shells to gage size. Most of the shells were photographed against an array of colorful beach towels, the most convenience backdrop at our disposal; a few are photographed in situ on the beaches or in the swamps. All were photographed with my little Canon point-and-shoot SX120 IS in macro mode with soft flash. Many images which were made outdoors on cloudy days or indoors have needed a little brightening and color balancing before being uploaded.

The sequence of uploads may seem random with respect to species groups, locations, or dates, but there actually is a method to this: I have labeled all my (identified) images with the scientific name of the shell and arranged the collection of images in an album on iPhoto alphabetically by scientific name (genus-species). I’ll generally be going straight through that album to upload images to iNat. That means the observations will jump around the various locations on and near Sanibel where we collected and may be from collections made anywhere from Sept. 22 to Oct. 1. The dates of observations on iNat will reflect the actual collection dates, to the best of my remembrance. (I have the precise collection dates for virtually all the shells, but in some cases, due to vacation activities, I didn’t get around to photographing a batch of shells for a few days.)

I hope everyone will enjoy this array of molluscan bounty from Sanibel!

My wife and I just returned from a two-week vacation during which we had the opportunity to stay for about 10 days at a house near the beach on Sanibel Island, FL. This was our first visit to that area and I was ready and primed to turn our adventure into an ad hoc BioBlitz of sorts. We took three days to drive there from Austin and two gruelling days to race back home. Even at those freeway speeds, it has been intriguing to watch the steady shift of habitat types across the breadth of coastal southeastern U.S.

I managed to collect some iNat observations during the numerous fueling/restroom stops along the highways but the bulk of my uploads will be from our time on/near Sanibel. I’ve already uploaded a subset of easily identified and interesting observations from the trip, starting with a new moth record for Louisiana,
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1971110
along with tidbits from the first few nights of blacklighting at the house, such as:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1981816
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2001051
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2002554
and a series of simple images of the tame birds on the beach and island like these:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2000629
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2005705
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2021293

But I actually took over 1,800 pics over the course of the trip and am just now organizing, cropping, and sorting through them to begin the main upload covering the journey. As I complete some of those uploads, I’ll add links to a few more interesting or characteristic items here in this journal entry, but I’ll introduce all of them with some general observations. I’m not sure in what sequence I will upload all the images; I may do some chronological uploads as I go through them, but I may concentrate on uploading a bunch of images in one taxonomic group and then move on to another group. The biggest upload will probably be the shells which we collected and which I documented thoroughly with photos. We identified at least 65 spp of mollusks and there are still more shells to sort through. Lastly, I’ll have a batch of plant images, some of which are common and obvious species and others I’ll need to get ID help with before or after uploading. It’ll be a long process over the next few weeks.

The “Convenient” Truth

As mentioned above, I took a few moments at each of our innumerable stops en route to glance at the windows and around the outdoor lights at convenience stores, rest areas, and at a few motel stops. Since many of these are 24-hour venues, they often have outdoor lighting or advertising signs that are on routinely and those provide a concentrating effect for a local array of insects. I always have my point-and-shoot camera on my hip while traveling (like any good Texan) so I’d occasionally alert the clerk at the convenience store with a brief phrase like, “I noticed some bugs at your windows there. I’m a retired wildlife biologist; would you mind if I took a few pictures of them?” I get curious, funny looks at times, but I’ve never been refused. A few times I’ve even gotten eager hints on which lights attract the most bugs, or someone directing my attention to an unwanted bug inside the window that they’d like removed. I’m not shy about wandering around a building with my camera in hand, but for obvious reasons I demur from hunting, photographing, or stalking around the women’s restroom side of any rest stop! I avoid pointing the camera at any customers inside or outside a building so as not to freak anyone out. I’ll also announce myself with the same introductory phrases to any security personnel at those interstate rest areas which have such staff. They have always been intrigued and helpful.

The results of this iNatting at roadside stops ranged from zilch to bonanza. They provided a minimal sample of the local fauna and of course were highly dependent on surrounding habitats, recent weather patterns, etc. For me as a traveler, such efforts provide the briefest of introductions to some of the regional fauna and flora as well as reminders of those species which are truly widespread and abundant such as the Armyworm Moths and Straggler Daisy.
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2086053
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2084414
Undoubtedly the biggest haul was a fortunate gas stop on our way home along Alt US 27 at a crossroads named “Tennille, FL” between Perry and Chiefland on Sun., Oct. 4, in the Big Bend of that state. The 24-hr convenience store there had many outdoor florescent lights and advertising signs in the windows. I immediately found 3 Imperial Moths, an Io Moth, two spp of sphinx moths, and a couple dozen more species. I photographed over 20 spp of moths, of which at least 15 to 16 were new to me. What a treat:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2084865
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2084867
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2084870

’Tis The (Best) Season

The opportunity to stay at a beach house on Sanibel arose in part because this is their off-season and the rainy season. We thought this was the PERFECT time to visit! Many of the resorts were near-empty, and most of the beaches were sparsely populated at any time of day. We missed out on just one restaurant (The Mucky Duck) which was closed for renovations at this season but all other venues were available, if sometimes on reduced hours. Sanibel is known not only for shelling but also for being one the most bike-friendly communities on the continent. We left the car behind on many of our jaunts (within 3 or 4 miles of home) and had bike paths mostly to ourselves. I hiked the Bailey Unit of J.R. Ding Darling NWR on a Saturday morning and had it all to myself for my two hours there.

Shells, Shell, Shells!

Sanibel Island is known as the shelling capital of North America and the reputation is well deserved. We went shelling a time or two, either casually or seriously, just about every day. It was the most popular activity along the many miles of beaches among residents and visitors. Even a slow day of shelling on Sanibel will net upwards of 20 or 30 common species, always with the possibility of turning up something unusual.
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2277245
It is said that shelling is best during the few hours before a low tide and/or after storms. I’ll add that it is a virtual necessity to be out on the beach at dawn since the early shellers find the best prizes. On the morning of Tues., Sept. 29, my wife (and puppy) and I took advantage of a special shelling opportunity at Bowman’s Beach on Sanibel. This was right around the time of that Super Moon, so the tides were “extreme” for Sanibel. Moreover, there had been a strong line of thunderstorms which churned up moderately high surf the previous night. And the low low tide for the day was right after dawn. So we went trudging up the beach, getting drenched in the last waves of pouring rain—which our dog did not appreciate—and headed up to a section of Bowman’s Beach where the highest energy waves had thrown up a long, wide, and deep row of shells (a “tidal wrack” if I’m using that term correctly).
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2278355
Shelling was phenomenal and it was coupled with an ad hoc wildlife rescue effort as hundreds of live Florida Fighting Conchs had been thrown up on the beach with all the dead shells. We sorted through millions of shells over a half-mile of beach, nearly throwing out our arms as we pitched the living conchs back into the surf.

Butterflies? What Butterflies?

Undoubtedly the biggest (negative) surprise of the trip was the derth of butterflies in South Florida. Aside from the occasional passing Cloudless Sulphur, I can almost count on one hand the total number of species we saw in 13 days in the area. Most days were at least partly to mostly sunny and there seemed to be at least sufficient floral resources in yards, along roadsides, and in the innumerable preserves to support populations of adult leps. Yet we were seeing maybe one or two species a day and there were few photographic opportunities:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2003596
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2039213
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2039284
I got goods looks at a single life butterfly (Monk Skipper) and probably glimpsed a Mangrove Skipper dashing by, but had no photo ops with those species. Local biologists attributed this lack of butterflies to it being the “rainy season”, a phenomenon I can understand. But still, even on our slowest days in Texas, we can dredge up 5 or 10 common species. I’ve had more butterflies on a Central Texas Christmas Bird Count in late December than what we found in SoFlo.

Similarly, blacklighting produced only modest results. I blacklighted with a small light and a white sheet on three nights in the backyard of the house where we stayed on Sanibel. The yard and surroundings are well vegetated with a mix of native and non-native tropical shrub and tree species with a weedy field adjacent and a freshwater canal immediately behind the yard. Yet I managed to attract probably less than 10 spp of moths over the three nights and precious few individuals. There were other bugs showing up (including the dreaded “no-see-ums”) but all-in-all the blacklighting was another disappointment.

Some Useful References

For a first-time visitor who didn’t want to shell out (…sorry…) big bucks for encyclopedic treatments of mollusks, etc., I found the following regional works particularly useful for helping to identify shells and other elements of the fauna and flora of Sanibel Island:

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum. Undated. Seashells of Sanibel and Captiva Islands. (Laminated field card.)

Sobczak, Charles. 2010. Living Sanibel, A Nature Guide to Sanibel & Captiva Islands. Indigo Press, Sanibel, FL.

Witherington, Blair and Dawn. 2007. Florida’s Seashell’s, A Beachcomber’s Guide. Pineapple Press, Sarasota, FL.

Not as geographically relevant or comprehensive but still useful were these:

Gulf Coast Shell Club. 2014. Seashells of the Florida Panhandle, 2nd ed. Gulf Coast Shell Club Publ. 2, Panama City, FL.

Proctor, Noble S., and Patrick J. Lynch. 2011. A Field Guide to Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico.

The standard field guides such as Morris’s Peterson series, “Field Guide to Shells of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and the West Indies” proved to be too comprehensive and confusing. The Witherington guide, above, was well focused for our needs.

I have previously uploaded a small sampling of plant images from Balcones Canyonlands NWR and a few moth pictures there. Most of those were recent images acquired since my retirement at the end of 2010. But as you might imagine, during the course of my 16 years at that Refuge (and dating back many years to my earliest visits to the “Post Oak Ridge” region), I made the effort to document the flora and fauna of the area with thousands of images. Most of the material before about 1998 is in 35 mm slides and I have scanned virtually none of those yet. From about 1998 to 2005, I periodically used a camera with the so-called “Advanced Photo System” (APS film) which was sort of pseudo-digital. I have transfered many/most of those APS rolls to digital format but there have been some date issues with those rolls, leaving me with a huge headache to compare images to my original field notes to adjust dates, etc. That task is still in progress and in some cases, I don’t have corresponding field notes to verify dates, rendering the images nearly worthless for iNat purposes.

In 2003, I borrowed a nice little point-and-shoot digital camera from a colleague and the modern era of bio-documentation was off and running. in late 2009, I “upgraded” to my present Canon PowerShot SX120 which has been my constant companion through that last year of work and now through five years of very active (retirement) photography.

When I got roped into uploading images to iNaturalist in late 2014, I knew—as does everyone else—that I had a huge backlog of available imagery which might eventually finds its way onto iNat. I had begun that process by going back through my digital images in reverse chron order…reasoning that the most recent stuff was often the better stuff. While that is often the case, it created more headaches because I can’t easily determine if a given image is/was the first of the season, first ever at a location, or a Lifer critter or whatever. Clearly the more efficient way to upload this material and understand its context is to upload it in forward chronological order—yeah, I know, “What a concept!”

After spending a few days organizing and labeling much of my digital imagery from the past 10 to 12 years, I’ve now begun the REALLY fun process of moving forward in time to upload that early digital material. The Bad News: This constitutes a collection of over 25,000 digital images of all kinds to wade through. The Good News: Luckily for iNat, some large proportion of the Refuge-related imagery is made up of reeeeeally boring habitat pics, documenting every type of living or dead juniper tree, weather events, construction activity, public use events, etc. So I’m going to make a wild guess that I only have to wade through a few thousand Refuge images to look for the new/interesting biotic stuff. For the present time, I will demur from uploading the zillions of images of plants on the Refuge. With all due respect to you botanical types, that flora is well-documented but its digital residence on iNat—other than what I’ve already uploaded—will have to take a back seat to bugs, butters, and odes.

All in due time. Enjoy!!

Jesus Salazar posted a series of images of an adult male warbler found in the Sierra La Paila, northwest of Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, on June 28, 2012: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1891721
This is a very interesting report, particularly because it might represent documentation of the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler. The other possible identification is Black-throated Green Warbler. Whichever species it is, the bird would presumably be an early migrant at that location and date.

I have examined Jesus's images in great detail and unfortunately have come to the conclusion that this bird can't be definitively identified. That said, I think it may be useful to go into some detail on my analysis and reasoning. The reader might want to open a separate tab pointing to Jesus's observation to follow along with my notes on his six photos. I found it useful/necessary to actually download each of the six images, crop them to focus on the bird, then enlarge them to see details (e.g., using Preview program on a Mac).

Several aspects need to be considered here to have any hope at arriving at an ID.

—It seems clearly to be a male, but what age is it?
—What field marks are visible and which are not?
—How do the very local site conditions (vegetation, lighting) affect our view?
—How does the quality of the photos affect our view?
—Finally (after all else), what are the likely possibilities?

The bird was photographed in bright sunny conditions, leaving us with harsh shadows and lots of reflected light from the bird’s surroundings. Here’s what I see:

I judge both the extent of black on the throat and the width and boldness of the white wingbars to be sufficient to call this an After-Second-Year male. Second year (i.e. one-year-old) males of either species would typically have slightly less black in the throat, even with a few yellow or whitish feathers in the chin. The wingbars are hard to judge given that the images are not crisp, but to the extent that I can see them in the first four photos, they seem to lack obvious black shaft streaks. I’m not 100% sure of this but that’s my impression.

What we cannot see creates problems here. As Greg Lasley points out in his comments, no image clearly shows the color of the crown or upperparts. Images 1, 4, and 5 show nothing of the upper side. On Image 2, we may be seeing a tiny bit of green at the junction of the right side of the nape where it meets the right wing but it is so fractional and oblique that I’m not sure. A shadowed side view of the left side of the head in image 3 could be interpreted to show a blackish crown, but is inconclusive. A very pixilated image 6, with the bird facing us, shows a tiny fraction of the forecrown but it is not clear enough to make into green or black.

Underparts: The yellow on the “underparts” of a male Black-throated Green (BTGN) is brightest on the flanks (sides of the rump) and the vent. In an ASY male, this should be quite bright. In richly colored birds and good imagery, there is also usually a rather bright yellow tint (not bold color) in the center of the breast below the black throat. Images 5 & 6 seem to show a white vent area, but it is shaded and blurry in both, yet IMO if this were a BTGN, image 5 should show some fairly bright color behind and beside the legs. In image 2, I see no hints of yellow on the underparts that coincides with the pattern in Black-throated Green. Any yellow suffusion in image 2 is very slight and very uniform which suggests it may be an artifact of reflected bright sunlight off of the surrounding yellow-green foliage. I find the analysis of the underpart colors to be difficult and inconclusive, but if anything, I think it is more consistent with GCWA.

Face pattern: Images 1 & 2 seem to show a complete black eyeline which would be consistent with GCWA. No images show any dusky or green color in the auriculars which would be typical of the majority of BTGN. However, a complete black eyeline is possible in BTGN but this shows up in perhaps 10% or fewer of male BTGN. Examples of this are shown in these images on Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wendeldh/5720530070
https://www.flickr.com/photos/frodejacobsen/7489655820
Typically, any male BTGN which shows a bold black eyeline will also have substantial dusky color in the auriculars or at least a complete dusky arc around the bottom of the auriculars. At a minimum, when a BTGN has a black eyeline, it is at least accompanied by a short blackish arc from the base of the bill extending down and back about equal to the position of the eye. Again, the first Flickr image of a BTGN above shows this. That lower arc of black is essentially never present in adult male GCWA; it appears at times in young birds or older, darker females. For the present bird, images 2, 4, and 6 seem to show a narrow black arc which would be diagnostic for a BTGN male of this age. The angle of these photos is severe in each case, rendering this mark a judgement call.

So, IF I have aged the bird properly and IF the underparts are, as I see it, not consistent with BTGN, then this is a GCWA. However, IF my perception of the whitish underparts (i.e. lack of yellow tint) is in error, and IF the partial lower black arcs below the eye are real (and diagnostic), then this is a BTGN.

What are the probabilities? I think a GCWA is MUCH more likely than any BTGN to show up in NE Mexico in late June. July records of southbound GCWA in Texas outside their breeding range are quite numerous and expected at a time when Black-throated Greens are still very rare in Texas (i.e., not typically expected until early August). June 28 is comfortably within the time frame for the beginning of the southbound migration of GCWA and a few other early migrants. Moreover, 2012 was a bad drought year during which there were several indicators of an early southbound push of migrants. I examined late June records of several species over the past 10 years in Texas on eBird. One of the typical early migrants in July is the Black-and-white Warbler (BAWW). Over the past 10 years, with the exception of 2012, there is just a single late June record of BAWW (2014 in Corpus Christi). By contrast, in 2012 there were 3 reports of BAWW in South Texas from June 27-29. Additionally, there were abnormal reports of early American Redstarts in 2012 (6/25 at Choke Canyon; 6/30 at Santa Ana NWR). And yet there were no early reports of BTGN that year anywhere in Texas.

In fact, in late June in Texas over the past 10 years, there are only two eBird reports of BTGN in Texas: One was listed in College Station on 6/28/2009 without comment; I would want to see photos of that bird but they apparently do not exist. Another was purportedly photographed by Dan Jones in a much-discussed record in Big Bend on 6/24/2013. I have studied his photos and personally I am convinced it is a HY male GCWA which seems to show an unusually dusky cheek. That leaves no uncontrovertible late June records of BTGN in Texas (or NE Mexico) for the past decade.

No decision on Jesus’s bird in the Sierra La Paila can be definitive unless there were other, better images. I think the available photographic evidence can be argued either way but the seasonal and geographic probabilities favor GCWA. To keep the database on GCWA squeaky clean--an endangered species with highly focused attention on it--I would prefer to leave this record out of the data set.

Jesus is to be congratulated for trying valiantly to document this occurrence. It is an effort worthy of emulation for any/every such report. I have personal experience trying to identify migrant warblers with yellow faces in migration in Mexico and I know how difficult the task can be!

Chuck Sexton
Austin, TX

I’ve never invested in the high-end equipment that has become more and more prevalent in nature photography. I’ve recognized that I don’t have the patience to both identify and photograph elusive prey like birds, butterflies, and odonates. So I tend to concentrate my photography on subjects in nature that are more sedentary, e.g. moths and plants, and I arm myself with only a modest point-and-shoot camera for such efforts.

That said, it still isn’t always a cinch to obtain useful, identifiable images of moths, even at a concentrated location like a porch light or blacklight. Here I offer an overview of my basic outfit and some tips on how to get more useful images of moths. This should apply equally well to most casual insect photography. In another journal entry, I’ll offer a few tips on photographing plants with low-end equipment.

My Equipment:

Currently, I have a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS which is about five years old. Back in 2009, I bought it for about $200. It has image stabilization (“IS”), 10X optical zoom, and an array of modes and custom settings that I rarely explore. It runs on two AA batteries and I have a 4GB SDHC card which can hold as many photos as I might take on a two-week vacation. Typical full-frame images in “Large” format are 3648 x 2731 pixels and run about 5 to 6 mBytes.

For moth photography—typically at my porchlights at night—I wear a small headlamp and carry a 10-inch (240mm) ruler. (More on that in a minute.)

I have five night lights around the house that attract insects; three lights on the back porch are floodlamps and two in front are standard wattage. All of the bulbs have now been converted to compact florescent (CF). (I’ve noticed a difference in response by insects to different types of CFs. For some reason, beetles are more numerous at the new CFs and moths are less so, but I haven’t explored the nuances of the various types of CFs.)

Settings:

Personally, I don’t like or use “Auto” mode on my camera. I typically use my point-and-shoot in the P or Program mode. That allows me to adjust the exposure, flash intensity, etc. (As a rule, I have always had unsatisfactory results on “Auto” mode; I just don’t like a piece of electronic equipment making decisions for me!) I always set the camera for “Macro” photography; otherwise it just won’t focus close enough. On this particular camera, because I’m often right on top of a subject, I will turn down the flash intensity as low as it will go (“-2” setting) and back the f-stop off 2 stops (again “-2” on this camera). This reduces the risk of over-exposure or a washed out image.

Routine:

I’ll typically turn the porchlights on at dusk and wait an hour or so before initially checking for moths. I’ll check a few more times before calling it a night. Only one porchlight remains on all night (a security light at the driveway) and I’ll often check that side of the house in the morning to see what remains.

When photographing moths at a porchlight, it is important to (1) be prepared, and (2) be stealthy. Many moths are very flitty at a light and the slightest disturbance with send them twirling or departing. I get my camera in hand and set up before opening a door to go outside to one of the lights. That means turning the camera on, making sure its in the right mode, checking other settings, and flipping up the flash ready to shoot. I’ll also usually turn on my small headlamp in advance and have my ruler at hand (i.e. in my left hand, to be precise).

Move slowly and deliberately. Open the door slowly, or as slowly as practical so as not to let a lot of bugs into the house. Make all your gestures in slow motion.

Getting a Size Perspective:

For many identifications, the size of a moth can be useful, even critical for species determination. That’s why I carry the ruler. A millimeter rule is prefered over one marked in inches. The millimeter rule I use is on stiff paper. I found it on the edge of some notebook some time back. If you search around one of the big box supply stores you'll probably find some equivalent. I cut it off of the notebook and trimmed it so that the left end is at 0 mm. Then, since I knew it would take a beating in the "wild", I put a couple of layers of strap tape all the length of the back (not on the front) to give it some stiffness and make it sturdier. From a little experimentation, I found that the paper ruler is smoother to handle and it does not reflect the flash like a metal or hard plastic ruler can. That's the other reason to put the stiffening tape on the back of the ruler rather than on the upper side.

The trick is to approach a moth with the ruler very slowly. It's best not to slap it down from above--that'll definitely spook them. I'll often place the ruler very gently on the wall about an inch or two away from the moth, then carefully (with my left hand since I'm holding my point-and-shoot in the right hand) and smoothly slide the ruler over closer to the moth, trying to get/stay parallel to the front edge of one of the forewings. I'll often take a preliminary picture with the ruler some distance away still, just in case the moth departs before I get the ideal shot. It's obviously important not to bump the moth, which also means avoiding the antennae.

Other Tips and Settings:

1. Use the largest image format available on your camera. This allows you to capture the maximum detail in any image—so important in moth photography!
2. Moth wings can be highly reflective. That means that when using flash at very close range, images from certain angle can be washed out or shiny, obscuring the pattern. Make sure the flash setting (if adjustable) is as soft (low) as it can be set. It takes some experimentation to gage the best way to get a clear image of the pattern on any given moth. Here are some other things to try: (a) try backing off a few inches and zooming in to compensate for image size; (b) rotate the camera 90 degrees left or right to bring the flash from a different angle; (c) try photographing the moth from slightly in front of, or behind a vertical position or slightly from one side—particularly for moths posing with wings flat like geometrids.
3. For moths that hold their wings rolled up like many micromoths, noctuids, etc., take pictures both from a top view and a side view. For the latter, getting the plain of focus is trickier; try to keep the moth in the center of your focus rectangle.
4. Keep a small step ladder handy just in case there is something interesting but out of reach while standing on the ground.
5. Keep lighting inside the house to a minimum, particularly any entryway lights near the door or near a picture window. This will keep all the moths focused on the porchlights and limit their urge to depart into the house when a door is opened.
6. For anything new or interesting, take a first image from some distance—just in case that moth decides to fly as you approach closer. Then take closer images.
7. Keep in mind that the best moth ID web sites (e.g. Moth Photographers Group; Butterflies and Moths of North America) will show images in plan view with the moth facing straight up or horizontally to the right or left. Either when composing a picture in the “field” or when editing images later, keep that in mind. Otherwise, trying to match your upside down or diagonal image of a moth to those formal guides just adds an extra layer of translation for the brain to untangle.