Return to Bull Shoals 2009: Deer Prudence

Tuesday, July 21st

Ed and I have made our 3rd trip to Bull Shoals, for a couple of good reasons. First, the area is rife with raptors of all stripes, from Samantha and Sam the eagles (our names for the year-round nesting pairs) to the merlins and coopers hawks to vultures all over. Second, its a beautiful area. The river is crystal clear against the backdrop of the sheer cliffs. It's been a fun trip for us and we can't wait to get there.

The first thing we noticed this year was the enormous number of deer. In the first two days we saw no fewer than 40 deer, with a herd of a dozen with a buck in the lead as the topper. They were everywhere and you had to keep sharp to not run into them. We made a short tour of the area, wanting to get some rest after the drive.

Wednesday, July 22nd

It had rained the day before but stopped by the morning. The overcast kept the temps down, but it was still a little muggy. Ed and I took advantage of the break to take one of the trails through the woods. The river can get crowded; usually it's off the beaten path where the real neat stuff is. We started on the White Bluff trail, a naturally winding path that rose about 30 feet, then crossed a road, then rose another 75 feet. During the crossing it also crossed a bike path. With my uncanny sense of direction, I took the bike path.

The path got denser and more narrow. We crossed a field and went deeper into the brush when we heard something in the brush. Freezing where we stood, we heard a loud SNORT and then saw about 30 feet from us a group of a half dozen deer crashing through the brush. We had come upon them and they never spotted us; at the same time, we never spotted them either.

The winding patch went on for a couple of miles when Ed and I decided to turn around and go back. About 50 yards back we heard a screech, only produced by a bird of prey. We were smarter this time and slowly worked our way to where the sound was coming from. It got to be frustrating. We kept hearing it but couldn't spot it. Out of inspiration, I looked up, and there it was, a big Merlin, calling. We stood still for several minutes, then the big brute took off. But instead of flying away, he circled, as if looking for something. It was baffling, until a few seconds later, we understood why. A second call. Somewhere in the brush, the mate was calling back. He called, took off, and they found each other. Happily forever after, I hope. That was it. Ed and I headed back, enjoying the moment.

In the afternoon Ed and I went on a boat ride. I had wanted to take to the water to get closer to the subject and now was the chance. I made a decision that instead of spending half a day on the water on our own, an hour and a half with a guide would be better. Good choice. Bill had been on the river since 1971, known it well, and knew just where an eagles nest was. Not only that, he told us that there are 8 nesting pair that come during the winter.

Our first trek was upstream to the dam. We had been by before, but Bill took us real close. Amazingly, the dam has 4 power units working and has a total of 8, but are not used now because they don't need the power. Theoretically they could crank them up at any time.

Going downriver, Bill took us to where we saw the big female last year. Unfortunately they were not there. I told him not to worry, it's impossible to always be at the right place at the right time. Besides, the trip was not over. Sure wasn't. About 2 miles downriver, at a point of land, circling with the vultures was a form not like the others. It was a coopers hawk, at least 18 inches long. The orange, ruddy feathers are striking in comparision to the other birds of prey. He circled for a while, then disappeared into the brush on the side of the cliff. And they can disappear.

All in all, a great day. Ed and I will take it easier tomorrow, being the last day. Was a great day, the weather was beautiful, and much fun was had by all.

Day Three: The way home

January 1, 2009

Happy New Year! We started it...asleep. Ed and I sacked it in, we were tired and had enjoyed everything. The next morning started the long drive home.

Our campsite. Ed and I really enjoyed ourself here. We had everything we wanted, all we needed to bring were our linens and our food. When we finished we enjoyed coming back. It had everything we needed. In the RV we had a microwave, a stove and oven, shower, three beds, and Dish network. The relaxation was worth every penny.

Ed and I in our normal place. We spent the time we weren't outside reading and working on this blog. I usually spent my time to the right on the sofa, dozing off while watching a movie.










We left around 10, deciding to stop in Memphis to go to a resturant Ed went to while the Pearl River band was on its way to Chicago. We had a good drive and took our time. After about 3 hours we finally were out of the Ozarks and were on the plains of east Arkansas, on our way to Memphis. We saw a perigrine falcon on a telephone wire on the way. Interesting sight. Then a mile down we saw two merlins. This started a trend. We saw a raptor at least every mile or two, culimating with three merlins circling a field. We saw a total of 5 harriers, 4 merlins, 2 Cooper's hawks, 1 perigrine and a kestrel. We were numbed with the sight.

We started thinking about it. This area has thousands of acres in corn and hay. It was probably harvested in October, but anyone who knows harvesting knows you leave a residual in the field. Thousands of acres of residual corn brings an untold number of rodents and other small grain feeders. The rodents brings.... predators. Along with the raptors I bet there were hundreds of snakes out there in the fields.

I started thinking; I could have just driven by these fields, or any field and seen all the raptors we wanted. Then again, the trip was not just about watching the raptors but the experience as well. If we didn't go we wouldn't have had the peace that only comes from a clear morning alone in the woods watching for signs of eagles or hawks. We would have missed the best ice cream I've ever had. And we never would have seen the female bald eagle in all her glory. No, the trip was great. I wouldn't have missed it.

Postmortum:
Macaroni is stashed away with more totems now, ready for us to pick it up again and go raptorwatching again. We did what we wanted to, found an eagle in the wild, saw her take to wing. It was great.

Other things too; going to get pizza at a place called Art's, toasting marshmellos and showing Ed how I liked them burned to a crisp, watching the birds gather around our deck as we started to leave, looking for scraps. It'll take a while to unwind all the fun that we had. During the entire tiring trip it was nothing but fun. Plus, it was educational. We enjoyed every minute of it.

Day Two: More of the same

Wednesday, Dec 31st

With the finding of the bald eagle yesterday it meant that Ed and I didn't have to try to press looking for another eagle, but we still wanted to go look for other predators. We heard great northern owls during the night and knew other raptors were around. An osprey had been spotted near our camp, so there was more to find. This morning we went hiking near the foot of the dam, and went all the way back downriver as far as White Spring. It was 20 degrees and very brisk, but Ed and I enjoyed it. The wind was another matter. It was blowing about 20-30 miles an hour and we were hooded up.


Ed getting bundled up. There temp was like yesterday but the wind was kicking up. It was making us cinch up.













Me getting my jollies putting my hand in the water. I was suprised, it wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be. Maybe because of the water coming the dam generators. Anyway, not as bad as I thought.














After a 2 mile walk downriver from the dam we found another treasure. Right there, in the trees, another raptor, watching another fisherman. See it? Don't worry, we didn't either. We were scanning along with our field glasses and only saw it when he moved. It was....














....A Cooper's hawk. Looked like a male from the markings. He was a fair sized hawk, guessing about 5-10 pounds and around 18 inches max. He was gazing the river watching for his morning meal. He sat on that limb for about 30 minutes, until he took off, distrurbed by a fishing boat that got too close to him. He went into the trees and disappeared. His markings were so good that even though I followed him in I still couldn't find him.








White Springs. This feeds into Bull Shoals lake, interestingly enough, right from the rocks. What you see is the start of the spring. Where the spring comes from the bottom of the picture is not another stream, but.....








...right out of the rocks. The stream is fed from somewhere up the mountain, and this is where it comes out. You could drink out of this if you wanted to. I wasn't thisty, though :).

At this time Ed and I were finished for the day. It was a great time, we were successful. We had our eagle yesterday and a fine Cooper's hawk today. We decided to break camp again and went to the visitor's center to see if we could use their Internet, but it was down again. It didn't matter though. It was a beautiful day and the view from the center was great.





The view of the dam from the visitors center. During the day the cement heats up and creates a thermal that the vultures use to start climbing. In the afternoon there were a hundred vultures circling, rising on the thermals.











The circling vultures. They made quite a picture.

By this time Ed and I were done. We tried to get to the other side of the lake to find the eagles nest but no dice. There wasn't a road into there, but the road bent backward to the center of town. Still, a success. We found a place that served ice cream and had a double scoop sugar cone. Turned out they were home made. Incredibly delicious. Even the wrong road became the right road. Enjoying our cones we headed back to the camp for the last night. We barbequed, lit another fire, and enjoyed relaxing on the last day of 2008. Leaving the next day.

The Big One

Tuesday, November 30th
The day before at the visitor's site they recommended we go look at a location on the river called Gaston's. It's a place named after James Gaston, or rather Al Gaston, the father of James who bought 20 acres on the lake in 1958. Al was a man with a vision, and it's obvious it passed onto James. He put his life into the area and the visitor's center is named in his honor. With this info Ed and I got up early Tuesday Morning after a relaxing night.

This is the view from the back of our RV. In the summer the area was covered with foliage; now the leaves have fallen but it's still beautiful. It's 25 degrees and the air is as sharp as a knife's edge. No sound, you can hear the whoosh of a flyfisher as he casts about 200 yards downriver.
We went to Gaston's and talked to the attendants there, and they pointed downriver to a bend where an eagle had been seen the day before. It was a mile and a half so we parked and Ed and I started to hike.






Ed, surveying the banks of the river. We were halfway to the location the attendants pointed at. Beyond the edges of this picture fishers were wading in the water. On the left of Ed the bank continues up about 10 feet higher, which was where the water level was when we came in August. However the lake is low enough for us to walk on the lake bed. The level is controlled from the dam upstream that raises and lowers it to control the water level on the other side of the lake. If they have to raise or lower the lake a warning horn is sounded and about 30 minutes later the water comes gushing through.






Yours truly squinting in the morning sun. The weather was clear as a bell, a blue sky, but the sun coming off the water left a glare that was pretty harsh, and was directly in our field of vision.

About this time the we spotted something that clearly stuck out against the backdrop of the trees. A white, no, two spots of white. From about 200 yards away we spotted it.







It was a female bald eagle, no doubt about it. She was HUGE. It’s impossible to gage sizes at a distance but using a nearby telephone pole next to the tree, I guessed the tree was about 40 feet in height. This bird on this branch, very crude guess, was any where from 2 feet to three feet tall. By that estimation she must have weighed ten to fifteen pounds. She sat there oblivious to the fishermen below, waiting to make a dive for food.







Ed and I kept working downriver, trying to get a better view of the bald eagle. The river was about 50 yards across. We finally settled on this shelf of land. Gaston's has maintained this area and there was a bench up there as well. Ed and I got there, I pulled out my thermos of coffee and relaxed while we tried to get a better shot with our camera.













A better view of the eagle. This was probably our best shot, taken from the shelf. It gives you an idea of her size. A beautiful bird.

About the time a boat came by, the eagle had decided she had enough and took off. And I mean TOOK OFF.











A bird this large had a wingspan of nearly 5 feet. The beat of her wings were slow, methodical. She soared nearly fifty feet from us, looking for something, then took a dive. A beautiful sight in the air.

Another view of the eagle in flight. A beautiful bird. She hit something in the water and took off after that for somewhere deeper in the woods. Our guess was that somewhere in there was her nest. I was hoping we could get to the other side but there wasn’t a way for us to get there.












Ed and I walked back to the front of the parking lot, happy that we had bagged what we came for, a picture of our eagle. We had a chance to watch her for an hour. Twice she dove for something in the water, then finally went off. We felt we accomplished what we came for and were thrilled.

Going across the parking lot of Gaston’s we found pens for Guinea hens, peacocks, and pheasants. They raised them there, breeding them and releasing them into the wild (not the peacocks). We watched them feed them, and watched the fight between the hens as they went for the food.







Feathers for macaroni. We collected pheasant, guinea, and peacock, plus a couple of down feathers. They’ll be put in macaroni and add to our totem.













Ed and I near the bottom of the dam. We took a trip down to the bottom to scope out places to look tomorrow. After this we went back to our RV, built a fire and settled in to relax for the night. All in all a good day. We accomplished what we wanted to do, find an eagle. Watched the football game, I turned on my laptop to watch MST3k, with Ed, and dozed on the couch. Next day, we’re going to search around the camp. We’ll see what we can find.

Bull Shoals II: Return of Macaroni

For quite a while after coming back from our trip Ed and I have been wanting to return back to Arkansas; actually, Bull Shoals. Ed and I fell in love with the natural beauty of the place, enjoyed the quiet, the crispness. Plus, the trip in August left one thing unfulfilled; the spotting of an eagle. Only way to do this was to return to Bull Shoals during the winter, betweeen our winter breaks from school.

This time, we did a little more planning. At Bull Shoals they have stationary RV's that you can rent for a pretty reasonable fee. During the fall I reserved one for three days, Dec 29th, 30th and the 31st, leaving Bull Shoals on Jan 1, 2009. So with that done, and Macaroni firmly on our dashboard, Ed and I left Sunday to stay overnight in Ruston Louisiana, then to jump off to Bull Shoals the next day.

Monday, Jan 29th.
Leaving for Bull Shoals at 8am, we went to Wal-Mart to pick up victuals to consume at Bull Shoals. The RV had everything we needed, including pots, pans, cleaning materials, all we needed to bring were linens for the beds, towels, and our personal effects. Plus, we had the advantage of a helpful device, a TomTom, loaned to me by my Dad. I had planned the trip on it, noting something interesting; it had us making a detour through a different area, actually bending south in some areas before finally bending north to Bull Shoals. However, I noted that the route shaved 38 miles off the travel time. Instead of going to Harrison, it had us going through a very rural area. Ed and I decided we'd take the chance and trust the TomTom.

I was suprised; the TomTom was very useful. I came to rely on it, especially in areas I had not seen before. However, there was one occurance I relied on it too much.

We made great time getting through Arkansas, until we were to take hwy 65 north from I-40. Ed's glasses had lost a screw and I needed to get a repair kit, so we got off in Conway Arkansas to go to the local Target. Unfortunately, they didn't have the repair kit I needed with extra screws (incredible), so I had to put it off. Getting back on the Interstate required going though a hairy furball of traffic, taking about 15 minutes, but finally we got on hwy 65. Gassing up required us to cross traffic, an even hairier furball. Getting back on the highway was even hairier, and we couldn't go left due to the heavy traffic. However, on having to go with the traffic to find a place to turn around brought us right to a Walmart that did have the repair kit I needed. Gassed up, with repair kit in hand, we went.

Hwy 65 runs north-south through Arkansas through fairly hilly country. To the west of us was hwy 7, the crazy highway we went through the heart of the Ozarks. However we only had 600 foot dropoffs here versus the 1000 foot dropoffs on hwy 7, plus the dropoffs on hwy 65 had guardrails.











Trusting the TomTom we decided to take the alternate route. We're glad we did. The scenery was beautiful, the views were interesting. Certain sections had us driving by granite bluffs 100 feet high, with the obligatory "falling rocks" signs. The road was very windey, causing me to slow to 30-40 during the trip, but who cares? We were along for the ride, and enjoyed it.

The Buffalo River. A favorite place for kayakers and canoeists, this river cuts though the Ozarks and has rises and falls that satisfy the weekend tuber and the competitive kayaker alike. On either side of the bridge the granite cliffs desend 50 feet to the river below. To the right you can pull over and go down to the river bed to dip your canoe in.

Ed and I got our funnies on this; coming from Marion County Mississippi to Marion County Arkansas. The thought of four seasons in Marion County Mississippi would be funny if it didn't snow two weeks ago in Columbia!












Made it to Bull Shoals. To the left is the lake, and is about 200 feet higher than the other side of the lake to the right. We were camping to the right. The lake on the right will lower and raise water by as much as five feet, depending on the need to send water through the generators. It's a hydroelectric dam with an enormous power station on on the other side of the lake.








Finally making it the RV, we were happily suprised; it was everything we could hope. The RV had a stove, a microwave, a TV with dish network, two full size beds, and was as comfortable as we could hope for. Plus, it had a deck and a working gas grill. I fired up the grill, made some hot dogs, and Ed and I relaxed while getting ready for the next day.

Post Mortum

Ed's totem: feather's in his cap, trophies of a good trip.

It's a week since we started our trek to Arkansas. In less than 3 days Ed and I drove over 1200 miles, went from the Arkansas lakes to the Ozarks to the mists of Bull Shoals.

If I were going to put a capstone on the trip, I would certainly call it "expect the unexpected". Instead of seeing the common we saw the uncommon. We saw Ospreys in both Holla Bend and Bull Shoals, supposedly a "rare" sight. We expected to see owls but saw only one, but heard them all over. There was no way that any eagles were supposed to still be there yet we think we saw either a juvinile eagle, or a coopers hawk, equally rare.

Expect the unexpected.

The highlights of the trip go through my head:

- Starting our at Holla Bend, Ed and I getting on the suntan lotion and the bug spray at the same time. Seeing the Osprey and the split-tailed flycatcher.

- Blogging during the hot part of the days.

- Lake Dardanelle and sitting out in the heat, the fans going full blast. Seeing a squirrel splayed out on his stomach, looking like he was done in with the heat like we were. Watching Speed Racer and passing out with exhaustion.

- The nature trail at Lake Dardanelle with sooo many spiders.

- The crazy drive through the Ozarks, eyes glued to the highway.

- The magic of Bull Shoals. The mist on the water. That cool breeze coming off the lake and the shelf where we sat.

- The armadillos.

- Waking up at 3 in the morning, unable to believe I was freezing.

- Seeing the eagle (or coopers hawk).

- Watching the vultures group together and spread their wings in a defensive posture.

- The goodbye and the long drive home.

All in all, even through all the heat and exhaustion Ed and I had a great time. We did what we came to do; we camped out, even in the bad conditions, we raptor-watched and found we could spot them when available, and saw quite a few other birds as well.

Plus, Ed and I had a wonderful time. Ed and I have already talked about coming back in the winter when the eagles nest. We should be able to catch a lot more; we will be more experienced at this.

The raptors were a great site. These apex predators in their natural place made for a great thing for Ed and I to share. I can't wait to see them again.

Will we see more? Or less? I don't know, other than to expect the unexpected.

Day 3... Eagle Watch

That night Ed and I left the door open to the van to try to keep the temp down inside. It worked (a little) but it was still just barely acceptable. Still we were exhausted and that put us both to sleep. At 3am I woke up with an unusual feeling; I was freezing! During the night without the sun to burn away the mist or cold air it had creeped up the hill. It must have been 50 degrees! I wrapped myself in a blanket (incredible, it was nearly 100 during the day) and slept soundly.


Waking up at 6:30 Ed and I got up and by 8 we started to the spots. The eagle nests are located near boat lauch upriver closer to the dam. Arriving there we were greeted with bad luck...fishers. The river current is swift. In order to fish, boaters would drift with the current, fish, then start their motors and return to the spot they started. This buzzing up and down I knew was going to kill the birdwatching.


However we got lucky. Several whitewashed trees pointed to us possibilities. In the binoculars we saw, sure enough, several eagle nests. In one we saw something that was difficult to tell whether it was a bird of any sort. Spending several minutes on it we were able to tell, without a doubt we were in luck. It was a Coopers Hawk, at least, the markings were very close. Ed pointed out to me that the Coopers Hawk markings were also close to a juvenile Bald Eagle or Golden Eagle. Logically it made sense. Those were eagle nests, no doubt. A hawk would be pretty tough to dare to take an eagle's roost. So it just might have been.


Closer upriver I was suprised by the movement of something huge. No doubt, a great heron. A majestic bird, no doubt. I'm always amazed by the the contrasting size and grace by a creature this big. I followed him to his roost and spied several more heron nests. Across the lake martins were flying, having their fill of the morning insects. Somewhere in the background the owls were hooting, another of our fav predators. Bull Shoals was turning out to be a great spot.

After a while Ed and I decided to move to another spot where there were sure heron nests. It was across the from a place called Big Springs. Right in front the water wells up and flows through, fed from a lake 200 feet higher.







If you can see this is across the river, where 7 different heron nests were in this one tree. If you carefully look at the left hand nest, on the far right hand branch there is a grey patch with a slightly lighter color on its left side. That's a great heron. What you can't see, is to the right and slightly above is a Kite quietly in the background. I noticed it flex its wings, that's what drew me to it. Another lucky find.




A last look at one more raptor; not our fave, but one none the less; a buzzard. They're quite common and hang around the dumpsters in the morning. I went over to the dumpster in the morning where about 20 of them were hanging around. I got to an imaginary line and they immediately jumped off and hopped away. One of them turned around and spread its wings. Interestingly they closed ranks and they all opened their wings. Amazing behavior; the wing-spreading was to present a more imposing front and all of them did it in an attempt to "frighten" me away. I walked away, I didn't want to do anything that would present a concern to the group. But I went away more impressed with their behavior. I didn't know that vulture's showed community instincts and was shown otherwise.


Ten o'clock came up and the heat started to ramp up. Ed and I decided we had completed our birdwatching, and ended it with a real winner of a day. We had seen either a Cooper's Hawk or a jv eagle, a kite, a red-tailed hawk, heard several owls and multiple vultures. This does not include the herons, a red-billed woodpecker, kingfishers, several swallows, purple martins, blue-jays, crows, thrush's and a Louisiana Waterthrush. A wonderful day.


10:00am-7:00pm - We took highway 62 East to highway 63 to Memphis, then took Interstate 55 to Columbia. Ed and I had a great time talking about all we had seen.

An interesting epiloge: on the way home something blazed in front of us. It moved so fast that I barely got a look at it. However Ed did. He said "oh my God! That was a Perigrine Falcon!!"

Amazing.. on the last day, on the way home, we spied one of the most unique raptors, the fastest bird on wing. In an unnatural place, an interstate highway. This trip proved to expect the unexpected.