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Bill Shepherd & Dan Scheiman first spotted the rare (for Arkansas) Vermillion Flycatcher at Stuttgart Municipal Airport on Friday the 9th. I got a call from Dottie that night telling me that she, Doris, and Karen were heading there Saturday morning and were saving a spot for me and Sam. So we bundled up and headed out. We arrived at the airport at 8:15 and went to the location Dan provided. Lots of White-crowned Sparrows, thousands of Snow Geese, a few Ross’s Geese, aand assortment of other birds but no easy to spot flycatcher. So we walked around in the 30+ degree but thankfully no wind weather. For two hours. Then at 10:30, when he deemed it warm enough to look for insects, the flycatcher arrived. Flitting from tree to rice stubble to bush, he stayed there the entire rest of the time we were there. I had seen one out west about 25 years ago but not since and not in Arkansas. It was a life bird for Sam and several others.

 

 

I went to Cook’s Landing Saturday morning hoping for birds and pictures.  I checked out the dam but settled on the service road due a large number of people.  There were about a hundred Ring-billed Gull at the dam but nothing more interesting.  On the service road, I saw a FOS Fox Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, White-throated Sparrow, House Finch, Song Sparrow, and one Fish Crow. I keep thinking, “that’s the last butterfly or dragonfly of the season” and was  surprised to find a single Double-striped Dancer.

Later, about 3PM, I went to the Lake Maumelle spillway and walked the trail there. I saw a number of Bufflehead coming into the sheltered area perhaps for the evening, several Black Vultures, one Pine Warbler.

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