I was on a hillside in Pindall, Searcy County. The moment my little group got to the top of the hill, before the event began, we were heralded by an eastern meadowlark. As coolness rose, vultures we saw wheeling far away vanished. I tracked one to roost in a tree.
And then -- coolness, of the actual and metaphorical kind, peaked. What an experience.
(We will not discuss the traffic afterwards, even though I waited an hour and a half before setting out. It was awful, awful, awful. But everybody on the road -- all half-billion of them -- seemed well behaved and there were no accidents. So there was that.)
On Wednesday, April 10, 2024 at 07:37:30 AM CDT, Adam Schaffer <000000135bd342dd-dmarc-request...> wrote:
At Lake Norfork near Mountain Home we stayed largely engrossed by the eclipse rather than the birds, though the cessation of birdsong was noticeable to all. Shortly before totality we did have our FOS White-eyed Vireo and shortly after totality a large flock of pelicans flew past. Maybe they were just staying for the day and decided a day had come and gone.
Adam Schaffer
On Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at 06:32:37 PM CDT, Anderson, Leif - FS, AR <000002b0bc8b0106-dmarc-request...> wrote:
Greetings all,
The last 3 days I ‘ve had the pleasure of being a volunteer for some neat bioacoustic eclipse research. Led by Douglas Barron and his undergrad student Colton Morris, from AR Tech University.
I had 3 interesting bird observations.
During the partial portion of the eclipse 2 White-throated Sparrows stopped feeding/calling/singing and flew up into a Cedar bush. They stayed on the “roost” until after totality then resumed their normal feeding behavior.
The end of totality “Dawn chorus” at 1:54pm was just as good as our normal dawn chorus.
About 4 min into totality a Barred Owl started calling.
Holla Bend NWR hosted about 800 eclipse visitors, many of whom were birders/ nature lovers from all over the country, Canada and even a birding family from the Czech Republic.
, Leif
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