Date: 4/15/25 1:31 am From: Brian Carlson <brianrcarlson...> Subject: Re: CHERRY BEND, OZARK NATIONAL FOREST
Joe, what a special treat to see that banded bird. I remember seeing one their last year with nesting material in its beak. I am going to try to visit Cherry Bend on Saturday.
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From: The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...> on behalf of Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...>
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2025 4:12 PM
To: <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: CHERRY BEND, OZARK NATIONAL FOREST
Overcast, calm, and White-throated Sparrows singing their good bye see-ya-laters in my Fayetteville neighborhood this morning. I was meeting David Oakley.
While waiting … isn’t that a Nashville Warbler singing in the leafing-out canopy … ?
About 45 minutes SE of Fayetteville is the old Cherry Bend Rec Area in Ozark NF. My friends J & S had been out there on Saturday. Reported the steep hillside forest ringing with singing by neotropical migratory birds. Good report from them. Here’s what David and I found today: https://ebird.org/checklist/S225651399.
There are so many First-Of-Season birds for me. I’ll just mention being especially glad for Wood Thrushes, Scarlet Tanagers, and our old friend the Red-eyed Vireo. I was also glad for black flies. There weren’t as many black flies as there will be in a few weeks, but still enough to appreciate. Black flies go with good birding at Cherry Bend.
David and I had a big surprise on the Ozark Highlands Trail. We encountered Dr Than Boves and graduate student Ethan Saffle who had just caught and banded a Black-throated Green Warbler. You can take this to the bank: view of this bird in hand is way different than on that rare occasion when we have gotten lucky enough to spot one up in the way-way overhead canopy.
We really lucked-out on that one! They have all the permits and protocols for a project that will shine some scientific light on relationships between B-throated Green and Cerulean Warblers.
One of the most important parts of the book “Arkansas Birds, Their Distribution and Abundance” (1986) is the section on summer birds prepared by Doug James. Cherry Bend was his special research site. Here he studied birds of Ozark forests 70 years ago. Of course, some of this has changed, but much remains as he knew it. You can get a feel for Cherry Bend in those years in “Forest Bird Populations” starting page 37.
On the way out today we spent a few minutes on Fly Gap Road. Long enough that David Oakley, the Odonator, spotted what was probably Uhler’s Sundragon. Not a bird, but a dragonfly that is a good find in our neck of the woods. It got away without confirmation, but reality enough we’ll likely be on this task next time around Cherry Bend.
s
