Category Archives: Ozarks

Weekend in the Ozarks

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Dan, Tatyanna, and I went out on the Gasconade for a couple of hours on Saturday in Dan’s canoe. About a quarter of a mile upstream from the Kinchloe access in Wright County we saw a Black Vulture. I’ve visited several times each year since my family moved to Missouri 13 years ago but had never seen a Black Vulture in the area. Dan and I were excited about the sighting; Tatyanna was less enthusiastic.

There were several butterfly species along Kinchloe Rd. on Sunday, including Red-banded Hairstreak (which was a life butterfly for me), Orange Sulphur, and Red-spotted Purple.

It wasn’t an especially birdy weekend; most of what I saw I saw on the river. Species seen or heard include the following:

  • Great Blue Heron
  • Wood Duck
  • Turkey Vulture
  • Black Vulture
  • Red-tailed Hawk
  • Broad-winged Hawk
  • Pileated Woodpecker
  • Eastern Phoebe
  • Eastern Wood Pewee
  • White-breasted Nuthatch
  • Carolina Wren
  • American Crow
  • Cedar Waxwing
  • Eastern Bluebird
  • American Goldfinch
  • Eastern Meadowlark

The waxwings were at the Jerktail access. They are always a treat, and these were putting on a show, sallying out over the river. My mother was thrilled to see her favorite bird.

A weekend in the Ozarks, part II

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Although the plan had been to look for Swamp Metalmarks on Saturday afternoon and Prairie Warblers and Henslow’s Sparrows on Sunday, it didn’t work out that way. I see my family only a few times per year and like to spend time socializing with them when I’m in the Ozarks for visists that are always too short.

Dan and I did drive the perimeter of the hay field on Sunday morning looking for birds and butterflies. His son-in-law hadn’t yet hayed, and Purple Coneflower and Common, Purple, and Butterfly Milkweed were blooming. We saw Orange Sulphur, Great Spangled Frittilary, Common Wood Nymph (a life species for me), Spicebush Swallowtail, Eastern Tailed Blue, and Silver-spotted Skipper. There were Wild Turkeys along the hedgerows, and we were thrilled to see five immature (birds that surely would have been killed by the haying, had it been done on schedule) fly from the field into the bushes.

There were more Pearl Crescents around the houses and gardens than I’ve seen anywhere.

A weekend in the Ozarks, part I

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I drove down to Wright County on Saturday to visit family, float the Gasconade with my brother, and look for birds and butterflies on the farm.

Close encounter

Saturday was a beautiful day for a road trip, and the drive was, as usual, mostly uneventful. There was a bit of excitement, though, in Falcon when a Red-shouldered Hawk carrying a black snack in its talons shot across the highway toward the windshield. It appeared suddenly—there was nothing I could do to miss it. It swerved upward—I heard a thump and looked in the rearview mirror expecting to see the elegant bird crumpled in the road behind me. But, I was thrilled to see it flying into the trees, clearly unharmed. It had been the snake, still clasped in the hawk’s talons, that had struck the car.

Floating the Gasconade

Since my brother, Dan, bought a canoe several months ago I had been looking forward to my first float trip. Early Saturday afternoon, he, his granddaughter / my grandniece, and I put in at Jerktail and drifted down to the Kinchloe access, a two-and-a-half hour trip. What a blast! Apart from a group in three canoes that paddled quickly past us and out of sight, we had that stretch of the river to ourselves.

Wildlife was abundant. We saw gar, sunfish, and others that we couldn’t identify, crayfish, snails—and a swimming snake that submerged when we paddled over for a closer look.

I had been hoping to see birds, of course, and wasn’t disappointed. I was very pleased to see two Yellow-throated Warblers, a Prothonotary, and a Northern Parula (a female near the end of the trip, who was feeding from dead vegetation that had caught in over-hanging branches during a high-water stage), as well as two Yellow-billed Cuckoos. Northern Rough-winged Swallow youngsters perched on a limb overhanging the river begging to be fed were a treat. We heard Common Yellowthroat, Indigo Bunting, and White-breasted Nuthatch and were never out of earshot of singing Tufted Titmice. We also heard Northern Bobwhite and saw Great Blue and Green Herons.

The two-and-a-half hours went by too quickly for my brother and me (but not for my grandniece, who at six-almost-seven found the trip to be far too long and uneventful).

Ozark yard birds

One of the cuckoos we saw on the river was vocalizing, and Dan said that he had heard one calling at the house. After we got back, the family was sitting under the trees in the yard and we heard, but didn’t see, a cuckoo overhead. I’m hoping that they’ll get a look at it before long.