Askew Wildlife Management Area, MS, 6/12/2010

In the second of three trips to Mississippi for the Legacy Cerulean Warbler Project, I visited this apparently new wildlife area about 25 miles southeast of Tunica.  Sam wanted to go on one of these and I figured this one, which was a single site unlike my other two weekends, was the best choice.  We drove over Friday evening and started early Saturday morning.

We got started at 7 AM in the southwestern corner of the area.  I was lucky in that I came across two Cerulean Warbler within 5 minutes of leaving the car at my first stop.  First a female flew across the unimproved road I was walking, not 25 feet in front of me, and landed in a bush. Then a male followed her. Before I could react, they both flew away but not before I got good enough looks to eliminate everything else.  I continued on and came back to the spot twice more but did not see them again.  Besides this place, we drove along every sufficiently defined road in the area seeing 45 other species but no more Cerulean Warbler or other exotics.  I did find a small Great Blue Heron heronry with at least six nests.

After crisscrossing the area, stopping often to play the Cerulean Warbler song and listening for a response we called it a day and headed home.

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