Hikers clad in green and hunting St. Patrick's Day four-leaf clovers might do their snooping today along the Eagle Watch Nature Trail.
The trail near Swepco Lake, one mile west of Gentry on Arkansas 12, was built in 1999 on Southwestern Electric Power Co. land along Swepco Lake. Trailhead and parking are on the south side of the highway.
Earth Day at Eagle Watch
Earth Day activities begin at 9 a.m. April 18 at the Eagle Watch Nature Trail. The public is welcome.
Volunteers may help with maintenance of the butterfly garden, plant milkweed seeds and remove invasive plants. Afterward, Lynn Sciumbato, operator of Morning Star Wildlife Rehabilitation Center near Gravette, will give a program featuring live birds under her care.
Don Steinkraus, an entomology professor at the University of Arkansas, will give a program on pollinators. Free refreshments will be served after his program.
Source: Terry Stanfill, trail caretaker
The 500-acre lake supplies water for electricity production at Flint Creek Power Plant near the trail.
"We just had the trail's 20th birthday party in September," said Terry Stanfill, caretaker of the trail and grounds. Stanfill is a retired power plant employee.
If finding a four-leafed variation of the common three-leaf clover proves elusive, an array of plants, trees and birds await visitors. Not only that, the trail is short -- about one-half mile -- and level.
Three pavilions are proven spots to pause and look for waterfowl, bald eagles, herons and egrets on the lake, in the sky or wading the shoreline.
Trailside trees have identification tags that help visitors tell what species of trees they're viewing on the easy walk to the water.
Eagle Watch Nature Trail is aptly named.
"In the early 1990s, eagles were becoming plentiful around the lake," Stanfill said. "We had people coming by the plant all the time wanting to know the best places to go see them."
The trail was built, and a Boy Scout troop built the first wildlife viewing pavilion. It's still in use today where the trail ends at the lake.
Two more pavilions have been built near the lake. They provide a mud-free, sheltered spot to look for wildlife. Posters and photographs in the pavilions tell about animal and plant life on the water and land.
"Bloomfield 4H is our big conservation partner," Stanfill said. "They plant flowers and trees, help maintain the butterfly garden, anything that's needed."
Visiting Eagle Watch Nature Trail is free and open to everyone. A few times each year it's the destination for Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society field trips. The most recent was a mild and sunny Saturday in February.
Stanfill and Joe Neal with Audubon led the trip. Neal stood at the trailhead gate hearing music to his ears. A gaggle of meadowlarks was singing their hearts out, as if to welcome the birders.
"This is the first meadowlark chorus I've heard all year," he said to the group.
The number of bird species people can see along the trail grows daily now that spring migration has started, Neal noted.
The crowd of birders, perhaps 40 or so, fanned out along the trail. Some focused binoculars on birds. Others were more interested in trees or just enjoying a nice walk.
An unusual tree along the trail is a bald cypress. They're common in the swamps of the Arkansas Delta but rare in Northwest Arkansas. The lone bald cypress tree is seen along the lake close to the pavilion at the end.
The tree was 3 feet tall when it was planted in 2002, Stanfill said. Now it stands 15 feet tall. Visitors admired the tree, snooped around in the woods for plants and filled the three viewing pavilions.
"This is sometimes the best attended field trip we have all year," Neal said. "People love this place."
Sports on 03/17/2020