Date: 4/17/25 12:06 pm From: Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> Subject: Brilliant surprises on a strong south wind
This morning’s weather prediction wasn’t all that promising. Supposed to be a major, big wind day. So I thought I might just settle down at home and look at a couple of recent publications. For example:
Cover of Spring 2025 issue of Cornell Lab’s “Living Bird” is an in-flight image of Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk, the big, often very black, excitement that has been source of many adventures into former Beaty Prairie at Maysville in western Benton County. A winter visitor from afar – think Alaska.
Inside the magazine: an article exploring the numerous RTHA subspecies, including ones we typically see in Arkansas in winter. I was about to settle down with that article, but before, decided to check the revised RTHA account in Cornell’s Birds of the World by C. R. Preston and R. D. Beane (published October 2024).
Lead author Charles Preston came to UA-Fayetteville on a baseball scholarship, then decided he preferred biology. Finished a PhD working with our own Doug James and went on to quite a distinguished career. Retired now to a place deep in the Boston Mountains south of Fayetteville.
I was about to starting reading … wind was shaking the windows … swaying trees with their fresh new green leaves. Then from the world of the cell phone: a message buzz … Kenny Younger had already been out in spring migration. He discovered a Black-bellied Whistling-Duck on a farm pond in Fayetteville. Loosely associated with Blue-winged Teals and Northern Shovelers. And several other shorebird species (Solitary, etc).
You never know what else might show up in mid-April, with a strong south wind – call it a northbound migration wind – So I had just arrived at the pond, got my spotting scope on Kenny’s duck – as fine an example of an adult BBWD as anyone could ever desire – and I was enjoying it immensely – and ready to start figuring out the smaller shorebirds – when, as it turns out, my phone wasn’t done with buzzing …
This time it was Lake Atalanta in Rogers. It was Samantha Heller with a message and a photograph. She had found two BLACK-NECKED STILTS! I know these are fairly regular in some parts of the state, but not so in Northwest Arkansas City. Brilliant black and whites and amazing pink legs – standing in a few inches of water in clear shallows of Prairie Creek -- strangers in a strange land ...
… But no stranger, actually, than the way I felt upon seeing them – and before them, Kenny’s duck – all these Earth riches – brilliant surprises, gifts, on a strong south wind.
