Birds By Boat

RAPTORS, MORE BRING FEATHERY SHOW TO LAKE

    STAFF PHOTOS FLIP PUTTHOFF 
Joan Reynolds takes in dazzling autumn color during a birding trip Nov. 1 on Beaver Lake in the Rocky Branch area. The trip revealed several species of waterfowl on their fall migration as well as songbirds and raptors. November is a prime month for birding at all areas of the lake.
I SPY
STAFF PHOTOS FLIP PUTTHOFF Joan Reynolds takes in dazzling autumn color during a birding trip Nov. 1 on Beaver Lake in the Rocky Branch area. The trip revealed several species of waterfowl on their fall migration as well as songbirds and raptors. November is a prime month for birding at all areas of the lake. I SPY

Editor’s Note: Joe Neal of Fayetteville is a leading expert on the birds of Northwest Arkansas and the author of several books about birds and birding. Here is his account of a recent trip to see birds at Beaver Lake.

On fall nights, when geese are flying over my house in Fayetteville, I’m thinking about a birding trip to Beaver Lake. Water bird migrants at Beaver intrigue me.

All those gadwalls, horned grebes, common loons, American coots and ring-billed gulls nest up north and pass through here on their way south. What all stops at Beaver Lake?

It’s pretty simple to check this out on smaller lakes. At Bob Kidd Lake, near Prairie Grove, for example, I can stand on the dam for a sweeping view encompassing a big part of the lake. A recent trip revealed 25 ruddy ducks, 15 double-crested cormorants and a bald eagle.

Much of Lake Fayetteville is in view through my spotting scope at three spots. I can tell you roughly how many green-winged teal, how many pied-billed grebes and mallards are there.

By comparison, Beaver is complicated. With its 28,000 surface acres and 487 miles of shoreline, it’s the Big Kahuna of waterfowl possibilities. Deep, winding and full of hidden coves, there’s no one place for the tellall view. It’s terra incognita, a water-bird version of the moon’s backside.

Years ago, Mike Mlodinow and I were observing Beaver Lake from the Army Corps of Engineers campground at Rocky Branch park. From that point, we spotted an intriguing, large, white bird. We were looking north, directly across the lake, toward Lost Bridge, our eyeballs glued to the spottingscope eyepiece. Maybe it’s a western grebe, but 1.5 water miles away.

Eventually we solved the mystery, but the hard way. We drove back to Rogers, headed north of the lake on U.S. 62 to Garfield, then south toward Lost Bridge park on Slate Gap Road. All that to close the 1.5 miles.

So we drove 50 or more miles to figure out what was migrating on Beaver. It took an hour. We can only hope the mystery bird seen from so far away was still there.

Fortunately, it proved to be the big grebe from out west.

But here’s another option, the easy one.

WINGS ON WATER

It’s a calm, warm and sunny Friday, Nov. 1. Outdoors reporterFlip Putthoff has just launched his good ship, a 15-foot fi shing boat, at Rocky Branch. Ahoy mates, but there’s no fishing gear onboard today. Flip has a steady hand on the outboard’s tiller and sets out with a trusty crew of landlubber birders, Joan Reynolds of Rogers and yours truly. We’re equipped with spotting scope, binoculars, cameras and life jackets. Watch out, Beaver. We’re on the watch for waterfowl migrants.

We’ve barely f ig ured out where to employ the seat cushions when a tight flock of 20 male and female redheads fly right over us in front of the campground. Light brilliant, male duck heads are a deep red against a brilliant blue sky.

Off to the east, intriguing white birds ride the water. Flip quickly identifi es these as “lesser jugs, males.” Floaters they are, plastic milk jugs with attached fishing lines. But we’ve just begun.

There’s more white over the water, but this time it’s seagulls, actually four ring-billed gulls and two Bonaparte’s gulls. Then, we see one common loon. Later, we see two more. We spot seven double-crested cormorants, then see 25 or so later.

Doesn’t this just beat the heck out of that long drive back through Rogers, to Garfield then to Lost Bridge? Isn’t this seeing water birds the easy way? And we haven’t even got to the middle of the lake.

Ducks start lifting off in front of us. Dark brownish, with a white wing patch. We see gadwalls, 125 in number, along with 100 mallards and 20 greenwinged teal.

We’re over the old White River channel, north ofRocky Branch park. Ahead, there’s a long, thin string of ducks. They’re mostly blackish-gray with an ivory-colored bill. When the sun strikes just right, we see a brilliant red eye. These are American coots.

Rather than webbed feet, coots have long toes with soft paddles suitable for swimming and diving. They’re not ducks at all, but rails that have successfully embraced the duck lifestyle.

There are at least 250 of them. If we were standing on the shoreline at Rocky Branch or Lost Bridge, they’d be invisible, a member-in-good-standing of the Beaver Lake waterfowl migration black hole. But with a boat, all is now revealed. Like royalty in a yacht, I’m sitting on a cushion watching the coots.

COLORFUL SHOW

One thing I’ve really been looking forward to are horned grebes. Thesestriking black and white water birds perform balletlike synchronous dives. A cove along Slate Gap Road is their place. Remember the hour drive over there? The boat cuts the trip to 5 minutes.

We’re all teed up for grebes, but then we notice coots rapidly abandoning their casual string to gather in a defensive ball. That can only mean one thing - eagles. And sure enough, over us, and over the coots, is an immaculate adult bald eagle. On Beaver, eagles are the wolves that follow the waterfowl herds.

This eagle flies on. It’s one of at least five eagles we’ll see near Rocky Branch. Of the five or so, three are fully adults, one is in its fourth year, and one looks like it hatched this year.

Past the coots and a lump of rock called Cedar Island, more than 150 horned grebes are in the shallows.Along with them are five pied-billed grebes plus the odd duck or two. Above us, turkey vultures and a black vulture soar.

Joan spots a small hawk way up in the blue. It’s a sharp-shinned hawk, maybe here for winter. Then Joan whoops. “Pelicans!” Eight American white pelicans glide high over Beaver Lake.

Looking back toward Rocky Branch, trees fl ame along the face of fabulous limestone outcrops. We see broad radiant shimmers of red, orange and yellow.

After more horned Grebes and two common loons, we idle in the glassy, leaf-reflecting water, engine off to savor the quiet.

The brightest leaves adorn sugar maples, perched on the limestone. Autumn color is a brilliant accent to this season of waterfowl migration, enjoyed on a pleasant boat ride at Beaver Lake.

Outdoor, Pages 6 on 11/21/2013

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