birds – Page 5 – Memos for Me

Photos: Migration Season

May 9, 2023

I’ve been heavily birding the past few weekends to take advantage of the birds passing through Arkansas. And I’ve gotten lucky with my sightings so far. This past weekend, a Lark Bunting was spotted in Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge. Luckily, I was able to head that way about an hour or two after it was first reported. Boy, am I glad I headed that way. I went back the next morning and the bird could not be refound.

Lark Buntings are not common for Arkansas, but more to the mid-west of us. Think Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and moving up from there to parts of North Dakota, Montana, and Canada during the breeding season. Nonbreeding season is spent in Central Arkansas and parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Here are a few other birds – and animals – I was excited to find:

Photos: Lollie Bottoms

April 24, 2023

One bird I’ve wanted to see this year has been the Lark Sparrow. Lark Sparrows, which have a harlequin facial pattern and white tail spots, breed in Arkansas. I finally saw several Lark Sparrows on Sunday when I joined five other birders to visit Lollie Bottoms near Mayflower and Conway. Lollie Bottoms winds through agricultural fields and the area circling the Conway airport. It’s an eBird hotspot during winter and the spring/fall migration.

The trip turned out to be extremely birdy with us finding 433 birds of 45 different species. Some firsts for me were Brewer’s Blackbirds and Upland Sandpipers. We thought we’d found a Piping Plover, which would have been another first but it later turned out to be a Semipalmated Plover instead. I also saw some birds I don’t see often like a Lincoln’s Sparrow, a Sedge Wren and a Warbling Vireo. The Warbling Vireo was actually found in a spot that we typically don’t expect to find one so that was interesting. The Warbling Vireo is typically found in deciduous forest, and we found our bird in a patch of trees/brush on the corner of an agricultural field.

Photos: Kibler Bottoms

April 24, 2023

Saturday marked my first time to Kibler Bottoms in Crawford County. Kibler Bottoms is a roughly loop drive that goes south into agriculture fields in the bottoms of the Arkansas river Valley.

While there, I got my first glimpses of Swainson’s Hawks. The three Swainson’s Hawks we found were in adult light morph, meaning they had darker heads, white on the upper part of the underwings. The underwings were darker moving down and out. Typically found in grasslands, range maps on allaboutbirds.org show they are typically found in the United States during breeding season. Their breeding season range is more west of Arkansas, but I’m told Kibler Bottoms is a great place to spot them around this time in Arkansas.

Another rare bird found was a Buff-breasted Sandpiper that foraged in a field alongside American Golden-Plovers, a Horned Lark. A Scissor-tailed Flycatcher was also sitting in the field nearby. The migration range of the Buff-breasted Sandpiper just passes through western Arkansas so we didn’t expect to see one Saturday. This sandpiper is typically found in dry, grassy habitats according to allaboutbirds.org. They nest only in the High Arctic of northernmost Alaska and Canada and then migrate to South America.

Overall, we found 218 birds of 24 species. Here’s photos of some of the other birds spotted:

Photo: Forster’s Tern

March 28, 2023

We recently discovered 19 Forster’s Terns at Boyd Point Water Treatment Plant during a recent birding field trip with a local Audubon society. Forster’s Terns are found in Arkansas during the migration season, and are medium-sized terns with a longer tail and, in nonbreeding plumage, a black eye patch (which we saw during this sighting). The terns were mixed in with Bonaparte’s Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls.

Forster’s Tern along with Bonaparte’s Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls

American Wigeon

March 28, 2023

This winter, my “goal bird” was the American Wigeon. It was the bird I wanted to see. It took me until the end of winter to meet that goal – and even then I didn’t realize what I had actually seen until I got home and reviewed my photos.

The American Wigeon is a pretty duck. The male has brown-gray head with a bright green stripe behind the eye and white cap. It has a short, pale bill. I’ve zoomed in close to the male below for a better (if blurry) view. While I saw reports of them across Arkansas (they winter in the state), I saw my first two American Wigeons at Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge. They were mixed in with Gadwalls, American Coots, Blue-winged Teal and Northern Shovelers.

Photos: Atkins Bottoms

March 24, 2023

This winter, I began visiting the Atkins Bottoms area in Pope County. My goal was to find Tundra Swans. While I haven’t found a Tundra, I did come across a Western Meadowlark during a recent trip. I’m more used to the Eastern Meadowlark, which have darker head stripes. It helped that the Western Meadowlarks were very vocal, making identification easier. Recent trips have been filled with birds, including Horned Larks, Lapland Longspurs and even a Merlin. I especially excited to see Lapland Longspurs – a first for me.

Day 13: African Wildlife Safari

March 17, 2023

We started the day off at the Kigali Genocide Memorial to learn more about the genocide and what the people of Rwanda went through. In April, Rwanda commemorated the 28th anniversary of the 1994 genocide and I’m thinking of my friends in Rwanda.

One term I learned there is ubumuntu or “humanity – goodness, generosity and kindness.” The memorial used it to refer to the people who risked their lives to help those being persecuted. A sign out front reminded visitors that “we can all be champions of humanity by standing against division wherever we live.”

We made our way from Kigali to just outside of the Volcanoes National Park where we were staying at Ingagi Park View Lodge.

After getting settled at the hotel, we visited the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to learn about Dian Fossey’s work to save the gorillas and continuing efforts to protect the endangered gorillas. It was nice to learn about the gorillas since we would be visiting the gorillas the next day at Volcanoes National Park.

Afterward, we went back to the hotel to settle in for the rest of the rainy evening. I enjoyed a hot drink near a window overlooking the front of the hotel. A farmer worked in his field across the road from the hotel, while birds fluttered in the trees nearby. I enjoyed spotting the sunbirds visiting the flowers on my walk back to my room.

Day 8: African Wildlife Safari

March 12, 2023

Day 8 was spent in Serengeti National Park on game drives. We took a morning drive and an afternoon drive, which included a pit stop at the park’s visitor center.

Day 7: African Wildlife Safari

March 11, 2023

On March 11, 2022, we left for the plains of the Serengeti.

En route, our group separated with half going straight on to the Serengeti and the other half making two stops along the way. The first stop was a Maasai Village. The Maasai is one of the most famous tribes of Africa. They are semi-nomadic and are known to have lived predominantly on their livestock. During our visit, we were welcomed with a dance and given a tour of their school (they learn both English and Swahili). Then, each one of us received a guide who showed us their home, spoke to us about their lives and answered questions.

We then visited Olduvai Gorge, also known as the Cradle of Mankind. About 30 miles wide and 295 feet deep, Olduvai Gorge was first discovered in 1911 by German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel and, in 1959, paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey discovered the fossilized bone fragments of one of our earliest hominid ancestors. The gorge became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. Today, the gorge contains some of the most important archaeological sites in the world, and is important because the earliest evidence of the existence of human ancestors have been found there.

While I was fascinated by the history, I also enjoyed the amazing views and the cute wildlife found there.

We finally made it to Serengeti and the wildlife did not disappoint. We even two cheetahs.

Day 6: African Wildlife Safari

March 10, 2023

We spent the entire day in the Ngorongoro Crater. We left early to have breakfast by a lake in the crater, which we circled back to for lunch. The above Serval Cat was one of two we saw. This one ran across the road in front of us as we left, while another walked out of a bush only to be greeted by a table full of us eating. I don’t know which one – us or the cat – was surprised the most.

It was fascinating to see so many different types of wildlife – both prey and predator – living so close together. At one point, there was. lion resting nearby a pack of zebras and wildebeest and none seemed to concerned. We also saw a lot of rhinos, which I thought would be a little harder than it was. Gabi, our tour guide, said numbers have risen over the past few years, although he was still surprised at how easily we found them. Below are a few more of our wildlife sightings for the day.