Karen Holliday and I birded this area near the Arkansas River between Conway and Mayflower Friday morning. The conditions were cool, windy, and mostly cloudy. Our target birds were Bobolink, Grasshopper Sparrow, and migrating shorebirds. We weren’t disappointed.
We found about 30 Bobolinks in the fields southeast of the intersection of Lollie Road and Donnell Ridge Road. None let us get close but many hung around the road easy to see. Further, in the fields on the river side of the road at the points where they are building a new road that connects to Lollie Road in two places we found four Grasshopper Sparrow. One was amenable to having his picture taken.
Not far after that we came up to a series of flooded fields which was temporary home to Black-bellied Plover, Spotted Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Dunlin, Stilt Sandpiper, Wilson’s Phalarope, and a Peregrine Falcon. There were no great numbers of anything except Dickcissel and Red-winged Blackbird but we were able to see a good variety of shorebirds.
Here are some of the best pictures from the day:
Grasshopper Sparrow.
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8050
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8047
Dickcissel, a little bird that gets no respect but who I think is pretty.
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8041
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8044
Spotted Sandpiper
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8038
Pectoral Sandpiper
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8035
Wilson’s Phalarope and Lesser Yellowlegs. I especially like 8029, it looks like they are practicing a dance number with the Phalarope as the star.
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8032
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8029
Lesser Yellowlegs
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8026
Peregrine Falcon
https://jamesdixon.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=8023
