Good snow days are not common in Central Arkansas. Many is the winter where we get one snow the entire winter. Then it melts quickly. However, on Saturday the 5th of February we had the best of all worlds. A moderate snowfall, but the roads were clear, and then on a Saturday the sky was mostly clear. So I packed up the camera and went to Two Rivers Park to see what I could shoot. I think we got about two inches and it was mostly gone by the next day but I was able to walk around perhaps the only person in the park. I hope you enjoy these.
Lonoke & Holla Bend CBCs 1/2/11 & 1/5/11
I decided to do more CBCs this year in attempt to finish out the year with a bang. As it turned out, several of those that I might have been interested in were on week days and I was busy at work and two of three I wound up doing were in January so I started with a bang rather than finish with one. On Sunday, I joined Bill Holliman and others for Lonoke. It started out cold but sunny with little wind. We didn’t come across anything unusual but by the end of the day we had about 66 species.
Three days later, I joined Dan Scheiman and others for the Holla Bend NWR CBC. It was another cold and sunny but wind free day, We had the area around the observation tower and including “County Loop Rd” in New Neely where Bewick’s Wren and Harris Sparrow’s can be found. We did in fact find those species and 66 more including a good look at two Barred Owls who were as surprised as we were.
Barnacle Goose refound 12/31/2010
Earlier in the week, Kenny Nichols spotted a single Barnacle Goose while on the Pine Bluff CBC, The next day, the coordinator, Robert Dorster, relocated the bird. It was three days later before I could go but Sam and I followed Robert’s excellent directions to a spot off of highway 79. There we found a flock of mixed Snow, Ross’s, and Greater White-fronted Geese. I stopped at every dark neck with a white head to see if it had the requisite dark cap, so that the white was a mask on an otherwise dark neck and head, with a dark bill. When they all spooked, I started over when they landed. After 40 minutes of panning the scope, checking every dark phase goose out there we spotted the one with the right field marks.
