Joe Neal cites passage from Neil Compton's writing

We have what looks like an all-day rain in Fayetteville today -- good set up for spring migration. The Cerulean Warblers of Cave Mountain just gotta be headed our way! But until then:

I have been using some of the rain/lightning time to read text and to enjoy photographs in Neil Compton's The High Ozarks A Vision of Eden (Ozark Society Foundation 1982). We no longer have Dr Compton to take us on a hike up his favorite Buffalo River trail, but we do have this book, including his thoughts about what all of this means -- ALL, in the broad sense. 

Here is some text from the book's epilogue. Ah text -- and I do not mean texting. It didn't exist in his time and he did not think in brief:

Those who draw inspiration from reflection on the processes of creation and the discovery of evidence of the genesis of the land and its inhabitants, will not explore the deep recesses of these ancient hills without reward. To come upon a mass of fossil fuquoids (algal impressions), a coral head, or an array of archimedes screws (molluscs) in a rocky creek bed, is a basic satisfaction to almost all and begets an enduring fascination in some. But all evidence is not present as fossils frozen in stone. The living proof is all about, even yet, in forms little changed over many millions of years. The very first of all living green things is here for us to see, the blue-green and green and brown algae waving in the current of Ozark springs and in all our ponds and creeks at certain seasons. We are not attracted by its sliminess but should recall that this was the first oxygen-generating life form in any quantity, thus initiating the change from the stifling, reducing atmosphere of the newborn earth to the life giving oxidizing air that we now breathe. This humble photosynthetic plant has been in residence here, unchanged in form and function, in seas, lakes, and rivers for over two billion years . . .

There are many who are emotionally convinced that we played no part at all, that we arrived by special arrangement and thus are alien to this natural world, which we may think is here for our immediate utility only. But somehow we must all come to realize that our fate has been, and'always will be, inseparable from what transpires on the face of the earth and above it and within it. We were indeed there, a fragile tissue, in that amnion, that ancient sea of nativity, along with a myriad others, but on our way to understanding. With the power that we now find in our hands it is imperative that we exercise that ability to know and manipulate the truth of things, which has finally come to us, not for the betterment ofourselves alone. We must include as well an understanding and protection of this whole glorious process so well revealed here in this lovely and provident land.

Buffalo River and Ninestone Land Trust and water-quality rules: Joe Neal today

When those two words: louisiana AND waterthrush come up, what lights up are rushing streams, boulders, pawpaw trees, and forested slopes, pleasures over the years of hiking, camping, bird watching, fun times in clean cool water with my daughter Ariel and her friends.

In technical jargon, Louisiana Waterthrushes are long-distance, forest-interior, neotropical migrants. They occur in quite a few places along streams in northwest Arkansas, but I always enjoy them especially during trips over to the upper Buffalo. I was thinking about that while reading an email from Judith Griffith at Ninestone Land Trust in Carroll County. March has not even turned to April and she has already seen 9 Louisiana Waterthrushes banded during the course of Leesia Marshall's research there! Ninestone is another special place, period, and especially if you have waterthrushes on the mind.

As pollution problems have become more complex, there has been a growing interest in how water quality is impacted by human land use and especially how some species might serve as biological indicators. Leesia's PhD is entitled, "Territories, territoriality, and conservation of the Louisiana Waterthrush and its habitat, the watershed of the Upper Buffalo National River."

What Leesia found was that as water in Buffalo tributaries became more polluted, nesting territories for waterthrushes became longer; some disappeared. Some of this problem has to do with the impact of pollution on aquatic insect communities. So waterthrushes may be good indicators of biological integrity. As for a host of other neotropical migratory songbirds – how about Kentucky Warbler here -- it is reasonable to infer negative impacts for other native avian insectivores if pollution levels increase in the Buffalo and its tributaries.

Protection of the Buffalo and such places should be a slam dunk, but in fact only 40% of the Buffalo watershed is part of the national river or under other state and Federal ownership. That leaves 60% of the watershed where land clearing and confined animal feeding operations (CAFO; like the hog factory under construction at Mt Judea in Newton County) increase incompatible negative impacts, even when state environmental rules are followed.

That's always the rub: millions visit the Buffalo who don't live there but do pay local, state, and Federal taxes and therefore have a legitimate stake in the park and its biological integrity. Local folks who live in the watershed have to have a way to make a living and not all of them can make it off the recreation industry. In terms of conflict and drama, it's a made-for-Hollywood script ready for prime time. 

And it is always the same, whether it involves attempts to protect tropical forests from illegal logging or save elephants from ivory hunters -- or in our case, protect this beautiful, native bird-rich, free-flowing river in the far away Ozarks of Arkansas.

Joe Neal addresses Fayetteville's Environmental Action Committee on feral-cat ordinance

March 2013 meeting of Fayetteville Environmental Action Committee

• EAC Follow Up - Ferral Cats and Enduring Green Network‏

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peter nierengart​en (pnierengarten@ci.fayetteville.ar.us)

4:31 PM

To: Connie Crisp, James Barton

Cc: copecindi@aol.com, rrussell@bof.com, Sarah Marsh, Yolanda Fields, mike.emery@cox.net, treehuggerlane@cox.net, Dana Smith, j.kieklak@gmail.com, jkieklak@gmail.com, loriannesr@gmail.com, sarahelainelewis@gmail.com, aubreyshepherd@hotmail.com, angelaalbright@msn.com, jwalsh@nwaonline.com

• 

All,

 

Thanks to those who attended last week's EAC meeting.  As a follow up to the ferral cat issues discussed at that meeting, we have asked the City Attorney for his interpretation of the Audubon's proposed amendment to the City's Ferral Cat Ordinance that would require ferral cat colony caretaker to contain the cats.  The City Attorney advised that it would not be practical to add this amendment to the existing ordinance.  The City Attorney, Yolanda Field and I all agree that Audubon's proposed containment amendment would make the existing ordinance more onerous for potential caretakers would likely prevent anyone from adopting an existing colonies.

 

At last week's meeting EAC members voted to compile a list of questions related to Audobon's proposed amendment and forward those questions to the Animal Service Advisory Committee which meets on Monday, April 8th.  Please forward those questions to me and I will compile and transmit them to Yolanda Fields.  As you compile your questions, I invite you to watch/listen to the October 2nd City Council Meeting from last year when this ordinance was debated: http://accessfayetteville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=2092&meta_id=49238

 

In other news I received notice today from the Planning Department about a project located inside the Enduring Green Network that will be heard by City Council next Tuesday night.  The 17 acre site is located near the intersection of Gregg and Van Ashe along Scull/Mud Creeks and is being rezoned from C-1 to P-1 in an effort to build a future charter school (Hass Hall).  According to the Development Services Department, the site was graded and raised above the flood plain several years ago and therefore many of the sensitive features originally associated with the site were removed at that time.  This link contains the planning report associated with the rezoning request: http://accessfayetteville.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=72&meta_id=54020

 

regards

 

 

Peter Nierengarten, PE - LEED AP

Director of Sustainability & Strategic Planning

City of Fayetteville

479-575-8272 Phone

479-521-1316  TDD (Telecommunication Device for the Deaf)

pnierengarten@ci.fayetteville.ar.us

Joe Neal: Ultimate quacking and peeping glory

Please click on images to enlarge.

• ultimate quacking and peeping glory (March 23)‏

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joe neal (joeneal@uark.edu)

7:48 AM

Starting temperature was just enough over 30 occasional mists never turned to ice during Saturday's Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society field trip to Shores Lake and Fern in the Ozark NF. Since cold, wet, windy was predicted all day, I was betting we'd be a gang of 5, or less. Instead, when we met field trip leader Bill Beall and his wife Toka, we totaled amazing 15. 

Joe Neal photo March 23 2013

This late March trip is ritual. Y'all out there in predictable Brown-headed Nuthatch country see them (yawns here) at feeders. But they were extirpated from shortleaf pine forests in the western Ozarks long ago.  Bill has tracked what seems the last of their western Ozarks kind around Fern. So that's the draw: find locally rare, little, squeaky, upside down birds. How ya doin' up there little birds? 

In the grey cool, we had them squeaking high in the pines. After easy White-breasteds and Red-breasteds, we had numero tres.

After our coveted nuthatch trifecta, we headed down in the Arkansas valley around Frog Bayou WMA. First stop, shallow, flooded rice fields on Blackland Road. AKA, teal heaven. All I could see was 10 to 20 acres of Blue-winged and Green-winged Teals, Northern Pintails, big bad Gadwalls, brilliantly attired Northern Shovelers.

Somewhere in there was a Cinnamon Teal, I was soooo sure of it, and by the time I had lead our parade down Blackland Road to where that reddist of teals was hiding . . . we were wheels spinning, cars sliding . . . Humiliating backing up scene here.

And of course by then all of duckdom was rising in a vast sweeping cloud, an ultimate quacking and peeping glory, high above the mud, way down the rice field, taking our overly dreamed for Cinnamon Teal, or whatever, much, much further, devil bird tempting and luring.

We got out of there, but not with dignity to spare.

Like nuthatches in the Ozarks, Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks in the valley is ritual for this trip. Bill saw them here first maybe 15 years ago? Once again, he delivered, 20 at King Ranch, near the Alma sewer ponds, as advertised.

Jim Neiting had been seeing shorebirds and ducks en masse on a sod farm adjacent the river near Van Buren and he had pictures on his camera. Muck far behind us, I was re-seized by XXL supersize birding hysteria. Long-billed Curlews! Cinnamon Teal! 

We had scopes out at the end of the day, on the shoulder of a very busy Highway 59. A compact flock of at least 90 Wilson's Snipe (hey, those are big bills!) patrolled the sod. A scattering of American Golden-Plovers cleverly deployed under a massive traveling sprinkler. Passing drivers were upping speed to avoid us zombies. 

Who else would be standing outside on such a day? Who would scanning the mist and awesome ducks for one redder?

Joe Neal: A parody on the ADEQ's absurd ruling on Hog Pen in Buffalo River watershed

Just in case you have put another "lifer" under your birdwatcher's belt and are feeling pretty sanguine about Arkansas "The Natural State" and its many habitats for birds, I want to let you know that I have decided to build a hog factory in my backyard here in Fayetteville, home of the Arkansas Razorbacks, "Athens of the Ozarks." Not to worry. And, by the way, this is your formal notice. 

I'm unsure how nesting Northern Cardinals, Great Crested Flycatchers, Brown Thrashers, Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Gray Catbirds, and Carolina Wrens are going to feel about it. But under Arkansas law, how they feel about it, and how it may impact their lives and families, is not an issue. 

 The State of Arkansas, The Natural State, the Vacation Paradise, has given its blessing. I guess that means our state bird, the Northern Mockingbird, has also given its blessing, though I have not received formal feedback from the one that nests up by my driveway and sings on summer nights there. I've heard no voting quacks from overflying Mallards.

I don't have Dianas in my yard, so I'm not concerned about the state butterfly.

I'm turning the back half of my 1-acre into a hog waste holding pond. I'm pretty sure it will hold wastes under most rain events, but in case, it can flow into an unnamed springfed branch of Scull Creek, then under College Avenue, then down past Wilson Park, along the bike trail, and eventually into the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma.

I'm pretty sure it won't damage the environment, or the neighbor's yards, or the resale value of their homes, won't impact them every time they draw a breath. And hope you don't mind "pretty sure." But then, if it does, that's why god gave us the OOPS word. I have the legal blessing of our Natural State environmental quality agency. Oops is OK.

I have been bird watching for years, but increasingly, it doesn't pay. Hence, my hog factory and the nice big federal loan I got. I want to thank all Federal tax payers for helping out this poor ole boy on Cleburn Street. The paperwork wasn't as tough as you might think. Didn't hire any biologists. Didn't consult any of you bird watchers. No worry about little cave critters down there. What the neighbors think about it doesn't matter.

Joe Neal report on Horned Grebes at Beaver Lake in northwest arkansas

• Horned Grebes getting their horns‏

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joe neal (joeneal@uark.edu)

3/20/13

To: ARBIRD-L@LISTSERV.uark.edu

• 

The Horned Grebes (~25) on Beaver Lake are busy trading smart winter black & whites for their even smarter black necks & backs & golden plumes, offset with a deep red eye. Even with today's north wind and choppy water, it was plainly evident where all of this is headed.

Joan Reynolds and I were parked sideways in the Arkansas Game & Fish boat launch off highway 12, east of Rogers overlooking big wide water in the Prairie Creek area. Easy birding pretty, scope on the window, pretty much out of the cool north wind.

After grebes, smart mostly whites of a few Ring-billed Gulls, perched in a rough formation on a small island. Then a Common Loon, which like the grebes, has been busy trading whites and grays of winter for black heads and backs with black & white checks. 4 of 5 loons visible from highway 12 looked like they were ready for one or another of the various versions of Loon Lake way up north, or would be, with just a little more molt.

Also out over choppy water, Tree Swallows. Some have already taken up residence involving boxes at AG &F's nursery pond, as a swallow flies, not far from where we were parked.

Neal's 'inner Buffalo' says 'stop the hogfarm'

• inner Buffalo‏

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joe neal (joeneal@uark.edu)

9:52 AM

To: ARBIRD-L@LISTSERV.uark.edu

Cc: Douglas Arthur James

• 

Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission is meeting this morning in Little Rock. I prepared a written statement for the meeting. Barry Haas, who is treasurer for Arkansas Audubon Society Trust and AAS Halberg Ecology Camp, is attending. He and others associated with Audubon groups will speak during public comments about the hog factory within the watershed of the Buffalo National River.

Several folks have asked me, What can I do? I say, look to your inner Buffalo.

  

I have not gone off into Woo-Woo. Not New Age; rather, old age and experience. I have been visiting and studying the Buffalo for 40 years. I have as much skin in the game as folks wanting to build a massive hog factory in the watershed. It is “our” business, too. 

Arkansas Audubon Society is a private organization founded in 1955, with members from throughout the state. Its purposes include education and conservation of the state's natural resources, including those in the watershed of the Buffalo National River. 

AAS was directly involved in the earliest efforts to establish the Buffalo as a national park. It was the very first citizen's organization with a statewide membership to oppose dams on the Buffalo. That's a lot of skin in the game.

Through its research-oriented Trust, AAS has long provided funds to support bird research on the Buffalo and elsewhere. This includes bird projects with good science helping us understand the river and our environment in general.

The most recent was a PhD by Leesia Marshall (2012): "Territories, territoriality, and conservation of Louisiana Waterthrush and its habitat, the watershed of the Upper Buffalo National River." As water in the Buffalo watershed became more polluted, waterthrushes had lower nesting success. It has to do with the impact of pollution on aquatic insect communities. It is reasonable to infer negative impacts for other native avian insectivores, including other declining Neotropical migratory songbirds.

Two of the longest running US Fish and Wildlife Service Breeding Bird Surveys, run by volunteers, usually Auduboners, include Compton, in northwestern Newton County and Lurton, in southeastern Newton County, including Mt Judea, where the hog factory is located. I have run Compton for two decades. Compared to other Arkansas surveys, these have the highest diversity of breeding birds in Arkansas.

Numerous, well-documented, negative pollution impacts to groundwater and streams have occurred with comparable hog factories in other states. How can we ignore this experience? We are alarmed to learn that at the same time the hog factory was cleared for a Federal loan, a bill was moving in the Arkansas House (HB 1929) that would lower water standards statewide.

Maybe wastes will be contained properly, or maybe they won't. Buffalo watershed is no place to experiment.

Inner Buffalo – it is different for us all.This is how it looks to me.

Legislature threatening to weaken water-quality standards in Arkansas

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2013/mar/21/bill-would-cut-rules-water-20130321/Legislature threatens to reduce water-quality standards in Arkansas

Horned Grebes, Ring-billed Gulls, Common loon, Tree swallows get attention of Joe Neal at Beaver Lake

The Horned Grebes (~25) on Beaver Lake are busy trading smart winter black & whites for their even smarter black necks & backs & golden plumes, offset with a deep red eye. Even with today's north wind and choppy water, it was plainly evident where all of this is headed. 

Joan Reynolds and I were parked sideways in the Arkansas Game & Fish boat launch off highway 12, east of Rogers overlooking big wide water in the Prairie Creek area. Easy birding pretty, scope on the window, pretty much out of the cool north wind. 

After grebes, smart mostly whites of a few Ring-billed Gulls, perched in a rough formation on a small island. Then a Common Loon, which like the grebes, has been busy trading whites and grays of winter for black heads and backs with black & white checks. 4 of 5 loons visible from highway 12 looked like they were ready for one or another of the various versions of Loon Lake way up north, or would be, with just a little more molt.

Also out over choppy water, Tree Swallows. Some have already taken up residence involving boxes at AG &F's nursery pond, as a swallow flies, not far from where we were parked.