For the Birds: Finally, some shorebirds to try to identify

With all the wet fields around, we thought we’d find some migrating shorebirds last Saturday. We headed to the oxidation ponds, and the first thing we saw was that there were birds flying over the ponds.

The birds were black and Forester’s terns, and there were quite a few of each species. Forester’s terns can be found in South Arkansas much of the year, but they do not breed here. The black terns migrate north during April, May and early June and go back south from late June through October. The ones we saw Saturday were the first we’d seen this year.

The shorebirds we found at the ponds were spotted sandpipers, which we had seen for the past several weeks, and white-rumped, least and western sandpipers. The white-rumped sandpipers are generally seen only during spring migration; they are very rare during the fall. There was also one Wilson’s snipe near the small flock of sandpipers.

The wintering ducks have almost all gone north, but there was a pair of lesser scaups in one pond. Several ruddy ducks were present, but a few ruddy ducks have remained at the ponds all summer for the past seven or eight years.

We have yet to find that they breed here, but we keep watching for little birds.

The most interesting bird we saw was a large duck that we couldn’t see well enough to identify. It appeared to have a rather long neck and a long narrow bill. We worked around until we were able to examine the duck with the telescope, and when we saw that the bill was red we knew it was a merganser.

Our biggest challenge was to determine whether the duck — it was a hen— was a common merganser or a red-breasted merganser. We’ve never seen a common merganser at the ponds, but we couldn’t see the bird’s crest at first. Her head looked really smooth, but she had been diving frequently. We finally identified her as a red-breasted merganser. That was the first one we had seen at the ponds this winter, and she was migrating a bit late.

After finding so few shorebirds at the ponds, we went south on the Old Gurdon Highway hoping to find birds in the wet fields. We had barely started along the highway when we spotted a huge number of white birds in the fields and in trees beyond the fields. Our first thought was that they were great egrets. They weren’t very close, but we began to see what we thought were large decurved bills.

I got the telescope and began to check the birds in the trees, and I counted 25 white ibises in two trees. That was remarkable, but things got a lot more exciting when the birds began to move. They got up out of the field and left the trees and started flying south. To our amazement there were at least 300 of the big white birds. There were a few cattle egrets and some little blue herons with them, but most were ibises.

Years ago, we documented the first breeding of white ibises in Arkansas. We had learned that there was a rookery near Gurdon, and were able to find ibis nests with young birds in them. The large flock of birds we saw Saturday makes us think there may be a rookery somewhere around this year. If anyone sees large flocks of ibises flying, especially in the evening, on a regular basis, please let me know.

More birds found on Sunday

We had only a brief time to look for birds on Sunday afternoon, but we made a quick check of the ponds again. We found large flocks of sandpipers — mostly the smallest of the sandpipers. They included least, semipalmated and western sandpipers, Roger Tory Peterson referred to them as “peeps.” The flocks included dunlins and pectoral sandpipers. We have to work to get those little birds all identified.

One of my favorite birds was sitting on a log in a slough along Third Street. It was an anhinga, and it was evidently drying its wings after having been in the water. Anhingas feed by spearing fish with their long sharp bills, and they often swim with just their heads and long necks out of the water. The bird we saw was a female, and she was behaving in a manner I hadn’t seen before. I’ll have to do some research to learn more about it.

Keep me posted by reporting any unusual or unexpected sightings, and good birding.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dolores Harrington, who formerly wrote for the Siftings Herald, will contribute “For the Birds” periodically. Report sightings by leaving your name and phone number at the newspaper office, 246-5525. Harrington will return your calls as soon as possible.