Arkansas and Mississippi

June 3, 2007

I had to spend a couple of days getting things in order for leaving, like finishing jobs, changing the truck from work to travel mode, mowing a lot of grass knowing that it wouldn't get cut for four or five weeks, canceling mail service, updating one of the computers so I could use it online if necessary. All that done, it was mid-morning before I got away. I drove fairly directly to Bald Knob NWR, where ther was some chance of finding new shorebirds for the Arkansas list, but it didn't pan out. I spent about an hour there, and then headed on east though Memphis and south on the Interstate for Sardis Lake, a COE flood control reservoir with a sweet little campground and a wonderful nature trail. I was there in the evening and the next morning, and also a run after dark down the road that runs past it into the country listening for owls and nightjars. Got a Barred Owl, and a Chuck-wills-widow. I still don't have a Whip-poor-will in MS. Between evening and morning managed ten new tics for Mississippi, making 174, just 34 species short of the ABA threshold for the published list. Still trying to get that for all states adjacent to Arkansas.