Date: 4/7/25 1:01 pm From: Todd Ballinger <todd.ballinger...> Subject: Re: UPLAND SANDPIPERS BACK FROM THE PAMPAS OF ARGENTINA
Thank you, Joe, for sharing this special migration experience, when
Arkansas gets to rub shoulders and offer some brief hospitality to these
far-flung travelers.
On Mon, Apr 7, 2025 at 12:07 PM Joseph Neal <
<0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> wrote:
> On Sunday, April 6, 2025: Mighty Arkansas River at flood stage. Many roads
> down near river under water. But a few of us -- unhinged ones like myself –
> eager to observe northward bird-migration -- can no longer be confined
> indoors. So … after blessed cessation of constant rain – after trying to
> decide if I should be building Joe’s Ark – and with only a few breaks for
> tree-destroying winds … our birding community -- from the river valley to
> the Ozarks -- commences its annual observations for spring migration.
> That is, me and a couple of others, and by chance meeting Matthew Matlock
> – wind up on expansive greens of West-Ark Sod, in Kibler bottoms near Alma.
> And there, by golly, is the best bird imaginable for our break-out and
> brought to us no doubt by all the mighty winds and all the floods and all
> the human misery caused by such a storm. UPLAND SANDPIPERS! A flock of 17,
> looking barely recovered from whatever ordeal they suffered to reach this
> point in their northbound journey. According to Aldo Leopold: “… the final
> proof of spring... the flight-song of the upland plover, just now back from
> the Argentine.” West-Ark Sod will do for our pampas.
> Lots and lots of fast flying -- in tight flocks -- blown across lower
> Earth from the barrel of a celestial shotgun -- and just far away enough to
> be difficult to identify – all that excitement, all that adrenalin flowing
> – all that and we still managed to identify more than 500 American
> Golden-Plovers – those fast flying, very long distance migrants, maybe half
> way on their annual trek north to the tundra. Stopped here on the way and
> amazing as always.
> Stopped to remind us there is a lot more to Earth than we can imagine in
> our daily affairs of politics, money-chasing, back-biting-and all the rest
> of what does not ennoble us – what makes us long for something … like maybe
> Upland Sandpipers.
> According to Aldo Leopold: “On cool August nights you can hear their
> whistled signals as they set wing for the pampas, to prove again the
> age-old unity of the Americas. Hemisphere solidarity is new among
> statesmen, but not among the feathered navies of the sky.*” *And in
> April, when they arrive here, we take special joy in their calls WIT IT WIT
> IT WIT IT
> Blackland X River Road *https://ebird.org/checklist/S223698658 > <https://ebird.org/checklist/S223698658>* > Kibler bottoms, mostly West Ark Sod *https://ebird.org/checklist/S223689377 > <https://ebird.org/checklist/S223689377>* >
>
>
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--
Todd Ballinger, MA, NBCT
English 11/AP English Language and Composition
Fayetteville High School
