AR Elderhostel Birders

AR Elderhostel Birders
Originally uploaded by Jettpakk1.

In front of Mather lodge at Petit Jean State Park.

Elderhostlers at Falls Overlook

Elderhostlers at Falls Overlook
Originally uploaded by Jettpakk1.

At the Cedar Falls overlook, and i have no idea what I was talking about. Note the bulge from five days of all-you-can-eat buffets.

Petit Jean, Thursday and Friday

Coming out of the heat at Holla Bend late in the afternoon, climbing Petit Jean Mountain, out of the flat rice fields into the dissected canyons and long views, was a relief and a sweet surprise. I had never been there, but had looked at it once in a mapping program, where I had the impression it was a lowland park, since it had a big lake as a prominant feature. But we got to the Mather Lodge, named for one of the early guiding lights of the National Parks, and found a CCC era building, all big stone and big logs, overlooking a wooded valley. We unloaded luggage yet again, and found our way to our rooms, mine on the end on a lower level.

With an obnoxious roaring AC. I ended up turning it off to get some sleep. But that was later. Once more a big feed in a portioned off area of the dining room, and nother presentaion by the Park interpreter, whose name escapes me. He was good though, speaking on how Petit Jean had been the start of the Arkansas State Park system, and the history of the CCC in building the initial park. As it got dark we vanned down to a waterfall overlook, and played owl tapes. Really loud, echoing down the canyon. And eventually it worked, with an Esatern Screech Owl flying around us in the dark. Unfortunately we never did get a good look with a spotlight. Someone thought they had heard a Barred Owl earlier from the lodge overlook, so when we got back there we repeated the procedure with Barred Owl calls, but there was no response. The party broke up and Kristian and i went to move the vans to their night-time position. As we were walking back two Barred Owls went off behind the cabins. Our first guess was that the ranger was playing the tapes again, but then we saw him driving off. So the calls had worked but we had just not been sufficiently patient.

Another breakfast the next morning, the meals coming in their relentless predictability, and then a hike through the woods on a path that skirted the upper edge of the canyon from the lodge to the falls overlook. It was surprisingly rough and challenging, and a few folks decided it was too much. Had I been there before I might have been in a position to give fair warning. We did get some good birds, looks at Great Crested Flycatchers, and toward the end of the hike i decided to try calling up Pileated Woodpeckers. For some reason I didn't think it would work well, but two males came in from opposite directions (It must have been on a territory boundary) and flew around giving all great looks. One person considered that the high point of the whole trip. Another example of a bird that's quite common in Arkansas, but a desired crowd pleaser for those from out of state.

We got to the old version of the Fals Overlook, and I was surprised by Northern Rough-winged Swallows. I played the Cerulean Warbler song, hoping for another show stopper, but my luck had run out. Gloria had brought the vans down to meet us, and we set out for some other places that had been productive on previous trips, but one had closed restrooms, which sent our aging bladders on down the road. We made a brief stop at the lake, I was hoping for some late ducks or Pied-bill Grebes, but nothing. We did find a mystery oriole, which is still not properly IDed. Then back to the lodge for checkout and a simple lunch. Afterwards, with the vans loaded, we made a stop at the Visitor's Center to watch Goldfinches and other feeder birds, and some folks bought souvenirs. On the way out of the park we stoped at a wonderful overlook above the Arkansas River and the flood plain. There was Petit Jean's grave, and the sad tale of thwarted love, and a Roadrunner as we left. I tried calling the other van with the radio to get them back, but they had driven out of range.

Then the drive into Little Rock, more heat and traffic, but Gloria had saved a colony of nesting Cliff Swallows for the end. On the way there I had the thrill of a car out of control on an entrance ramp smashing its way across four lanes right in front of us. I got past where the traffic would jam, then got out and checked the driver of the offending vehicle. Young woman, scared, hurt, some small apparent bleeding, tried to calm her a little, but as soon as Id turned my back she was ut of the car and limping, asking for a phone. Fortunately someone had already stopped and called the cops, and was still parked nearby. I kicked some broken plastic out of the road, checked that somebody else was attending the other most damaged vehicle, and then got in the van and made an escape before traffic stopped. The swallows required a longish side-trip to one of the Lock-and-Dams on the Arkansas River, but the view was excellent. Really hot too. As an added bonus we found a very public Loggerhead Shrike on a power line along the road, were able to get the second van on it, and they found a second individual as well.

Back at Holiday Inn Express, Unload the vans again. Try to get a connection to check email. Gather wits and then walk up the hill to the big Holiday Inn for dinner in their pub dining room. It had another group there, a reunion of some kind, was noisy and not very cool. The service was trying, and the food not exceptional. But since it was the recap and final gathering of the whole group, we enjoyed it a lot. I guess that was the last time i saw some of the folks, since breakfast the next day was not enough draw to drag folk out of bed on the first late sleeping morning of a long trip. I left fairly early, and took a long way home via the productive Fish Farms (again they were good) then Bald Knob NWR, too hot and no habitat for shorebirds to speak of. Final stop on the way back was Bell Slough, which I'd never checked out. Looked like a great place, but it was dried up and hot mid-day when I got there, so not good birding. But it was enough of a stop to guarantee that I'll try it again some day.

Home!!

AR Birders calling Painted Buntings

AR Birders calling Painted Buntings
Originally uploaded by Jettpakk1.

This is the dirt raod through the ranches west of Waldron. Had a lot of good birds in the area. Kristian, red shirt, was the other van driver, and Dale, behind him, from Michigan was one of the better birders on the trip. Really enjoyed the company of both of them.

Elderhostel trip, Rich Mountain, Tues and Wed

Tuesday morning

We had breakfast at the motel, just a counter brunch kind of thing, not very substantial until I discovered there were boiled eggs. Then a boogie of loading suitcases and other gear for three days away from our base of operations. We followed the Interstate west until it went two lane, and made a stop at a small shopping area where the Hostelers were able to purchase liquor if they chose. Gloria explained that one of the reasons for using rental vans was that University regulations forbade carrying alcoholic beverages in their own vans.

After about another hour we were into Hot Springs, arriving half an hour brfore the National Park Visitor's Center opened at nine. Gloria and Kristian went off to get box lunches that had been ordered in advance, and I led a group of interested stragglers along the trails behind Bathhouse Row. When we got back, the VC was open and we had enough time to watch the park movie and wander through the Fordyce Bathhouse for a few minutes. It really was a time machine situation, imagining the then current luxury of the establishments. At 9:30, we reloaded the vans and headed west through what seemed endless tacky outer Hot Springs.

The next stop was a campground and rec area near Lake Ouachita. The group set out birding with me leading in a place I'dnever been before. Someone had expressed interest in Louisiana Waterthrushes, needed for a lifer, so I followed the little creek figuring that running rippling water was bound to have some around. In about ten minutes I heard one singing, and played the song to pull it in. Everybody got a good look, and we also found an Ovenbird and had good looks at an Acadian Flycatcher. I stopped at a picnic table, had everyone sit down or stand around quietly, and played my "Atomic Bird Attraction Selection". That's a repeating five minute segment of an Eastern Screech Owl calling, with a mob of Chickadees in attendance. It usually pulls in almost every bird within a hundred yards, and this time worked splendidly, getting us great looks at Gnatcatchers, Red-eyed Vireos, and several other species including Tufted Titmice. One of the participants, Jean of Wisconsin, finaly blurted out, "Are Titmice really common here?" Well, yes. Turns out in upper WI, they're a really good find, and she couldn't get enough even though she had seen them before.

We wandered around the campground, trying the recordings for anything that I recognized, and worked our way back to the picnic pavillion for lunch, good sandwiches with good fixings. And got treated to another Louisiana Waterthrush at close range, bobbing on the trash cans. Can't get no better.

The next stop was aat Lum and Abner's General Store, a wayside attraction with goofy souvenirs and bird feeders out back, as well as Purple Martins in a house. Actually we found quite a few birds here, hilly open farmland. Back in the van for the drive to Queen Wilhelmina. A couple of hours, the last part climbing into the Ouachitas. We made some roadside stops and found some soaring birds, vultures and hawks. At the lodge, nice modern repacement for two previous versions, the staff unloaded the bags and Kristian, who had done thistrip before, showed me a great trail. About half the group came along, and we got some great looks at Kentucky and Hooded Warblers, plus some other riff-raff on the wooded hillside. Dinner was good buffet, with us in a sectioned off part of the dining room, and afterward the park interpeter, Brad Holleman gave one of the most entertaining natural history talks that I've ever witnessed. His star accessory was roll of toilet paper, symbolizing the geological ages. Our group got the evolution based version, but he has other versions for folks that can't think that way.

I think I was getting tired at this point, the mountaintop was cool, the view stupendous, and the sleep sound.

The next morning I convinced Gloria to let me do a hike first thing before breakfast, get those early birds. Dense fog blowing through the trees with the fluting of Wood Thrushes. I had some of the group with me on the early hour and Kristian and I persisted after folks had gone back fro breakfast. That's how we found the Scarlet Tanager up close. We spent some time going around the edge of the fields and scattered tree woodland in the area of the Inn. Found a visible singing Yellow-breasted Chat, and a family of Bewick's Wrens. After breakfast we got in the vans for a ride further west into Oklahoma to the Kerr Arboretum, with a coupkle of short stops along the way. At Kerr I was able to call in a Scarlet Tanager that almost everyone got a good look at. Back for lunch and then I took a nap while most of the folks went to the little zoo down the hill from the lodge, where they were treated to a presentation of local critters by the wildlife rehabber, whose name I don't recall since I was napping.

We loaded the vans after that and drove down to the Bols Community Center where we met up with Brad again and Joe Neal of the Forest Service, a biologist engaged in Red-cockaded Woodpecker recovery. Joe took us back into the National Forest to a place where they were banding nestling RCWs. A very interesting process involving rickety ladders, climbing gear, a strange nylon loop device for fishing the little pin feathered nestlings out, and a lot of data gathering scales and cameras and what-not. Then Joe hit his stride, stopping at another RCW site for good looks at Prairie Warbler, Pine Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, and some misc. Then he led us to a spot on the side of a two lane blacktop. We climbed, with some difficulty for soemof the folks, up the bank and walked into the woods a feww yards. Scopes up, and three Bald Eagle nestlings in the nest. Everybody got greta loks, an a bonus adult perched not far away. We mad another stop by a creek, found some more birds new fortthe trip, but the views were brief and not everybody got in on them.

Back to the communty center, and a box dinner, before heading out to some farm fields while the sun set. We looked at Jupiter and its moons, and as it got dark started finding Nighthawks, nd hearing Whip-poor-wills, and Chuck-Wills-Widows. It was late when we got back to the lodge, but a great day.

After another immense buffet breakfast (did I mention I probably gained five pounds on this trip) we loaded the luggage in the vans again, and set off east, backtracking to teh Waldron area where we had been the night before, but this time to a dirt road of large ranches, former rolling Tallgrass Prairie. The great primary target bird was Painted Bunting, and they didn't show at first. We did find White-breasted Nuthatches, Lark Sparrow (not seen by all), heard a Field Sparrow, heard a Blue Grosbeak which I was able to call up, but the views were marginal. It was getting frustrating. We walked further down the road, and I played he Painted Bunting song when I thought I saw one flitting in a tree maybe 75 yards away. It flew right over. It bounced from tree to tree back and forth across the road. It gave everyone superb views. It made me look good. What a bird, probably a lifer for more folks than anything else we saw, except the RCWs.

One of the farmers driving by invited us to check out his large pond about a half mile further on, and it netted Spotted, Baird's, and White-rumped Sandpipers, but unfortunately the van following didn't get a view since we couldn't cross the earthen dam without flushing the birds. I went real slow hoping they'd circle around behind me, but no such luck. It had been a great morning, we made a gas and snack stop, and headed back towards Little Rock, with one more night on the road. On the chance that we could find some Lark Sparrows for everyone, we made a slight detour through Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge. We got some good looks at Tree Swallows, but the day had become quite hot, the sun was relentless, the birds were taken to cover in a row of tall Longleaf Pines, and we never got a good look, just provocative noises and distant flying silhouettes. We were hot and getting tired, the vans were well air-conditioned, so we headed to Petit Jean State Park.

Measuring the suspect holes

David Luneau measuring the suspect conical woodpecker holes in the fallen limb. I'm holding the calipers. The limb had fallen from a tree being monitored by remote camera. Elderhostlers standing about. Picture by Millie Farmer.

Elderhostel Trip in Central Arkansas, Sun and Mon

The Ivory-bill zone

I agreed to lead some bird walks and drive a van for the University of Arkansas Elderhostel offering labeled, "The Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Other Exciting Arkansas Birds". This ran from Sunday May 21 2006 thru Sat May 27. The trip Co-ordinator was Gloria Young, a retired anthropology professor. There were thirteen participants in two vans, who came from OK, TX, KY, MI, WI, AL, and one from California.

We met at the Holiday Inn Express in Little Rock at the Airport on Sunday afternoon, materials were distributed by Gloria Young, the hostel co-ordinator, and we got in the vans for the first of many times to drive to North Little Rock to a BBQ place, Lindsey's, that was great. After dinner David Luneau, the guy who took the video of the IBWO, gave a talk on the general situation, how the video came to be, and the process of analysing it to establish the validity of the identification. The phase I liked the best was when they built models of Pileated and Ivory-billed birds and flapped their artificial wings in various positions to study the patterns of black and white visible from various angles. Comical but convincing.

Back to the motel for an early start on Monday. We drove to the Apple Lake Birding Trail, east of Dagmar WMA, but west of Brinkley on State Hwy 70. Even though it was a late start by hardcore birder's standards (that's the crack of dawn at 10 above), we found a good variety of birds along the trail. We started finding lifers for folks, critters they'd never seen before, the first being a Prothonotary Warbler. It was the first performance for my bird calling rig as well. That's a 1 Gbyte Sansa Mp3 player Velcro'd to a Radio Shack portable speaker. It has about 600 tracks of birdsongs that I spent dark evenings in the winter making into a usable form. I played the Prothonotary. It flew right to us, where before it was 50 yards out half hidden in the boughs of swamp trees. Score one for technology.

I ended up using it several times to call birds for satisfactory looks, and it ended up being a staple of the trip. I would usually try to see the bird without it at first, which sometimes worked, but was often frustrating, the critters tending to be hidden or distant. I didn't want to give the impression that finding and IDing birds was just a piece of cake. I was also trying to get the folks to use their ears as well as eyes. Keep in mind that everyone (except Kristian, the other van driver) was at least 55 years old, some with compromised senses, and some having difficulty with steep or uneven ground. Apple Lake was a good place to start since the trail was a wide level path on a levee.

One good bird was a flyover Ibis, a dark one, which I guessed (!) as Glossy. Another was a pair of nesting Baltimore Orioles. We also had good looks at some more usual birds like Indigo Buntings, Northern Parulas, and Ruby-throated Hummers. The Heron show was good as well.

Having seen, or heard, around fifty species at Apple Lake we boarded vans again and took lunch at Gene's BBQ in Brinkley, and the non-Arkansans got to try some local specialties including fried pickles. After lunch we briefly checked out the Ivory-bill Shack, a store devoted to the bird, it's images, and books, T-shirts, postcards etc. They opened up especially for our group.

Back in the vans and up Hiway 17 to the famous bridge over Bayou de View, where David led us into the woods north of the bridge to a place where he had an automatic camera monitoring a major dead limb with a lot of Woodpecker work. The area was an experimental plot containing trees fully or partially girdled to create various amounts of dead-wood, in the hope that the insect grubs favored by Elvis would prosper, and draw him in. We found one Water Mocassin, which got some attention before it hid in a flood trash pile. David was having some trouble finding his camera, since he couldn't find his landmark, the big limb with suspect workings. Because it had brken off its tree and was laying on the ground. One of the Hostlers, Dale, rolled it over and we saw deep conical pits drilled in the wood. David recalled that conical pits had been reported in the old Ivory-bill research, and we set about measuring their diameter and depth. Several were two inches deep or more, and we fell to discussing how deep a Pileated could drill, and how one would rule out a Pileated as the maker. Skull models? Plaster casts? Anyway, food for thought. The camera also contained 10,000 plus images taken at 18 second intervals (I'm not certain on those numbers), and David removed that chip, installed a new one and new bateries. Back to the vans, thoughts of mosquitos and ticks on all minds. Hard to come out of those woods without every tickle and itch being suspect.

I had called Kenny Nichols the day before and asked about the fish farms that were sort of on the way back to Little Rock. He'd said he thought shorebird migration was basiclly over. But then Sunday night there had been a post on the ARbird listserv saying quite a few species had been seen at Saul's fishfarm, including one I needed for my State list. So I sort of twisted Gloria's arm to make a stop there. We went to Treadway's first, which turned out to have no mud flats at all. Still we were able to find some Black Terns, but went on toward Saul's. A brief stop along the gravel road netted Meadowlarks and Dicksissels, which northern folks didn't know. When we got to Saul's, there was a pool with lots of mud and lots of birds. One was an absolutely posing Black-necked Stilt. Three species of ducks. Stilt and other sandpipers. Best of all were two Hudsonian and one Marbled Godwit together for a perfect comparison. We were lucky to have a former Californian, Andi, who knew them well and had the sense to make the distiction, then get everybody to see it. Dale found a Dunlin, and there were some White-rumped/Bairds types, but too far off. A great stop for the group, adding about ten species. We ended the day at 71, not a bad start for the week.

Gloria was fretting that we were getting behind schedule, since we had dinner reservations at Bosco's in downtown Little Rock. But the trip back was quick and easy, and there was plenty of time to spare. The food and atmosphere were both top notch, I had a wonderful small pizza, and slept contentedly with a well-earned heartburn.