BIRDING By Canoe

RIVER FLOAT A FINE QUEST FOR FEATHERS

A seat in a canoe makes a fine perch for birding. Joe Neal of Fayetteville looks at soaring birds on the Kings River. A 5-mile float trip on June 14 revealed 60 bird species.
A seat in a canoe makes a fine perch for birding. Joe Neal of Fayetteville looks at soaring birds on the Kings River. A 5-mile float trip on June 14 revealed 60 bird species.

Editor’s Note: The Kings River is renowned for its fishing, floating and camping. It’s also a prime destination for birding. Joe Neal, an area authority on birds, and Flip Putthoff, outdoors editor, teamed up on June 14 to sample the birding on the Kings River. Each wrote in a journal about their adventure. Their descriptions are published here.

Part of the fun of a great field trip is kicking back at the end of the day to look over photos and bask in the memories of a grand time. That’s what I’m doing now, reflecting on a fabulous day of birding on the Kings River with Joe Neal of Fayetteville.

We met about 8:30 a.m. at the Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area Visitor Center. When I drove up, Joe was already strolling around the parking lot, looking at birds. He hopped into my truck and we were off to the Kings River for a birding-by-canoe fl oat trip.

Not far from the river we crossed Keels Creek and Joe peeked downstream. “Stop! Stop!” he hollered. “Can you back up?”

Joe aimed his binoculars downstream. There in the shallow water was - a bird.

“It’s a yellow-crowned night heron,” Joe said, excited as if he was seeing Elvis and Amelia Earhart in the same UFO.

When he calmed down, Joe said the bird is a crawfish eater. “They’re scattered here and there around the Ozarks. They’re always a premium bird to see.”

Our trip started with a bang and we weren’t even at the river yet.

We’d planned on canoeing the 7 miles from Rockhouse access to Kings River Outfitters. When we stopped to arrange our shuttle, we mentioned this to the guy staffing the office.

“You may not want to do that if you want to bird watch,” he said. “You’re going to have company. We just put seven canoes in up there and they’re partiers.”

He suggested we float from Kings River Outfitters to a private take-out 5 miles downstream. We’d have the river mostly to ourselves. The birding might be better, at least quieter. It sounded like a perfect Plan B.

This was the first float trip in my life where my paddling buddy loaded a spotting scope and tripod in the canoe. Joe was wearing his field vest, up-downer hat and binoculars around his neck.

“I’m in full battle armor,” Joe laughed while we loaded lawn chairs and an ice chest into the canoe.

Bobbing down the first riffle, I thought how lucky I am to be in the canoe with Joe. He’s in the major leagues among Arkansas birders, maybe team captain. Joe is co-author of the book, “Arkansas Birds.” He’s written other birding books, writes essays about his field trips and does radio.

Green herons, much smaller than the great blue variety, trotted along side our moving canoe. “You see them all the time in the summer,” Joe said. They migrate to South America for the winter. Amazing how birds, tiny hummers especially, fly so far south, then return.

We were blessed with a gorgeous day. Not too hot. A bit of overcast.

No breeze. “Conditions couldn’t be more perfect for hearing bird songs,” Joe said.

He birds by ear as much as by sight. Joe cocked an ear to hear some distant crows. Not only were they American crows, but Joe said they were young fledglings that had just left the nest. That’s how keen his birding ears are.

We would have never heard these in a stiff wind.“When it’s windy,” Joe said, “you can only hear the birds that are up close.”

Between birds, we dipped paddles into the clear water and moved downstream slow and easy.

Louisiana water thrushes were numerous. That’s good news for the Kings River.

“They’re a bellwether for the health of an ecosystem. When you start losing things like that, it tells you something is wrong.”

Being an area bird authority, everybody and their brother has asked Joe his opinion of the ivory-billed woodpecker. His answer is pat and diplomatic. “Some say yes and some say no,” he says. “It’s not for me to decide.”

Conversation moved from the hog farm in the Buffalo River watershed to Bikes, Blues & BBQ and occasionally drew our attention away from birds. One particular bird snapped us back on mission pronto.

Not 20 yards away from the canoe, an adult bald eagle bolted from a shoreline sycamore tree and flew downstream in all its glory. Seeing a bald eagle in June makes it almost certain the bird is a resident. “There has to be a nest somewhere close by,” Joe said.

Lunchtime found us relaxing on a shaded gravel bar, feasting on sandwiches and relaxing in lawn chairs. More bird songs were a lunchtime treat as we munched. Any river paddler can enjoy such a performance if they’ll just think to listen.

The day was hot, the shade felt divine and a simple lunch was five-star fare. We lingered a good hour on the gravel bar. “I think a person could just spend the whole day right here,” Joe mused.

He’s so right, but there were more birds and more river to see.

An hour later, I figured we had another half-mile to float, but the take-out snuck up on me. If I hadn’t spied my truck through the trees, we might have gone right past our take-out.

Joe loaded his spotting scope into the truck’s club cab. I lashed the canoe to the boat rack and off we went up the gravel lane toward the highway.

“Stop! Stop!” he hollered. Joe wasn’t finished birding yet. We were under a canopy of branches. “There on that log.

It’s another Louisiana water thrush. That’s the fifth one today.”

Back at the Hobbs Visitor Center, Joe figured our tally for the day. We saw 60 individual species of birds and 300 to 400 individual birds. The count included common species such cardinals, but all were a delight to see.

Can’t wait to see how this Kings River birding trip compares to our next river trip when we get together again to go birding-by-canoe.

Outdoor, Pages 6 on 06/27/2013

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