Tell your congressman to protect birds and other wildlife programs

  
Dear Aubrey,

Birds like the endangered Piping Plover need habitat and strong federal programs to survive. Don't let Congress roll back habitat programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund or cripple the EPA.

Radical attacks on birds, wildlife and habitat are taking place in the U.S. House of Representatives as they debate the Continuing Resolution (HR 1), a bill to extend government funding for the rest of the year. From the devastating cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program we have fought for year after year, to plans that cripple the Environmental Protection Agency and its ability to protect our families, the proposed cuts in federal conservation programs are truly alarming.
Votes will be taking place over the next few days and possibly into the weekend on this irresponsible bill. But our message is simple: keep environmental programs strong, don’t cut them; oppose HR 1.
Devilish Details
Here are just a few of the critical conservation programs that are under attack in the House. All of them impact the conservation values we stand for.

• The Land and Water Conservation Fund is cut by 90 percent. This funding provides protection for lands and wildlife habitat in our National Wildlife Refuges, Parks, Forests and other public lands. Each day, 6,000 acres of open space are lost in the U.S. to habitat fragmentation and destruction. Once these lands are lost, they can never be recovered.
• The North American Wetlands Conservation Fund is cut to zero. This program is fundamental to preserving wetlands throughout the country.
• State Wildlife Grants are cut to zero. A zero budget will eliminate wildlife grant programs in your state.
• The Environmental Protection Agency is facing a $3 billion dollar cut to its budget — the largest cut in 30 years. Such draconian cuts would jeopardize its ability to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and protect our families and the environment.

Now is the time let the House know you strongly oppose these attacks on environmental programs that benefit birds, wildlife and habitat, and public health. Please send an email today and urge your House member to oppose HR 1.

Sparrows and other birds appreciate bird seed on porch next door to World Peace Wetland Prairie on February 9, 2011

Please click on individual images to ENLARGE view.

Bluejay makes suet swing until it wraps string enough times to allow standing on limb to peck the treat

Please click on individual images to ENLARGE view.

Joe Neal report for Tuesday and early Wednesday from Fayetteville and north

Please click on individual images to enlarge view of birds competing for seed and cat food on Aubrey James Shepherd's front porch on February 9, 2011. A few doves, a few bluejays, numerous blackbirds, half of which at least have been red-wing blackbirds, assorted sparrows whose species Aubrey can't sort out have been photographed only through a dirty window and screen, while chickadees and wrens have competed with larger birds to get time on one of Lauren Hawkins' pine cones with seeds and fat rendered from a piece of hog jowl outside an even cloudier window. The photos posted here were taken while I was actually standing outside the door. The larger and wilder birds won't come down to feed while I (Aubrey) am standing there.
Joe's report is below the photos.

Joe Neal said by email:
We have another 8 inches of fresh snow as of this morning in  
Fayetteville. We?re shut. Everything including the University of  
Arkansas is closed. All kinds of blackbirds have come to town and my  
yard, driving my indoor cat crazy as they crowd the feeder.
 
I am doubly glad I made another effort yesterday (when the roads were  
relatively clear) to get up into extreme NW Arkansas, roughly from  
Siloam Springs up through Gentry, Maysville, and back through  
Gravette. This basically involves highways 59, 12, 43, and 72.
 
There were flocks of Dark-eyed Juncos, American Tree Sparrows,  
White-crowned Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows, meadowlarks, Horned Larks,  
Lapland Longspurs, Northern Cardinal, and Harris?s Sparrows (one flock  
of 7 at Maysville), more or less in that order of abundance, along the  
roads. Plus big flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds, European Starlings,  
Brown-headed Cowbirds, and a few others including Rusty Blackbird and  
Common Grackle (plus, I have heard reports for a few Yellow-headed  
Blackbirds).
 
This is poultry country and a lot of chicken feed gets spilled/drifted  
along the highways. Since everything else is covered with ice and  
snow, plowed roadsides and feedlots are crowded with hungry birds.  
There is also a LOT of car and truck traffic along these roads, so the  
birds are constantly flushed. It is a sign of hungry times that they  
flushed and come right back, flush and come right back.
 
At the Vaughn dairies I saw Great-tailed Grackles in one place ?  
walking around in the hay and manure under and alongside big dairy  
cows ? quite a scene really, an island of life in a vast snowfield.
 
Yesterday, under these conditions ? with shoulders iced-over or with  
big plowed drifts ? and feed trucks trying to keep the poultry houses  
supplied ? and everyone trying to get to the store before the storm we  
have today -- it wasn?t easy to obtain real flock sizes. I throw on  
the flashers, pull over as far as I can and rapidly count everything I  
can see.
 
The stress on hungry sparrows is apparent. I saw several Savannah  
Sparrows that were sluggish and barely moved or didn?t move at all. I  
photographed a lone Lincoln?s Sparrow at Maysville that ignored me.
 
In a few places with less or little traffic, or when I just got lucky  
and caught a break in the traffic, I felt like I was seeing and able  
to count entire flocks.  There were 58 tree sparrows in one flock  
along 43 between Cherokee City and Maysville and 42 and 20+ in fields  
along the road adjacent the state fish hatchery at Centerton. I had  
254 tree sparrows for the day and that did not include the many flocks  
I couldn?t safely stop for. If I could have stopped it would have been  
2X that. Horned Lark flocks were abundant along 72 E of Maysville.
 
The handistop store at Maysville is open again, with gas, snacks, deli  
sandwiches, and daily lunch specials. This is an asset for birders  
visiting this area and I encourage everyone to stop and spend to keep  
it open. Gas prices are always competitive and the sandwiches have  
been great.
 
 
-- 
JOSEPH C. NEAL in Fayetteville, Arkansas
 

Joe Neal's essay titled 'Pink Flamingo' on the AR-Bird list makes a good case for pretending to be a football fan and being safely at home when the Superbowl starts at 5:30 p.m.

Just a little northwest of Gentry, in Benton County, midst the open
flatland that was once the Round Prairie, and still locally known as
Bloomfield, there stands a pink flamingo in the yard of a neat red
brick home in front of five chicken houses. For a week we?ve had ice,
snow, then more snow, and by now there must be 6-8 inches covering
just everything. This yard too is all white, except for a sturdy, lone
pink flamingo, with a few inches of snow on its back ? a White-backed
Flamingo, perhaps.

The temperature out here is 18 degrees and it?s not really stirring
much, planted as it is on its twin steel rods. The White-crowned
Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, Harris?s Sparrow and a couple of
Savannahs are making a lively scene at a feeder nearby. It?s not hard
to image how the flamingo is making it through. Plastic and steel,
after all, ignore weather and of course life itself, but what of
creatures like us, mere flesh and blood? And the feet and legs! How
can the Savannahs stand it? In my case, I?m in the Toyota, the heater
is blasting, duck hunter?s hat pulled down over everything but an
eyeball, which is tight on the spotting scope. Savannahs must be
tough, but pink flamingos they aren?t. But I?ve already gotten ahead
of myself.

The day started with a Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society field trip
to Eagle Watch Nature Trail at Gentry. Well, actually it started with
me worrying about whether or not I could even get out of my drive,
much less successfully negotiate 40 miles to Gentry. When I went
outside to start the car the door was frozen shut. Long clear icicles
hung from everything. But the sun at 8 AM was up enough that the
predictions of a warmer day were believable, the car door came open,
and a male cardinal had mounted a frozen bush and begun to sing like
spring.

Yes, I made it to Gentry, and yes a grant total of seven others did as
well. We met Terry Stanfill and eventually at least 27 Bald Eagles,
including a soaring flock in a sky impossibly blue. Unfortunately, so
were my feet -- not flocking, but getting blue. I wasn?t alone in this
regard, so by acclamation around 11 we decided to hike back through
the snow to the cars. Bonus bird for the way back was an overflight by
10 Common Mergansers, led by a male with a brilliant green head. The
pinkish blush of their otherwise pure white undersides was illuminated
by a snowfield bathed in sunshine, snow crystals turned to sparkling
diamonds.

Most folks were headed home at this point, but Jacque Brown had driven
from Centerton, and I from Fayetteville, so we decided to get our
money?s worth and drive some more. This drive was on the old former
prairie roads in search of American Tree Sparrows, Lapland Longspurs,
and whatever was available. That?s when we found the pink flamingo.

We found tree sparrows in two spots, including one flock of at least
30 in possession of one of those unkempt fields with scattered native
grasses and a fence in bad repair. They were brightly singing at their
weed seed harvest, rusty caps in a field of white. In the industrious
manner typical of their kind, they were also collecting seeds
dislodged from plants by performing the miracle of walking on snow.

Later in the day we found another small flock of tree sparrows
expertly working seed-rich heads of June grass poking from the
snowfield. The sparrows hopped up 2-3 feet to the seedheads. Here they
perched sideways and went to work. All that vast sparrow bulk (less
than a half-ounce) caused the June grass to slowly bow. Back on the
snow, the sparrows held the seedhead securely their claws, well paid
for their efforts and satisfying their hunger, what must be a great
hunger in such days as these.


--
JOSEPH C. NEAL in Fayetteville, Arkansas

Joe Neal invites everyone to February NWA Audubon events

I just wanted to remind everyone that NWAAS will host a field trip to Eagle Watch Nature Trail starting at 9 AM, Saturday February 5.
In the evening Dr H David Chapman will present a "History and birdlife of Lake Fayetteville" starting at 7:30 at Nightbird Books on Dickson in Fayetteville.

And keep your calendar handy, because on Saturday February 19, Dr. David Krementz, a leading expert on woodcocks, will lead NWAAS's annual woodcock field trip to Lake Wedington, starting at 5:30 PM.
JOSEPH C. NEAL in Fayetteville, Arkansas

What kind of hawk is this?

Joe Neal spots rough-legged hawk two weeks after Mike Martin photographss Buteo lagopus: Both sightings in the same part of Benton County

Mike Martin photographed a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk near Springtown in Benton Co 3 Jan 2011. I just received the report and image. I saw a light morph Rough-legged Hawk at Centerton in Benton County on 19 January 2011. Centerton and Springtown are just a few miles apart. All of this is former prairie, still has a lot of open grassland habitat. Perhaps these two sightings are just chance, or perhaps Rough-legged Hawks have moved into NW Arkansas for the first time in many years. As far as I can tell, they are the first here since the mid-1990s.

Certainly the overall raptor situation here is quite interesting right now -- all kinds of hawks seem more numerous than usual -- we do typically have more raptors at mid-winter, but this may be an exception.

Joe Neal watching Anna's hummingbird in Ozark snow

 Anna's Hummingbird rare in Arkansas.
Here in northwest Arkansas, we’ve just had a few inches of snow and several nights of temperatures in the low teens. It was 13 last night. They’ve been out in Fayetteville plowing and sanding the streets. Suffering from mild cabin fever, I walked the mile from my house up to the UA campus. Campus was mostly empty except for flocks of robins and starlings working the last fruits, but on the way Wilson Park’s steep hillside hosted 200 boisterous children and used-to-be children sailing the steep hillside on recycling bin lids, plastic saucers, a door, linoleum strips, a bunch of junk I wasn’t even sure what it was, and even a few proper sleds. It was Norman Rockwell set in the Arkansas Ozarks, where native innovation reigns.

Home again (in the same day!) from my walk, me and the Toyota -- with 255,000 miles, including sun and ice and well-earned squeaks in wheels, springs, and doors that sound like birds -- negotiated mostly plowed and sometimes sanded roads out to Sara and Coy Bartlett’s place to see the remarkable thing, with feathers, – all 4.88 grams (and at that weight deemed “fat”) of Anna’s Hummingbird. It was there, as Sara had promised, and I sat in Toyota with my trusty scope on the window and collected images like I was out on the west coast. It is nothing, if not remarkable, to see a striking, healthy bird close up, no matter when, or where, but it far exceeds the merely remarkable when that bird is a few grams of hummingbird in the middle of winter in the Ozarks.

Like a Christmas card, the Bartlett place is all snowy, including pines and a magnolia snow-painted, grounds under feeders with dense flocks of every kind of snow bird your heart could desire. I saw enough seeds in feeders and spread on the icy ground to make me think the Bartlett’s will have to refinance the farm unless winter ends soon. And I haven’t even mentioned paying for electricity for the heat lamp that keeps the hummingbird feeder flowing and thawed water in a bird bath. Dining here at least: Dark-eyed Juncos (what old timers used to call “snow bird”), White-throated Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, American Goldfinches, House Finches, a few Brown-headed Cowbirds, a Downy Woodpecker, a Song Sparrow, a White-breasted Nuthatch. Periodically the birds make a BIG noisy flush, so I assume a Cooper’s Hawk is dining here, too, though I never saw it. AND, sailing over the ice and snow and birds on the ground, 4.88 grams of Anna’s Hummingbird, reddening up on throat and crown and maybe studying maps for its trip back West.

Audubon's Wilson Spring wetland nature area on Jan. 19, 2011: 185 photos from a 2-mile walk with Mike Mhlodnow

Wilson Spring nature area: Tagging along with one of Northwest Arkansas' most dedicated and talented birders.

Please click on image to ENLARGE and use link above to view more photos of Mike and the scenes along the way.

Joe Neal shares report of NW Arkansas winter-stray hummingbird

I asked Sara Bartlett to share something about her Anna's Hummingbird, including her husband Coy. She sent me this essay with a note that the hummer is still present today. If you have comments for Sara, please write back to her at: caresupport@hughes.net

"Coy is sitting in a darkened room staring out the front window. It’s 7 a.m., time for a farmer to get out to the barn and feed horses and make sure the day starts out right. But coffee cup in hand, he’s waiting.

Our morning routine has been the same since November. It’s now January 18th. “He’s here!” Coy has been sitting quietly for several minutes, it’s late this morning to see our Anna’s hummingbird and every day that we watch, we expect and hope that he will have flown away to start his migration path to join other Anna’s hummingbirds.

How do we have an Anna’s hummingbird feeding at our Fayetteville, Arkansas farm in winter? This bird should be on the west coast, and no hummer should be feeding here in our cold winter weather. We have fed the Ruby- throated hummingbird on our farm for many years, always expecting the birds by April 10 and feeding them through the last straggler around October 10. This year we were traveling in late October and didn’t take two remaining feeders down. There was no hurry and no thought that a stray and off track foreigner would stop in and stay.

I was working in the garden on November 11th. It was late afternoon and I looked up to see a hummingbird feeding on a tiny feeder that still hung above a garden outside our back door. It was thin so I took it for a straggling Ruby-throat needing to find feed. I watched him, worried that he was drinking in old nectar that could make him sick! I ran inside and mixed and boiled 1 cup of nectar, cooling it down immediately by sitting the glass mixing cup in ice water. In 15 minutes I had new, fresh and cooled nectar in that feeder for him. He continued to come in to feed every 10 minutes or so until dusk. That evening I took down that feeder and one that we had on the front porch, cleaned them thoroughly and replaced them with fresh nectar. He was at the back feeder again at dawn November 12th.

I’m newly semi-retired and a little obsessive, so I took notes. We still thought we had a Ruby-throated hummer who needed help getting South. My notes for November 25: “I installed a heat lamp on the hummer’s feeder, it was 32 degrees at 3 p.m. At first he came in to feed for a few seconds then left, feeding every 13-15 minutes. He’s not feeding often enough for this cold, but has gone from a slim bird to a rounded belly so he is gaining weight. At 4:19 bird fed and sat on the perch getting used to the light and heat…”

I had sent an e-mail to Dr. Doug James, ornithologist at the university. He answered on December 2nd and said he would send Joe Neal out to look at the hummer to determine exactly what we had. When Joe came out to photograph our visitor on December 6th, he knew it was NOT a Ruby-throat. We looked at the bird books and it didn’t look like a Rufous hummingbird, the most common hummer seen in Arkansas in the winter. So Joe sent his digital pictures to Bob Sargent, Hummer/Bird Study Group, near Birmingham, Alabama. Joe called later that evening saying, “You’ve got the whopper of all birds there, that is an Anna’s hummingbird, only one of a few sightings in Arkansas – and never in the Ozarks!”

Oh my! That was the beginning of a very interesting winter on the Bartlett farm. Bob and Martha Sargent drove all the way from Alabama on December 10th to trap and band the bird. What a wealth of information Bob has been. It was Bob who reassured me that the Anna’s is different than other hummingbird species and they can withstand cold temperatures down to 0 degrees. And our bird is fat! When banded and weighed, Bob said he should weigh over 3 grams. Our Anna’s weighed 4.88 grams - obviously with daily feeding he has enough fat to survive through our cold winter nights. We have had many guests who have come out to our farm to watch and photograph this beautiful little bird. We even have chairs now placed out in the front yard for our bird watching guests to sit in while they wait for him to feed.

Bob Sargent tells me that if we leave a hummingbird feeder out next Fall it is likely that this same little hummer will make our farm his winter home. As a juvenile male born last Spring in the Northwest (perhaps born in British Columbia or Washington), he got his first migration pattern mixed up and he is likely to think every winter that this is where he belongs. We’ll have to think about this.

With all the interest and excitement from having this rare bird winter with us on our farm, we both are now more interested in bird watching. My Christmas present was a new pair of strong binoculars. Coy is buying more bird seed at the grain store so that we never run out. He is enjoying learning about the woodpeckers, wrens, and waxwings. It’s probable that we’ll leave a hummingbird feeder up again next Fall…

Sara Bartlett
5612 Wheeler Road, Fayetteville, Arkansas (479) 521-3125

January 13, 2010, report from Joe Neal in the field

9 degrees at 9:00 in Siloam Springs. But sunny. But northwest wind – light. I’ve run across a small mixed species sparrow flock on the sunny, south-facing, out of the north wind side of 5 huge chicken houses. There are Savannah Sparrows and White-crowned Sparrows, a few meadowlarks and Starlings, 1 Harris’s Sparrow, plus one American Tree Sparrow, all red-capped, bright and sprightly on our coldest day of the year so far. Like Field Sparrows today, tree sparrows seemed sprinkled among the other flocks, with 1-2 associated with at least 3 flocks dominated by White-crowned Sparrows.

Big fields all have a thin crust of ice and snow. The chicken houses are steaming. Trucks have been driving in and out servicing the chicken houses. There’s short grass, bare ground, spilled chicken feed. That’s where the birds are. Except for Bald Eagles perched up on stout limbs of leafless oaks, and except for 25 Ring-billed Gulls standing on an iced-up pond. Even the harriers are sheltering out of the wind. Of 4 today, two were perched low and protected, on the sunny, south-facing sides of dense thickets.

From Siloam I’m headed for Maysville. In the distance, a big plume from the SWEPCO plant rises from the stack, forms a hammer-headed cloud, drifts south. It’s all the way up to 12 degrees at 1:30 according to folks at the Maysville handi-stop. The old Beatie Prairie here is mostly wide open, so no one will be surprised this trip is mostly in car, heater blowing, window down ONLY when I use the scope. Bald Eagles overhead, adults and immatures, and Bald Eagles everywhere I drive.

The biggest flocks are Savannah Sparrows (100-150 in one flock, plus many smaller flocks) and White-crowned Sparrows (50+ in one flock, plus many other flocks). The two flocks of American Pipits are on the sunny sides of chicken houses or in a dairy feedlot, also protected from the wind. During the day I find 2-3 flocks of Horned Larks, with Lapland Longspurs. The first lark flock also includes a bunch of Savannah Sparrows and at least 8 longspurs. Later, I find another flock, actually a cloud of longspurs, spiraling a harvested bean field, then settling into short, snow-free grass and a big driveway, adjacent chicken houses. I get one count of 85 of them on the ground.

The spot with 8 longspurs is part of the Chastain Cattle Company operation. A friendly, curious Mr Chastain himself drives up, very busy hauling big round bales of hay to his cows. I’ve met him before; we talked eagles then. This time we brave the cold and wind, set up my tripod, and get the spotting scope on Lapland Longspurs, Horned Larks, and Savannah Sparrows enjoying the sunny side of one of his barns. We have good looks; the birds are too busy trying to survive to overly worry about us. But here comes a nosy kestrel, swooping low, driven by hunger like all these birds. The little birds are off with longspur rattles, savannah seeps, and the see-lits, see-lits of larks.

They’ll be back. For wild creatures of the old prairies, there are few alternatives on a deep winter day like this one.

Curator of Bird Records addresses issue of central Arkansas' New Year's Eve 'blackbird rain'

Joe Neal writes:
I’ve been getting calls and email soliciting opinion about blackbirds falling dead from the sky at Beebe on New Year’s Eve—the so-called blackbird rain. I had one email from San Francisco and then a call from Portland (my daughter). This has been kind of upsetting to me because I thought everyone would be interested – or at least I would get some choice hate mail -- concerning my ARBIRD-L post about how ground up Northern Cardinals could cure middle age male paunch syndrome. But, no, it’s all about blackbird rain.

It’s all about blackbird rain even though we had a big twister up here on the same evening that killed three people at Cincinnati in Washington County. Branches bare of leaves are now re-vegetated with chicken-house tin, the tinning of the trees. In past years, Bald Eagles have maintained a winter roost in that area – I assume the twister didn’t do anything good for them, either. But today it’s all blackbird rain.

I was in Ozark Natural Foods and ran into some old friends. Here I am standing in front of an imposing case of 17 species of 100% organic granola, trying to decide which is most likely to restore my youthful vigor without also requiring me to take out a second mortgage on my house. They didn’t wonder if I had already violated any New Year’s resolutions. They wanted to discuss blackbird rain.

Questions directed at me may be because I hold the Very August position of Curator of Bird Records for Arkansas Audubon Society. Surely the person who presides over such an ornithological empire should know blackbird rain. I know just about the same amount as those who put forth the theory about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That is, I know squat. But I do have opinions and I can’t see any reason why I need to have them grounded in fact. Lack of fact doesn’t seem to stop any of the radio politician millionaires who otherwise rule our airwaves, so why should it stop me?

In the space where I live, eerie blackbird rain meets all necessary weirdness criteria. It’s “out there,” in the unknowing sky, an unearthly event, a snug fit in my x-files. There is no readily available explanation unless, as one person suggested, space aliens are testing their new death ray. You can just imagine the aliens scouting planet earth who saw all the New Year’s celebration rockets going off. Then several thousand Red-winged Blackbirds – strangely altered earthlings -- converged on the mother ship. Time to try out the new toy, the death ray.

And then there’s this: The affected creatures may only look like blackbirds. What if they are body doubles of space aliens themselves, ejected by accident – or by design – from the mother ship? I suppose the cause could be as simple as blackbirds accidentally flying into the mother ship, but what would that change? And what the heck were they doing out there anyway, on New Year’s Eve?

In my official role as Curator, I contacted the US Office for Flying Saucer Investigations (FSI). “No comment,” said the FSI spokesperson, dismissively. But then an eerie voice came on the line. “We are on the case!” But which case I wondered? The granola case? The tinning of trees? The blackbirds, whoever they were or are? So many questions, so few facts. 2011 is off to a great start.

Joe Neal

Joe Neal philosophizes on the delicate balance of nature

I receive regular mailings from private organizations and government agencies with lists of rare birds, rare mammals, rare butterflies, rare snails, etc. They are long, fine print columns with common names, Latin binomials, places where the few remaining creatures are still found. These lists contain hundreds and sometimes thousands of names of wild creatures who did nothing to deserve their fate.

Since we are at the start of a new year, let me share an example: the prized redbirds in your yard. As rare and endangered, it could appear on a future list as

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis); small local population remains in West Fork, Washington County, Arkansas.

If you are of a Christian mind, you operate on the assumption that god put redbirds on the earth for good cause – even if we can’t always discern the reason – and that we still have redbirds because Noah saw fit to bring them two-by-two into his ark, prior to the great flood. On the other hand, if you are more of a scientific turn of mind with or without religion, you might assume that as creatures on the earth evolved, one of them, our prized redbird, took on very bright colors to attract mates and a very strong bill so that it could crack open hard seeds.

I couldn’t care less myself how anyone chooses to believe the origins of redbirds. What does matter is that they are here and we enjoy them in our yard. Grandma in her wheelchair gets a LOT of pleasure out of seeing her redbirds at the feeder. And unless you are too busy to pay attention, there is no song in the world lovelier than that of a redbird in spring and summer. It defines what it means to live in Arkansas.

Is it even remotely possible that our redbirds could become rare? The same question could have been asked about the now extinct Passenger Pigeon, when in 1800 they existed in the United States of America in the multiple billions. Now there are none. They survived Noah’s flood but they did not survive rapacious, stupid, blind persecution by another species with the collective miasma they have a “right” to use and destroy anything.

So, rare redbirds? Someone, somewhere, may discover ground up redbirds cure male pattern baldness, remove wrinkles in middle-aged women; redbirds well ground up and mixed with mushrooms bring back from the dead, Lazarus-like, cherished relatives; turn gray hair black? You don’t think our nation would be filled, coast to coast, with a heu and cry about the “right” to kill all cardinals for the sake of effortlessly erasing that big male paunch, restoring lost youth?

I hope you are laughing now, because that’s the best way to greet this dawn of this new year. Laughing, and also thinking. Happy New Year.

Barred owl goes to work at 5 p.m. on December 29, 2010, at World Peace Wetland Prairie

Please click on link to ENLARGE view of barred owl hunting from hackberry limb over World Peace Wetland Prairie at 5 p.m. December 29, 2010.

Buckeye butterfly on Liatris on September 19, 2010, at World Peace Wetland Prairie

Please click on image to ENLARGE view.

Immature male cardinal eating ambrosia seeds on September 16, 2010

Please click on individiual images to ENLARGE.
September and October are feasting months for locally fledged birds as well as the hoards of migrating birds that find Ambrosia trifida a special native treat in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The importance of allowing native plants to go to seed and remain standing as "feeders with legs" cannot be overemphasized.

Official local Christmas bird count results from Joe Neal

Please click on image to ENLARGE text for easy reading

Joe Neal recounts news from annual Christmas bird count

It’s fun to walk around in the cold dark. We started Fayetteville’s CBC day, December 19, for owls. I had 18 layers, including 3 coats, and the 4 of us, all suited up, looked 2X our size and could have been penguins. We got the expected owls, then heard a sharp call in the dark that sounded like someone had stepped on a cat's tail. Was that a Long-eared Owl??? I stayed warm, but by mid-morning, with sun, I felt like I was wearing, or maybe cooking in, a crock pot. But, hey, it's the second half of December and who is complaining??? 
 
And:
--Despite some last minute scrambling to get parties into our traditional sectors;
--Despite some unexpected stress & illness;
--Despite remarkably mild, warm, sunny, calm weather that makes it a joy to be outdoors, BUT can really put the proverbial chill on a CBC;
--Despite missing species we expect or least sometimes "get": bobwhite, cormorant, Horned Lark, etc;
--Despite needing to arrange things so someone else plays with the kids while mom goes birding--
 
We still crossed the magic 100 species threshhold; 102 it looks like this morning. Possibly a few Count Weeks birds more to come. This is a Great Result for our count. Thanks to Doug James and Elizabeth Adam for allowing us to use their home again for the tally.
 
Big stars of the day: Anna's Hummingbird still coming to the feeder at the home of Sara and Coy Bartlett; a very yellow Palm Warbler that Mike Mlodinow has been seeing since November; a female Red-breasted Merganser tallied by Joanie Patterson's group; a Grasshopper Sparrow seen by Andrew Scaboo and Brandon Schmidt and amazingly photographed by Andy; a fine, black-necked, unmistakable Eared Grebe tallied at Lake Fayetteville, and 3 Greater White-fronted Geese, happily for us, mixed with Canadas.
 
More big stars: all of you public-spirited folks who gave a long day to record and formally document the many earth treasures in our neck of the Ozarks. Thanks for the generosity, wit, intelligence, skill. 
 
So we had a great day with relatively balmy weather, providing no support for the oft-stated hypothesis "good weather equals bad birds" or "bad weather equals good birds." If my math is correct, next year we celebrate the 50th local count, which dates to 1961. We should maybe consider a big party, since 102 (+?) species will be hard to beat.
 

Jim Bemis speaks at Telecom Board meeting on December 16, 2010

GOVERNMENT CHANNEL SCHEDULE published Friday, December 17, 2010, the day following Telecom Board meeting, does not include Telecom Board meeting video to be run during week of 12/17/2010 through 12/12/2010. Bemis' comments, therefore, will not be shown on Cox Cable or AT&T U-verse until long after the Fayetteville City Council meeting at which the CAT contract will be voted on Tuesday, December 21, 2010.
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Joe Neal hunting waterfowl without a gun!

Andrew Scaboo’s posting about male & female sawbills (Common Merganser) at Bob Kidd Lake near Prairie Grove got me out yesterday. He saw them in the open by the dam. The female was hidden in the shoreline lotus. She flushed suddenly, but didn’t fly. She swam, mostly underwater, across the lake and perched and preened behind a bunch of snags, along the far shoreline. Despite watching her for an hour, I never saw him. I had the impression that her left wing was injured, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Other divers: Ring-necked Duck (14), Lesser Scaup (4), Common Goldeneye (1), Ruddy Duck (17). At one point the goldeneye male swam right past our sawbill. Quite a contrast in color, shape, bill function, and life strategy. Also, one juvenile Bald Eagle.

Powerful cold is great for birding here because smaller bodies of water freeze, concentrating birds, so off I went to Lake Sequoyah. It was only half frozen and unfrozen water was waterfowl. There was constant, pleasant yacking by female Mallards, some standing and walking on ice. I got 10 duck species, with the highest numbers of Mallards and Gadwalls (combined, 300+), but I also saw a high number (74) for another sawbill species, immaculate female and male Hooded Mergansers. Also a big surprise: 3 male Wood Ducks, common through the fall, but not after such weather.

The main part of Lake Fayetteville was open. I saw an immaculate Eared Grebe -- black-looking, with white contrasts even on a heavily overcast day, and an amazingly blood red eye.

World Peace Wetland Prairie was once approved to be an apartment complex but Town Branch Neighborhood gathered friends to make it a city nature park

World Peace Wetland Prairie's Earth Day 2010 celebration video

Anna's hummingbird is the star of Joe Neal's Christmas story

Joe Neal writes:
Out of the blue, out of the Far Western Ether, a star is born, a few ounces of feathered reality finds a feeder at a farm near Fayetteville: Anna’s Hummingbird. The world of the western Ozarks in Arkansas has never seen anything like it. Those of us with an interest in such undertake the journey, from afar if necessary, not on camels exactly, but we hear the message, we can’t resist the pull of celestial gravity.

Sara Cain-Bartlett has made her front porch available to both the bird and to visiting birders. Bob and Martha Sargent traveled from afar (Alabama) to band it and to document it in the way of scientists. Observers and photographers have turned the Bartlett front yard into a sacred space. We hope for it on the Fayetteville Christmas Bird Count on December 19.

As curator of bird records for Arkansas Audubon Society, I can tell you in a quantitative way that this bird represents one of a very few records for the whole great Natural State. Despite all the feeders, despite ardent bird watchers, despite the presence in Fayetteville of the Natural State’s greatest institution of higher learnin’, this is the first Anna’s in “these here (Ozark) parts”. So does this mean the world is warming? Does it mean Anna’s has lost its way? Does it mean we have more feeders? Does it mean that despite thinking we know EVERYTHING that needs to be known, we don’t? Maybe there’s still this one thing, a few ounces of feathers and a few thousand miles of travel, that we just don’t know the WHY of?

And, can it survive winter in the Ozarks? Those of you who are connoisseurs of the arcane may appreciate that the same Ozarks now hosting Anna’s in December has also hosted winter Say’s Phoebe, another westerner. One bird has returned three years to a farm in Boone County! We saw one in February during a Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society field trip. On 7 January 2010, I photographed Say’s Phoebe as it foraged alongside a chicken house in the middle of an ice storm. This Anna’s Hummingbird, too, may benefit from the near presence of cover, poultry houses, farm animals, and a welcoming family, not to mention a heat lamp!

As I was taught as a child, the original Christmas story extolled the virtue of hope and possibility in a world where even a pregnant young woman was denied room at the inn. Instead, she gave birth in a manger. Sara could have blocked all of us from coming to her home to see her hummingbird, but didn’t. Bob could have refused to evaluate pictures or to band the bird – but didn’t. Birdwise, it is a season of generosity.

It’s a hopeful sign, when just as we think we know it all, out of the Far West –and straight out of the heart of quantitative improbability -- comes Anna’s Hummingbird. A young male, he’s a creature with star power, on a farm, in a small community, in Arkansas. Birdwise at least, it’s a hopeful season.

Bird sightings in Arkansas for past decade or so

Taxonomic list

Buy a federal duck stamp to provide habitat for waterfowl and many other species all over the continent

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Hunting season dates in Arkansas

December meeting of Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Note on tomorrow and Sunday FREE activities for bird enthusiasts from Joe Neal

On Sat, Dec. 4, I am presenting a program at Shiloh Museum starting 11 AM on local birds & my new book. On Sunday, Dec. 5, there is an NWAAS meeting at Nightbird Books starting 6 PM, free & open to the public, with a program on coastal Louisiana presented by Joanie Patterson.

Joe Neal birding report from December 2, 2010

The great virtue of Maysville is that it is as far north and as far west as you can get in Arkansas. Any further north, welcome to Missouri. Any further west, welcome to Oklahoma. Not far to Kansas. When in the 1830s Cherokees were forced west, Maysville was Tallgrass Prairie, a short hop from the Great Plains. Elements of that past remain: decaying pioneer era farm houses (“little houses on the prairie”) and along fencerows and highways, poignant reminders like Big Bluestem grass and Sawtooth Sunflowers.

Some of that old prairie has been turned into soybeans. Harvested fields yesterday were packed with Lapland Longspurs, American Pipits, and Horned Larks, about in that order. I was out of the car watching a dark chocolate colored red-tail (4 for the day) when a cloud of rattling and tewing longspurs sailed over and claimed a harvested bean field. Counting longspurs like this is like counting starlings. I settled on 325, then 325-400, then after 30 minutes of trying, realized I was out of my league. I saw pipits and larks, too, but when I got my scope on the flock it was almost pure, busy longspurs. Sometimes one longspur would perch briefly on a tall bean stalk – a first for me. A quarter mile north, same thing: I counted 415 longspurs on the ground, part of a continuously moving flock.

I’m pleased to report the Maysville Handi-stop has reopened, very good news indeed, because I was ready for a break! To the north, along Wet Prairie Road, at least 43 meadowlarks flew over, including 2-3 Westerns, which were singing and chucking in the warm afternoon sun.

It was a blue sky day with wispy cloud strings and the clouds turned pink at sunset. I was in the going home traffic, but my mind was around Maysville. We live with the conceit that winter longspurs and meadowlarks are some sort of fancy ornaments or oddities in northwest Arkansas. But this is only because we assign to ourselves primary rights to the land. I’m headed to my house and heater, they are out there now, on and of the land, as night comes.

Audubon Arkansas open house coming up December 10, 2010

Wishing You Happy Holidays!!!

Please Join Us

Friday, December 10, 2010

From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at
34 East Center Street
Fayetteville, Arkansas
 
For the
Audubon ArkansasHoliday Open House
 
The staff and board of Audubon Arkansas invite you to join us for food, refreshments, conversation and conservation. Spouses, children, and friends welcome.
Please RSVP to mviney@audubon.org

maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=34+East+Center+Street,+Fayetteville,+AR,+72701&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.374125,70.400391&ie=UTF8&z=16&g=34+East+Center+Street,+Fayetteville,+AR,+72701&iwloc=addrmaps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=34+East+Center+Street,+Fayetteville,+AR,+72701&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.374125,70.400391&ie=UTF8&z=16&g=34+East+Center+Street,+Fayetteville,+AR,+72701&iwloc=addr

Joe Neal and the loons of Lake Tenkiller

• fun with loons‏
• Opening Day for Loon Season in Arkansas caught me unprepared. Loon Opening, often early-to-mid-October, found me with a dusty spotting scope buried deep in the closet. Loons are scope work, but with one quick shirttail wipe and my trusty black Sharpie to X out all previously agreed-to appointments written on my calendar, I was ready to go forth and screw my good right eye to the 30 power eyepiece. For sure I was late for season opening, but fear not! 

Now it’s ALL about cold wind, big water, objects seen and unseen and imagined, near and far, about the possibility that the Far North –or maybe it was early Santa and his reindeer -- has delivered unto us some very cool freight in the form of rare birds.

2 November at Slate Gap on north side of Beaver Lake: 2 Common Loons

11 November at Lost Bridge North and South on Beaver Lake: 5 Common Loons

18 November at Indian Creek on Beaver Lake: 17 Common Loons

20 November at Lake Fayetteville on NWA Audubon Society field trip: 1 Common Loon

22 November at Bob Kidd Lake: 1 Common Loon

For looners, or maybe I should say loonies, in northwestern Arkansas, Tenkiller Lake is a necessary evil of driving and carbon emission. Tenkiller, after all, is one stop shopping for four loon species. Jacque Brown and I made a Saturday pilgrimage, the Day After Black Friday. We got two loon species: at least 65 Common Loons and 3 Pacific Loons. Off and on during the day I was sure we had ‘em all.

For me it’s just axiomatic that with eyeball screwed to eyepiece and brain in loon over-drive, what comes upon me is a vision of almost religious certainty that the pale loon with the big upturned bill is a Yellow-billed. That is, the further away loons are – and they can get VERY far on a big lake-- the more likely I am to turn what’s common into minor miracle. Funny how the closer we get, the more we find the wide range of Common Loon ages and plumages, which is just what you’d expect if the brain’s rational side was engaged. But if it was engaged, why would you even be looking to begin with? Etc.

After all the driving and all the scope work, I’m just plain nutty. Isn’t all this pretty extreme? Edgy? Here it’s Black Friday Weekend, just a day or two before Cyber Monday, and what am I doing? Why, I’m out having fun with loons! They’ve flown a long ways to get here, out of the ice and snow, and I’ve driven long to get away, far away, reasonably and even unreasonably, from Black Friday Weekend, not to mention to upcoming Cyber Monday. 

‘Tis the season, after all, to buy-buy-buy. But all the holiday hubbub ‘mongst the superior species is not evident in a big loon raft. I don’t hear a single Christmas jingle, but loons are yodeling and barking in warm afternoon sun. Myself, I’m thinking new scope, if only in my dreams. I’m wondering if ole Saint Nick has heard about the new enviro-smily HD glass? And way, way out there, near the far shore, isn’t that a Red-throated?

Cox Cable changes of interest to viewers of Fayetteville's public channels

Lake Fayetteville site of November 20, 2010, Audubon outing, reports Joe Neal: Outing list for 2011 available on Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society's Web site at link below.

Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society will host a field trip to Lake Fayetteville tomorrow (Saturday) starting 9 AM, with a meet-up in the parking lot on the north end of the dam. Hopefully, the cold front added waterfowl and nice weather will make it comfortable to see them.
>
> NWAAS has a field trip schedule for 2011. Our webmaster, Richard Stauffacher now has it available on the NWAAS web page. Once you get there look for the 2011 trips toward the bottom of this page: http://www.nwarkaudubon.org/id4.html

2011 FIELD TRIPS

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS AUDUBON SOCIETY

All NWAAS field trips are free and open to the public. Membership in NWAAS is not a requirement. We try to make our field trips accessible to everyone, all ages & all abilities. Additional details & updates about trips are sent via email a few weeks before the announced date. We try to have field trips on Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate different schedules. For maps and more information about these places, check the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society web site

http://www.nwarkaudubon.org/index.html and the section “Places to bird in northwest Arkansas.”

January 22, 2010 (Saturday). Rocky Branch on Beaver Lake and Hobbes State Park-Conservation Area. Meet at 9 AM at Hobbes SP for a caravan down to Rocky Branch (5 miles). We will be looking for all kinds of water birds. We will return to the park by noon (bring your lunch if you are staying). We will bird in the upland shortleaf pines in the area near the park visitor’s center. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/1439095.pdf

February 19, 2011 (Saturday evening). American Woodcock field trip to Wedington Wildlife Management Area (Ozark NF west of Fayetteville). Field trip led by woodcock expert David Krementz. Meeting time: 5:30 PM at Wedington WMA. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/977213.pdf

March 26, 2011 (Saturday). Trip to mature shortleaf pine habitat in the Shores Lake area of Ozark National Forest. Leader is Bill Beall, veteran birder from Ft Smith (and now the NWAAS Treasurer). We will be seeking Brown-headed Nuthatches and other birds typical of pine forests. Meet at 9 AM at the Shores Lake picnic area entrance on the west side of the lake. You can show up earlier if you wish! http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/1439038.pdf

April 17, 2011 (Sunday). Woolsey Wet Prairie and Wilson Springs. Meet at 8 AM in the parking area near the front gates of the wastewater treatment plant. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/1320803.pdf

May 6 & 7, 2011 (Friday and Saturday). Birder’s Weekend at Devil’s Den State Park. The field trip will be on Saturday May 6; meet at Lee Creek bridge parking area in the park at 9 AM. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/950081.pdf

May 13 & 14, 2011 (Saturday and Sunday). International Migratory Bird Day in Benton and Washington counties, with additional counts in at least Carroll County. Coordinated by Mike Mlodinow for Washington and Benton counties.

June 5, 2011 (Sunday). Cave Mountain and the upper Buffalo River in Newton County. Meet at the Boxley Bridge at 8 AM.

July 10, 2011 (Sunday). Chesney Prairie Natural Area. Meet at Chesney at 8 AM.  http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/957092.pdf

August 13, 2011 (Saturday). Craig State Fish Hatchery at Centerton. Meet in the parking lot at the hatchery at 8 AM. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/950078.pdf

September 11, 2011 (Sunday). Lake Atalanta in Rogers. Meet at 9 AM in the parking area near the bathrooms. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/950077.pdf

October 1, 2011 (Saturday). Ninestone Land Trust in Carroll County. Meet at 9 AM at Ninestone. http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/1287399.pdf

November 20, 2011 (Sunday). Lake Fayetteville. Meet at 9 AM in parking lot on the north end of the dam (near ball fields and entrance to the boat dock). http://media.tripod.lycos.com/2020453/957091.pdf

December 2011. Fayetteville Christmas Bird Count. (Date to be announced.)

Robinville, by Joe Neal, November 17, 2010

Robinville‏

9:00 PM
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joe neal
To ARBIRD list discussion:
Today and for the past few weeks, robins have been our stars for sure. They have so completely occupied Fayetteville that we must change the signs: “Fayetteville, pop. 68,000” to “Robinville, pop. 6 million.” Counting robins in cedar thickets, amur honeysuckle fields, all across the trees and bushes of neighborhoods and parks – I guess it would be like counting stars in the universe. There’s a roost north of Fayetteville; maybe somebody will count them. It could be a career.

Today busy flocks I’ve been seeing and hearing at Lake Fayetteville and along the Scull Creek bike trail had full run of my yard. Robins were vigorously billing aside fall leaves for tasty bits below even in a cool light rain. Robins with swooping flights and sudden twists and turns among limbs and between bushes. Robins in twos in hard tight chases like spring. Flocks overhead in 12s and 20s. Robins in trees, colorful and animated on limbs now bare of leaves.

I’m no musician but that didn’t keep me from trying to compose what I was hearing: bek bek bek bek, gee g g g g geek! Cheery-up cheery-up, wah wah wah, ber ber, che-chet! Robinville is a mobile, seemingly limitless communal soundscape. A fine male perches up close. His is a big dark eye framed by two clean white crescents, set into a black head and an artistic throat of wavy dark and light streaks, like life itself. The “red” breast is fall orange, a harvest orange. I can see his bill opening and closing, so I assume he is singing or I suppose he could be lip synching… Cheery! Cheery! Bick bick bick…

The singing and calling happily obscures College Avenue rush hour in pre-Robinville Fayetteville. But suddenly, silence falls upon the living earth of birds and deadly rush hour resumes it dominance. Why the silence? I’m thinking it’s the little Big Bang. I can see these robins exploding out from a distant spot; maybe not 14 billion light years back as with the big Big Bang, but at least in my neighbor’s yard and out of my sight. Robinville’s Silencer must lurk in the far distant vast thicket, probably Cooper’s Hawk.

But Robinville returns to business-as-usual in 5. Singing and calling, chasing, gobbling down bright red amur honeysuckle berries – that’s the main business today in Robinville.

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Cox Cable pulls surprise on city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, with plan to move public-access, government channel and educational channel to EXPENSIVE digital tier of channels: So much for open government when thousands of people will not be able to afford access to the public channels

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Cox Cable advertisement in recent issue of The Northwest Arkansas Times.

For several years I have been able to turn away phone and online salesmen wanting me to take the satellite systems and later the Uverse TV system of AT&T. But now Cox has set up a situation that will require me to drop their service and take the Uverse, which will automatically cut my cost because I have AT&T phone service already. Cox has one thing the others don't have: The local public stations at minimal cost. This is the time for the city administration to begin negotiating with COX. This is a draconian measure that will hurt COX in the long run.

Joe Neal's November 7, 2010, report from dawn birding to Lake Fayetteville

It’s on the frosty side this morning at Lake Fayetteville. I see coots and a few grebes, and Canada Geese I can’t see. Wind-wise it’s calm, and for Fayetteville-Springdale, quiet. I hear YA HONK YA HONK, punctuated by a deep, booming, resonating base: basso profondo. That voice resonates the whole world, at least the part I can see & hear. I forget how cold my hands are. Basso is the first chair bass goose in a great choir.

Just behind me and all around the Environmental Study Center are robins: 10 acres (maybe more) of caroling, chuckling, and some singing. They’re in honey suckle bushes plucking red berries, chugging down hackberries from up in trees. In bunches of 5-6 and 10, they perch and vocalize away, maybe like me, waiting for sun-up. There is welcome light above the trees by 8:00, and more robins flying in from the blue north in dozens, all silver underneath, reflecting new sun.

Usually I don’t have trouble feeling glad to be alive, but I have my times and don’t we all? This morning there is basso profondo and Turdus migratorius as reminders, if nothing else. But I’m not done.

I heard soft WHO WHOs of a female Great Horned Owl when I first arrived. Now I hear raucous CAWs of 5 excited American Crows, coming from the same area. All the cawing tells me they found ‘em an owl. Little better defines our crows than owl parties. The resulting uproars add charm to the landscape. Mall and freeway may not be far away, but it remains a wild place with an owl and a pack of hyper excited crows.

Beyond geese, robins, and an owl-crow event lay brushy old fields. In the bright fall sunlight, Fox Sparrows sing the morning: sure cheer CHEER WEE WEE cheerEE. Then, from thickets, when I try to move in for a close look, CHOCK CHOCK.

This afternoon there is a memorial for my old friend, Eleanor Johnson, who passed at 99. I knew her for 40 years. Among many good causes she supported was Arkansas Audubon Society. Her motto was, “One person’s problem is every person’s problem.” She walked the walk. I think the singing this morning is for her, and her kind, who notice the world is a complex place, and leave it a little better than they found it.   

Fran Deane Alexander says native plants important part of protection of Beaver Lake and Illinois River watersheds from pollution and for abatement of flooding of downstream property