American Redstart – Memos for Me

Fall Migration

September 27, 2023

This past weekend, I stopped by Gillam Park in southeast Little Rock to see if I could spot in warblers passing through. I got lucky with a great look at a Black-throated Green Warbler – a long-distance migrant that’s headed across the Gulf of Mexico for the winter.

I also spotted an American Redstart that couldn’t sit still and more:

On a neat, but disturbing note: I spotted this wandering Wolf Spider carrying tons of babies. I’m afraid of spiders and typically to avoid them and any mention of them. I didn’t realize female Wolf Spiders carry their babies on their backs for several days after they are born to guard and tend to them. They may have more than 100 babies at a time.

Photos: Migration Craziness

May 28, 2023

My birding trips have picked up recently. I’ve found a birding buddy to go on weekly birding trips to different parts of the state, and we’ve been taking advantage of the current bird migrations to see as many birds as we can. Here’s a few of what we have seen so far:

I also spotted this adorable turtle.

Photos: A few rare birds

January 14, 2022

One of my ongoing projects has been to reorganize my photo archives and to go through my folder of birds I needed to identify. I finally got that “need to identify” folder cleaned out. There were a few rare birds in there from 2013 to 2015 that I am now able to check off my bird list. Besides the above pictured Sanderling, here’s a few more: a Lapland Longspur, a Snowy Plover, a Least Flycatcher, a Hudsonian Godwit, a Black-bellied Plover, an Orchard Oriole, a Marsh Wren, a Philadelphia Vireo, a Blackburnian Warbler, an Ovenbird and an American Redstart.

Can you spot the Lapland Longspur? It blends in well. This one was one of 65 Lapland Longspurs spotted during the 2013 Christmas Bird Count in Lonoke.

Photos: Bird Banding Station

September 23, 2017

I got to attend a bird banding station at Arkansas State University. They put up misting nets to catch various birds, then worked to measure and weigh the birds caught. There were several cool finds: American Redstart, Gray Catbird, Magnolia Warbler and Wilson’s Warbler.