What a great place it was. Located in a bend in the Arkansas River, the refuge contains a wealth of habitats including bottomland forest, agricultural, second-growth, and ponds. So as a result, you can imagine that bird diversity would be quite high, particularly in spring. I had 95 species in about 4 1/2 hours of birding, which made for a dang good morning of birding! Breeders were mostly back here, with Kentucky Warblers stealing the show- there were so many of them singing in bottomland areas that I just couldn't get away from them! Transient species were coming through as well, with Nashville Warblers being numerous and Tennessee Warblers here and there as well. I left here around 10:30 or so and decided to visit Mount Magazine State Park, which is about an hour or so west of the refuge. Mount Magazine State Park is home to the highest point in Arkansas, Signal Hill at 2753 feet, as well as an isolated population of Rufous-crowned Sparrows that make their living in the arid, rocky slopes above the bluffs. The wind was killer during my visit, and the sparrows didn't show for me. But was a great place to visit nevertheless, and they have some cabins at the top which would make for a nice weekend getaway.
View from Overlook Dr. at Mount Magazine State Park (note the people on top of the bluffs for scale)
I picked up I-40 again in Fort Smith, where I picked up my state Missisippi Kite before crossing the border into Oklahoma. It wasn't long before I had a run-in with an Oklahoma state trooper, who wasn't a fan of my "I'd rather be birding" license plate frame. Actually, he didn't care what it said- just that it covered up too much of my license plate. He was nice about it and was interested in my work, and simply asked me to remove the frame before being on his way. I then stopped at nearby Sequoyah NWR where Blue-winged Teal seemingly blanketed every wetland. The wind was high, and it was mid-afternoon so songbirds weren't really all that obvious. A couple of photogenic Scissor-tailed Flycatchers entertained me for a while though, and some of the taller trees in riparian areas were hosting some vocalizing Warbling Vireos and Great Crested Flycatchers. A Cooper's Hawk made a quick buzz-by too.
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in a swarm of gnats
One of hundreds of Blue-winged Teal present in the wetlands of Sequoyah NWR
From here, heading west on I-40 through one Indian Nation after another, I passed through Carrie Underwood's hometown of Checotah, OK and turned south to Lake Eufala State Park. I was hoping for a good selection of passerines here but with the wind still whipping and it being so late in the day, I didn't find much. I was excited about birding some areas around Oklahoma City the following morning and dozed off into a deep slumber as soon as I parked at the next rest area off I-40.
I was planning on birding Lake Overholser in Oklahoma City the next morning, and I arrived before dawn. But as soon as it starts to get light and the first robins and mockingbirds start to sing the skies just open up as if an act of God. Lightning constantly surrounding, and a torrential downpour- needless to say, i wasn't going to be finding any songbirds in this. What i did however, was bird my way around the lake while scanning and scoping from the car. A wet scope and binoculars was a small price to pay for the thousands of ducks, gulls, and shorebirds I found along the North side of the lake! Good shorebird diversity considering the conditions, with Least, Semipalmated, Western, Bairds, and Pectoral sandpipers along with a couple spotties. Around a hundred American Avocets were a treat. A big flock of roosting Snowy Egrets, a flock of Franklin's Gulls numbering in the thousands, and a scattered raft of a variety of waterfowl rounded out the highlights from here. I was cutting through on a nearby gravel county road when I spied a small flock of Harris's Sparrows playing along the fenceline. This is a bird that I don't get a chance to see very often, as I am seldom in their range, so I had fun watching and photographing these guys for a few minutes in the rain.
Harris's Sparrow (Oklahoma City, OK). Unfortunately, my camera doesn't do so well in the rain at 1600 ISO.
It was then that I decided to get off the interstate for the rest of the day and cut up through rural OK and the panhandle so that I could see some new country and do some panhandle birding around Black Mesa, the summit of which highest point in Oklahoma at 4,973 feet. It is around Black Mesa that a number of western mountain birds inhabit their only location within Oklahoma.
Driving for hours through central and western Oklahoma, I thought it fitting to listen to classical country radio with Johnny Cash playing as I pass through the scattered small cattle and farm town. The panhandle of Oklahoma is generally a whole lot of nothing. In fact, it is nicknamed "No Man's Land" since it was one of the last places to be homesteaded and settled during westward expansion. I made it to Boise City in relatively good time, although it didn't quite seem that way as I was driving along desolate highways that went 20 miles without a curve. Boise City is 22 miles southeast of Black Mesa State Park and the closest town to the park. When I arrived here, I stopped by the water treatment plant holding ponds where a few ducks and Wilson's Phalropes were piddling as well as a single Bonaparte's Gull. The town cemetary is an oasis of a few big trees in the middle of open space, and thus has potential to hold a few migrant songbirds. Here I found a handful of Yellow-rumped Warblers as well as an Orange-crowned Warbler and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher among the House Finches and random group of House Sparrows.
Decrepit interpretive sign at a roadside picnic table along rural US270 in the OK panhandle
As I drive west from town, I began to climb ever so slightly and see less agricultural fields and more yucca, sage, and high prairie. Not surprisingly, the birdlife began to change as well. Loggerhead Shrikes became regular fixtures on telephone lines, and a kestrel would grace me with it's presence every few miles. A beautiful light phase Ferruginous Hawk perched on a power pole signaled that I was getting into the sort of habitat I was looking for. When I arrived in the park, I first went to the campground which is along a lush riparian corridor adjoining Lake Carl Etling. Canyons and bluffs, grassy with scattered brush, border the campground on its other sides. The campground area was very birdy, with a big flock of harlequin Lark Sparrows feeding in a lawn and a huge flock of noisy finches feeding in the area as well. They were mostly House Finches (at least one or two yellow variants) and American Goldfinches, but a handful of Lesser Goldfinches were sprinkled in as well. Other southwestern species present here were Vermillion Flycatcher, Say's Phoebe, and Ash-throated Flycatcher. Lake Carl Etling was equally full of birds- scattered waterfowl and grebes, a flock of White-faced Ibis roosting in the lake, Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbirds feeding in the mud, and a nice group of shorebirds containing some Western Willets.
Afterwards, I went up to the actual Black Mesa (NW of the state park) Nature Reserve, passing by the booming metropolis of Kenton- home to a one-room museum, a somehow-still-standing one room post office, and a few houses. Birds were quiet at Black Mesa, with a Canyon Wren and Golden Eagle being of the highest interest. It was late afternoon now and I needed to get on into Colorado, for I needed to be all the way up in Fort Collins around midday the next day. Looking at Google Maps, it appeared that caddy-cornering New Mexico along State Road 456 and cutting up to Branson Colorado would be quickest and easiest. Instead, that road turned out to be 17 miles of driving along a wet-in-places red dirt road down an entire canyon, and another 30 miles or so of paved nothingness. In 48 miles of driving, I saw exactly one other vehicle on the road. The clouds were ominous, and I was concerned that it would start raining and my little Corolla would become mired in the clay. I got lucky though, and eventually made it into Colorado. Branson seems like a renmant Dust Bowl community in the middle of absolutely nowhere (not sure how many people still actually live here)- it was another 45-50 miles to Trinidad from there. The next morning, I birded a couple spots around the south end of Colorado Springs before heading onto Fort Collins to begin another few months of work for RMBO. Here's to more birds and more adventures.
Sounds like a big time!!
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