Date: 5/30/26 7:37 am From: Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> Subject: SURPRISING BOBWHITE DAY ON FORMER BEATIE PRAIRIE
Two days ago I was telling my friend dragonfly expert David Oakley about wanting to make a trip up to Prairie State Park (near Joplin, Missouri). One reason for such a trip now is to see the rare butterfly, Regal Fritillary, attracted to flowering milkweeds.
But, I added, I also hoped to hear lots of “bob bob white!”(s) from NORTHERN BOBWHITES that remain common there whereas they have so widely declined in Northwest Arkansas City.
Within my lifetime, bobwhites have gone from common to scarce to zero, in the main. Until yesterday ...
… Yesterday I made a trip into the Maysville area of northwestern Benton County. Specifically, I was planning a slow drive through the former, once extensive, Tallgrass Beatie Prairie. None of the old Beatie is in public ownership, so there isn’t any specific target for such a trip.
I used to be able to slow-drive Beatie Prairie main street, aka state highway 72, Gravette to Maysville. Not anymore. The wild, crazy over-the-top frenzy of human population growth in places like Fayetteville is making its way there.
A slow car making odds-and-ends of stops for a soaring Sawtooth Sunflower or a Loggerhead Shrike on a barbed wire fence is a target for getting run over by a chicken feed truck, a contractor building tract homes, plus someone running late for their job at Walmart world HQ in Bentonville.
So I stick to the unpaved, but graded county roads, like Leonard Ranch, Schoolhouse, Ballman, Romaine Ranch, Graham, etc. They also describe the former Beatie Prairie. The country right of way preserves some of the old Beatie’s Tallgrass prairie flora. Yesterday it was prairie-blazin’ with Yellow Ironweed, Obedient Plant, Beardtongue, Pale Purple Coneflower.
Blazing Stars weren’t blazin’ yet in these rights-of-ways. They are up. It won’t be long.
The specific purpose for yesterday’s trip was to find GRASSHOPPER SPARROWS that nest in the extensive pastures and hayfields. I can’t hear their songs anymore, but Merlin can. So with my trusty Merlin turned on, I visited several spots on the former Beatie where I have found them in the past. No luck on that, for no reason in particular.
Lack of luck for these sparrows was way more than compensated for by more singing by NOTHERN BOBWHITES than I have heard in years. Here are a couple of eBird lists I submitted: https://ebird.org/checklist/S349331206 for a productive area along Leonard Ranch Road. And https://ebird.org/checklist/S349337905 for the former Allen Ranch, especially area north of Graham Road.
Merlin could hear them. So could I!
