August 2023 Stats

August has come to a close and with it, most of the opportunities that I will have to see new species. Our annual counts are decent for this time of year. Since January , we have seen a minimum of 196 birds; at least 209 wildflower species- not counting invasives; and at least 27 butterfly species. The monthly August counts were decent as well. Ten new birds for the year, twenty new species of wildflowers, and sixteen species of moths or butterflies.

I’m hoping for another 10 to 12 species of birds during the remainder of the year. That would make 2023 our best birding year ever- and we did not leave the state this year. I am hopeful that I can get of out of state in 2024 for a week or so. I suspect I will have no new wildflowers this year, but I will remain hopeful about butterflies until the snow flies.

During August, I also broke the 500-mile mark for hiking with the Lab for the spring/summer. I had a total of 220 miles of walking in August and 113.2 miles of those miles were tracked as hiking. For the five months beginning April 1 and ending August 31, I tracked 517 miles as hikes. The Apple watch tracked 1,200 miles of combined foot travel for the same period. That means that forty-three percent of the time that I am on my feet, I am hiking. I like that percentage. Having so much daylight in May, June, and July and getting out the door before 6am for a good hike to start the day is the only thing that makes this sort of mileage possible for me.

The Apple watch is not great at tracking elevation gain over the month on its own, but by using AllTrails and an app called Fitness Stats I can capture a bit more detail. I believe that I have gone a touch over 124,230 feet of gain in the same period. If I accept all this as true and close to accurate, and recognizing that the period in question has 152 days, then, I have averaged 3.4 miles per day of hiking and about 240 feet of vertical every day. That seems about right.

That elevation gain is about 25 miles. The interface between our atmosphere and space is about 64 miles up; I’ve walked an elevation gain that equals about 40% of the distance from the surface of the earth to the edge of space.

Not too bad!