This month, I was able to get a better look at long-billed and short-billed dowitchers. I consider that a great feat for me. The two species are very similar in appearance – AllAboutBirds.org notes you tell them apart by the short-billed dowitcher having a shorter bill (although there can be an overlap in bill size) and a slimmer underbelly. The best way to tell them apart is by their call.
On Sunday, I decided to revisit the Hendrix Creek Preserve in Conway to find the visiting rare Limpkin, and ended up stopping in Mayflower on my way home to tour through Bell Slough Wildlife Management Area, Lake Conway and Camp Robinson Special Use Area.
It was a birdy trip with my most exciting sight being the above Prairie Warbler. I’ve heard them before but it was the first time I was able to see and then photograph one. Here are a few others found:
I recently visited Alcoa Bottoms near Arkadelphia to see if the Couch’s Kingbird was still there. It wasn’t. But here’s a highlight of what I did find, including my first Northern Waterthrush.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
We slowly made our way from the Tarangire Safari Lodge toward the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
En route, we visited the Mao wa Abu village of about 18,000 people who represent all 120 tribes from Tanzania. A young married couple gave us a tour, including their banana plantation and the youth art project. We had lunch in the village before leaving. It was extremely interesting – I didn’t know there were so many varieties of bananas (the community grows more than 30 varieties) and I bought a painting of Maasai women that I love. However, there were men who approached as we loaded into our vehicles about buying random items from them and they did not like that we said no. They just griped about us and we were able to quickly drive off.
We finally arrived at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO Mixed World Heritage Site. At the entrance, Gabi and James, our tour guides with #RegalAfricanSafaris (previously known as #MaasaiMagicSafaris), gave us a short presentation on the area during a break before entering the conservation area.
The real winners of the break were these naughty monkeys who stole my aunt’s bag of nuts and tauntedly finished them off while staring her down. They jumped into one vehicle, and stole a purse from another vehicle. While entertaining and frustrating at times, the experience reminded us to keep our doors looked and the windows up around these guys.
Then, there were the birds. I have no words about how amazing they are so I’ll just so you a few highlights.
Day 5 began with us preparing to leave Tarangire Safari Lodge where we stayed the last two nights. It was basically glamping and I can definitely say I didn’t expect it to be this wonderful but it was.
It was interesting that electricity was only on for certain hours each day, and we had to have a guide to go back to our cabin after dark due to presence of wild animals. And we definitely had visitors that included monkeys, Dik-diks and giraffes. Can you spot the giraffe in the below picture?
As we finished breakfast, one of the lodge workers asked if we’d seen the African Scops-Owl that sleeps in a tree just outside of the lodge’s front entrance. Naturally, I had to go find it and he was kind enough to point it out.
Rediscovering Arkansas with a few detours.
We preserve, conserve, and study the native plants of Arkansas
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Rediscovering Arkansas with a few detours.
Think left & think right & think low & think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!" -Dr. Seuss
I previously worked as a news and sports photographer. Recently I have been enjoying wildlife photography. My approach toward bird photos is similar to sports photography. I attempt to capture mostly action and hopefully a unique perspective.
Urbanites in the woods, doing all our own stunts.
WILD IN FLORIDA: Exploring and Photographing Florida's Threatened Ecosystems, Wildlife, and More
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Rediscovering Arkansas with a few detours.
Rediscovering Arkansas with a few detours.
Rediscovering Arkansas with a few detours.
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