Horseshoe Lake in Arkansas

   We loaded up on Saturday and drove across the bridge and birded the Horseshoe Lake area in eastern Arkansas. The lake is right next to the Mississippi River. The whole area is riddled with standing water and cypress trees. We birded between the levee and the highway. The southern side of the lake was more verdant and prettier.

   In the past, Robert's sailing club sailed at this lake, so we stopped at the boat ramp where we mused about the lily pads there now. As the road curved back around to the north, we saw the Bird of the Day, a pair of Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) in the tall grass on the side of the road.

   The still water and the tall weeds made this area a hotspot for Swallows. We saw three kinds of this bird. The Bank Swallow (Riparia riparia), the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) and the Purple Martin (Progne subis). The weather was unusually cool for the middle of July and we enjoyed a quiet, relaxing Saturday afternoon driving around the lake in eastern Arkansas.

Trip List

• Northern Mockingbird
• European Starling
• Eastern Meadowlark
• Killdeer
• Red Winged Blackbird
• American Robin
• Bluejay
• Purple Martin
• Mourning Dove
• Indigo Bunting
• Great Egret
• Great Blue Heron
• Northern Cardinal
• Eastern Bluebird
• Red Tailed Hawk
• Common Tern
• Bank Swallow
• Northern Bobwhite

   Berry wanted me to mention that we saw a female Mule Deer, but that is not a bird.

Robert and Berry

photo courtesy of wikipedia

Sandhill Crane Proposal

There is a proposal before the State of Tennessee Wildlife Management Division to open up hunting of Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) in eastern Tennessee. The identity of the drunken hunter who first proposed shooting at defenseless Sandhill Cranes is not known. Sandhill Cranes nibble helplessly at the ground. What a shameless passtime, shooting at Cranes.

Here is the link to the Tennessee Sandhill Crane Festival in January.

If you are against such outrages, and we applaud here any movement toward sanity, please join us in pushing back against the madness.

Email your comments to the bureaucrats in Nashville here. Send Mail

The State bureaucrats need "Feedback", they say, until August 2013. This bird massacre is not a done deal, so do fire off an angry email.

If you want to use snail mail, here is the street address:

TWRA Wildlife Management Division
P.O. Box 40747
Nashville TN 37204

"Government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington

Robert

photo courtesy of wikipedia