The Backyard & Beyond  - June 2004

In April, I went with Arden on a business trip to Arkansas. Arden has been birding there for years on his trips so now it was my turn to rack up a few Arkansas species on my, up until now non-existent, Arkansas list. From Little Rock we head north-west. We went to places like: Lake Conway,  Toad Suck Park, Harris Brake, Petiti Jean State Park, Holla Bend NWR and Mt. Nebo.

We stopped along the road before we got to Holla Bend to check out a hawk. I took my 35mm camera with me leaving the digital camera on the seat. I heard Arden say "I wish you wouldn't leave the door open" as he moved the car off the road a bit. I returned and we took off. At Holla Bend NWR I noticed my digital camera was gone. Arden searched but I knew it should have been in the front seat somewhere. I hadn't put it down anywhere so we figured it fell out when Arden moved the car so we went back and there it was laying in the tall grass along side the road. Whew!! Thank God, it was fine.

We headed to the Ozarks that were absolutely beautiful. They call them mountains but to us they are just big hills. We had Easter lunch at the Ozark Café in Jasper. It is a very old historic café. I had the most delicious Garden Burger while Arden selected food from the buffet. That night in Layfetteville, we went to a place to look for our only rated #1(ABA rated easy to find) species that we don't have, the American Woodcock. Well, it seems we were again too late in the year for them to come & do their nightly calling in the specified spot. Oh, well, another "night" or day.

     The next day we visited Devil's Den State Park where they had had their annual Wildflower Festival the day before. The wildflowers were beautiful. They had feeders at the center  and I finally got a photo of the Tufted Titmouse for my collection.

    A few more of the highlights were: almost getting locked into a forest one night but the workers asked us if we had a key to the gate (we didn't realize they locked it. This was not mentioned in our guide book), Red-cockaded Woodpecker, many Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, visiting Bill Clinton's birth house in Hope, AR, and getting a deer tick on my back again.

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After Arden put in his work days then it was off birding again. We went to the Louisiana Purchase State Park which is not well visited but I loved it. There was a boardwalk out into the swamp to see the monument stone where the measurements for the Louisiana Purchase where taken from. But I loved the place for the Prothonotary Warblers. There were 4 males all vying for the same nesting area and they all tried to sing a little from a perch before one of the others chased him off. The swamp was all dark with no greenery until far up and the bright fluorescent yellow warblers stood out like neon lights. It was amazing as they chased each other just a few feet from the waters surface around and through the cypress trees like little balls of yellow light twisting and turning in unison.

We visited the Delta River Education Center and it's beautiful trails through swamps and trees. Arden birds there often when he is in Pine Bluff working. We headed to Little Rock and birded along the way finding another Prothontary Warbler swamp. Arden had to literally drag me away from this one!

    We flew from Little Rock to St. Louis, MO. We had a 6 hour lay over so we rented a car and went birding. Our target bird was the Eurasian Tree Sparrow that lives in St. Louis and a some of surrounding areas. We went to a golf course driving range as instructed and with in minutes we had our only lifer of the trip. It was a very birdy place.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

Arden was a bit disappointed in the trip due to the lack of warbler migration (too early) but I had a great time and the birds what do migrate early gave me a photo of a Louisiana Waterthrush, one I didn't have. I plan on going back in the winter for the wintering sparrows, etc.

                                Happy Birding,   Sherry Hagen