Date: 1/11/25 4:20 am From: Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> Subject: Ozark arctic
For many years I’ve had a fascination with how birds cope when “normal” weather turns extreme. I know this goes back at least to the 1980s, when my daughter was born. We had what amounted to three weeks of freezing, ice, and snow in Fayetteville area.
I got very crazy from so much indoors time I borrowed my wife’s car and drove out to what we used to call “the by pass” (now I-49 and Fulbright Expressway). There were just a couple of skinny two-lanes open, and icy, but I slow drove and wound up seeing a flock of longspurs, Savannah Sparrows, and a hawk, maybe Rough-legged.
Turns out the “got very crazy” thing was, and is today, central to my personality. No doubt there is a psychologist out there among you Arkansas birders who will recognize the personality disorder involved. I just gave up a long time ago. Got my bins and scope and headed out. What the hell.
Struck again, yesterday. After 7” of snow and freezing, and after shoveling out part of my yard so I could spread bird seed, and after a couple of hours of watching that, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, in my car, off to the former Tallgrass Prairie, become farm.
The whole place an unending blanket of snow. No plowed roads. No humans about. But about first thing I saw, way out there in our little Ozark tundra: two SNOW GEESE. Standing in our next door arctic.
Then a harvested corn field, with cut stalks sticking up out of the snow. As decisive counter to a white world: a flock of AMERICAN CROWS. I didn’t see any smiles on their faces, but they were busy harvesting corn, as usual. They were calling CAW CAW as usual. They were making Ozark arctic their own.
Just spent some time with car heater blasting me and counting crows when I slowly began to take in the rest of Ozark arctic spread out . A fine, mixed species flock of black birds, rooting around in the frozen field, like it was lunch time in the ole arctic, damn the snow, full speed ahead. COMMON GRACKLES, RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS, BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS, RUSTY BLACKBIRDS and a bunch of ROCK PIGEONS, with a sprinkling of ROCK PIGEONS and MOURNING DOVES.
Also with them: MEADOWLARKS. Lots and lots of MEADOWLARKS. At one point a COOPER’S HAWK made a hard dash right into the middle. Of course, ALL flushed. MEADOWLARKS just take this as a cost of doing business; they came right back. They settled down into a fairly tight wad, where I counted 53 in one sweep. (Based upon previous experience, these are both EASTERN and WESTERN though I’ll bet mainly WESTERN.)
Finally on my way out, drove past a big open barn. The ground under tractors was covered with birds. I assumed these would all be HOUSE SPARROWS, but they were mainly SAVANNAH SPARROWS and DARK-EYED JUNCOS.
All of this, and so much more. Such indomitable creatures they all are. No wonder we can’t get enough. Here’s what I submitted to eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S208812881<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Febird.org%2Fchecklist%2FS208812881&data=05%7C02%<7Carbird-l...>%7C350ea34e0cfa425c314f08dd323a5a27%7C79c742c4e61c4fa5be89a3cb566a80d1%7C0%7C0%7C638721948454509032%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=7hY4NPnjvb9sncDj3EchP7ZqFAeYmz4BH3Lcgh9k6Rs%3D&reserved=0> . To ALL with whom I share this obsession – or I prefer this fine madness – Bill Baerg, Dean Crooks, Bill Beall, Doug James, Charlie Wooten, Mike Mlodinow, David Chapman, Vivek Govind Kumar. Y’ALL know who you are.
