This is really the script from Part 2 of the Podcast on the Great River Road Trip. Some photos added and some parts deleted.

We left Memphis across the Mississippi into Arkansas, and headed for the Wapanocca NWR. Of all the places we birded on this trip, and all of the places we visited, I have to say the national wildlife refuges in general have been highlights. The Wapanocca NWR was a great example of these places. The refuge web site states, “The Refuge was established in January, 1961 as a sanctuary for migratory waterfowl. The refuge is literally an island of forest in a sea of agriculture.” The U.S. NWR system is extraordinary overall. There are >560 refuges, and combined with 38 wetland management districts encompass 150 million acres. Teddy Roosevelt Florida’s Pelican Island NWR as the first NWR in 1903, and since then it has grown to its current extent.

Wapannocca NWR was one of my favorite spots of the whole trip, in part maybe because we had lots of time to bird it, and in large part because of the birds. It also was nice to just be in a vast area with essentially no other prople, with varied habitats, and to just wander the many roads. Dickcissel was abundant in the big weedy fields, as were Field Sparrows, both singing constantly. I have no idea how many Prothonatary Warblers we saw and heard. There seemed to be several birds singing almost the whole visit. The same wet woodlands seem to be prime Northern Parula habitat too, and they were singing everywhere too. We heard our first for-sure Yellow-billed Cuckoos here, and listed 53 species in a 4 ½ hour visit. We drove and wandered over much of the refuge roads.

Shortly after leaving Wapanocca Marian spotted a Greater Yellowlegs in a roadside flooded field, and on stopping it was packed with Pectoral Sandpipers. I listed 75, and think there were likely lots more than that.

From here we drove north past most of Reelfoot NWR just into Kentucky to bird the Long Point Unit in the southwestern corner of Kentucky. Another state I’d not set foot in or birded, and Reelfoot Lake is different from most of the lakes we visited on the trip, in that it is a natural shallow lake, not a reservoir behind a dam. The refuge encompasses about the northern third of the lake and surrounding areas, and is partly in Tennessee and partly in Kentucky. My hope was to use the northern part, the Long Point Unit as our first Kentucky birding stop. One thing we tried to do on this trip, maybe I should say I tried to do, was have good birding experiences in each state along our route. Of the states we visited, Kentucky has only a pretty short segement on the Mississippi River, and so Reelfoot and the surrounding area was about our only KY birding options.

After talking about how great the birding was at the NWRs we visited, this unit at Reelfoot would be the next stop. It was pretty limited in access to see birds, really a road into the wetland with two branches of a fork, and not too much to see. Still, it was beautiful, the day was sunny and fairly warm and I was excited to see some Kentucky birds. At the Long Point Unit maybe the coolest thing was actually a large mammal I’m pretty sure was a badger, although it was hard to see in the deep grass, and looked different from the Badgers we see in WA. Also a massive flock of Black Vultures on the road likely by a carcass. There were lots of shorebirds, but views were distant and if it had not been our first hotspot of birding in Kentucky it would have been pretty dull.

We couldn’t find a place to stay in Kentucky in that area, so backtracked to Union City where the hotel we found as borderline, the meal at Applebys was disgusting, and the neighbors smoked and played music until 4 AM. I slept through it all, but Marian, not so well.
We headed back north right along the Mississippi River and birded our way along, stopping at 5 different places for eBird lists before making it to the first planned stop, Lake #9. It was early morning, and easy decision to leave our not-so-great room early, and I liked the name of Lake #9, and liked the eBird lists from there, but it seemed like every time we started to drive along another spot looked really birdy, and so we just took our time. It was really a fun morning. Kentucky Warblers were singing in Kentucky, and I got nice looks at the Brownsville Cemetery. We finally both got great looks at Blue Grosbeak at Lake #9. Other stops with cool names were “Fish Pond- Roadside Viewing Only” and one of our favorite places was the Upper Bottom Road.
Maybe the most interesting thing about the part of Kentucky we visited, pretty near the Mississippi River, were the deep ravines, or what I think they call Bayous, that seem to be everywhere. I’ll put a link to an article about these in the blog post associated with this episode on Birdbanter.com https://www.backyardnature.net/loess/bayous.htm
As best I can tell these were formed over history in the alluvial plain where the Mississippi River constantly changed its course to cut these deep ravines into the landscape, and have left the place looking incredibly weird and cool. The roads seem to wander along the flat tops of these ravines.

We left Kentucky with a life list of 67 species, and we crossed the river again to stay in a nice place, the Holiday Inn Espress at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. On our first day in Missouri birding we started our day at the Cape Girardeau Nature Conservation Center, where it was cold! This is a cool suburban park, and despite the chilly morning, about 48 degrees, I had fun exploring the park/ IN terms of birds, the remarkable thing was an apparent migration of Swainson’s Thrushes. I saw about a dozen moving around the grounds, and we also had a pair of Northern Waterthrushes, Eastern Bluebirds at nest boxes, and enjoyed the walk.

From there we drove north, crossed the river back into Illinois and headed for a hotspot called Kidd Lake Marsh State Natural Area, which looked great on eBird, but seemed limited birding to me, just a couple of roads into a farmland beside a marsh. We managed 37 species, but not much special at all. We are getting more spoiled now though, with many of the eastern birds already seen well.

A cool happening along the way though was a stop at what we called “Sharon’s Martin Hotel.” As we drove along Root’s Road in Randolph County I spotted what looked like a huge Purple Martin nest box array a ways off the road. We detoured off the road up a long driveway to the end, where a woman was painting her shed, and greeted us skeptically at first, but when we asked permission to check out her martin boxes, she beamed. She has over 100 pair of Purple Martins using a big set of boxes and plastic gords, and we had a nice chat and enjoyed the birds. Her home is partly underground to keep cool in summer and warm in winter, and she said she uses just one large propane tank a year, $500., to head the place for the whole year. The windows are just above ground level, so it looks like a half-house. Pretty cool.

I eBirded 120 PUMA, but there were likely more. Definite eBird filter smasher. From here we headed north to stay at the Pear Tree Hotel in St. Louis, and had a great dinner at a local brewery, best beet salad ever, and listened to the Mariners put up 7 runs in the 4th inning! I’m recording this the day after the end of their road trip that followed this exciting stretch of games, and the M’s scoring runs seems like a distant memory. They just finished a 3 game series in Houston where they were shut out for the first 23 innings of the series and got swept. I thought about this at this point because the next day we went to a baseball game at Busch Stadium, St. Louis.
On the first morning in St. Louis Marian slept in and I headed for the big city park, “Forest Park.” It really is a big, fabulous city park, with the St. Louis Art Museum across a pond with a big Statue in front, and lots of mature trees, a meandering body of water, and even a small wetlands area. I birded the area on foot for about 2 1/2 hours and found 56 species including Solitary Sandpiper, Eastern Bluebird, Little Blue Heron, Green Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Northern Waterthrush plus a total of 9 species of warbler, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Indigo Bunting. Overall a really nice morning of birding before the Cardinal’s game which started at 12:15 for businessman’s special game. The Cards won 10-5, Albert Puhol struck out as a pinch hitter, and the bench cleared after a fastball at the head of Nolan Arenado on the first pitch of the half inning after a Met’s player was hit by a pitch in the ankle and had to leave the game.
After that we stayed the night in St. Louis and headed across the river to Illinois for the drive north to Marian’s home town of Davenport, Iowa. Stops on the way included Horseshoe Lake State Park, where we found a single White-faced Ibis, to put on the hotline, along with 42 species, including great looks at several Yellow Warblers. We made a lunch stop at the Meredosia NWR, maybe the NWR that was the least enjoyable NWR stop of the trip so far, with little access to birding, and not a lot of birds, though 6 Orchard Orioles was cool.
Most of our 4 day stop in Davenport, Iowa centered around visiting with Marian’s family, but of course we managed some birding.
As an aside. The first locks and dam on the Mississippi River is at St. Louis, and the dam at Davenport is Lock and Dam #15 (of 27 total) and the feel of travelling along the river upstream of where the dams begin is really different from farther downstream. Downstream much of the river is bordered by high earthen dikes that have been built to try to keep the river from flooding surrounding lands. Once you get farther upstream the water levels are controlled in large part by the dams, and many areas have fairly easy river viewing. We were surprised that for most of our trip the GRR afforded really no river views. In many places the roads were several miles from the river.

By far the biggest day of birding in the Davenport area was at Scott County Park, a big and pretty fabulous county park that Marian’s Dad was instrumental in pushing through the process of being formed and developed. We spent our whole first morning there, and found 50 species including several first of the trip birds, Trumpeter Swan, Ring-necked Pheasant, Black-capped Chickadee, Marsh Wren, Black-and-white Warbler, first seen Black-throated Green Warbler and best looks at Rose-breasted Grosbeak, along with just nice birding overall. It seemed to have the most warbler numbers of any stop so far on the trip.
Other stops in Davenport included Credit Island Park, the top eBird spot in the county, and really unimpressive on the day we stopped, and the Nahant Marsh, which was really a cool little activist led preservation story and cool place to bird.
On our last day in Iowa we visited the camp Marian used to visit as a kid, and I managed to walk around, again seeing big numbers of Eurasian Tree Swallows. This area must be the epicenter of their U.S. population as they are easily seen almost everywhere there are trees and open areas. On the night of our last day in Davenport we returned there hoping to see a nice American Woodcock display, but settled for hearing a couple of birds calling, but no flight seen.
On Monday May 2nd we make our last real drive of the trip, from Davenport to Omaha, Nebraska, about a 5 hour drive to where Marian’s brother Jim lives for a visit and a little Nebraska birding.
The Drive from Davenport, Iowa to the Omaha area was pretty uneventful. Maybe the coolest thing was a stop at the Amanda Colony, an Amish colony with a historical downtown that reminded me of an Amish Leavenworth. In Washington there is a small town on Hwy 2 going down the east side of the Cascaddes, just before the mountains level out onto the desert area around Wenatchee. Leavenworth has a German theme, has for many years hosted a big Octoberfest, though that outgrew the community and I understand is not happening this fall- rather being moved into Wenatchee proper, but has everything in a tourist friendly German theme. Amanda is lower key, but similar in that it is an Amish theme, and is very much set up as a tourist destination, with a Christmas store, a bakery, and lots of other small tourist friendly stops. Marian used to go there with her big family to a style restaurant, and so she enjoyed snooping around while I took a walk and birded. It is overwhelmed by House Sparrows and a few Eurasian Tree Sparrows mixed in, but I did manage a Spotted Sandpiper and a Wood Duck in the creek in the edge of town.
From there we drove to the Saylorville Reservoir for lunch and some birding. It was a stop at the overflow end of a huge reservoir, and American White Pelicans, Foresters and Caspian Terns, and Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers ruled the roost there, though we did list 40 species for the stop. It was late when we got to the Omaha area, and we stayed well west of town near Elkhorn, and close to the assisted living place Marian’s brother has just moved to.
On our first morning in Nebraska, maybe 15-20 miles west of Omaha, we visited the 234th Street wetlands and surrounding areas on a very cold, somewhat rainy and very windy day. Birding was tough, but I managed a few Nebraska birds for the trip before a visit with Jim and Ann. Marian spent the afternoon visiting and I headed to the Two Rivers State Recreation Area. It is one of the top nearby hotspots, but is really set up for fishing, hunting and camping so birding is an afterthought there. It was still cold and windy so passerines were difficult. I really did better ourside the preserve where I managed to hear Northern Bobwhite calling and find Lark Sparrows for good looks. Another cool walk was at the T.L. David Prairie trail, a ridge near the river where a swath of oak and grasslands has been saved, and though not that birdy a cool spot with vistas of the Elkhorn River and just a pretty place.
For me though the highlight of the day was the last bit of birding. I went to see Marian and Jim, but they were out driving around, so I found a small trail I called the Bluewater Trail, a walking trail beside an artificial lake system and new housing development that is being built. I found the spot by looking for places Warbling Vireo had been found in the county on eBird, thinking that might get me a place to look for migrants. It is only a mile or so away from the place Jim is living, and as soon as I parked I noted some sparrows on the lawn. The first bird I got bins on was a Harris’s Sparrow. I was stoked, and the place turned out to be the best sparrow spot of the whole trip so far. In addition to the Harris’s Sparrow I got great looks at singing Clay-colored Sparrows, White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows for zonotrichias, Song, Swamp and Lincoln’s for melospiza sparrows, and Chipping as as second Spizella sparrow. No warbling vireo that stop, but really an exciting few minutes for me at the end of a cold windy day.
Wednesday Marian and I birded the Glenn Cunningham Lake area. It is a big shallow reservoir, and the access area shown on eBird is closed. We went there first, tried to walk in but signs warned us away so we stared walking back to the car. As we got closer Marian noted another vehicle parked beside our car, with what looked like police lights on the roof. Marian was a bit leery, but a very helpful local police officer showed up to check us out. He directed us around to the other side of the lake for access. Interestingly on a pretty long walk from the other side, across a bridge and along a trail we got to what appeared to be almost the exact same place we tried to access initially. Our thought is that the wealthy farmer on that side of the lake convinced the town to close that access to keep visitors from driving in there.
We made the eBird alert there with at least 25 GWFG, apparently out of season there, and had 57 species, a nice collection of ducks, including our first of the trip Ruddy, Lesser Scaup, Ring-necked and Buffleheads. When we arrived there where we estimated 2000 or more swallows over the lake, mostly Barn and Tree with good numbers of NRWS mixed in too. It was a nice walk, and this afternoon I went back to the Bluewater area for a nice thorough visit. I found at least 6 Harris’s Sparrow, at least 2 Clay-colored, along with all the same as yesterday except no Swamp Sparrow, along with Warbling Vireo, White-breasted Nuthatch and Osprey.
The weather report for today was dismal, and I had resigned myself to not birding much if at all. When we got up I looked outside, it looked decent, and so I squeezed in a morning at another recreation area, Chalco Hills Recreation Area. It is a top Douglas County, Nebraska hotspot, and so I was hopeful of seeing a few new Nebraska birds. The stop exceeded expectations completely I think I mentioned in the last episode that I was hoping to find Sedge Wren on this trip. Well, as I walked on a path beside the lake, after seeing the first Redhead for the trip (a diving duck for listeners who may not be avid birders, not a hair color) and incredibly the first Belted Kingfisher of the trip. It seemed impossible to spend almost 3 weeks birding mostly in areas near the Mississippi River or various other lakes to not see a single one of the big noisy birds, but it’s true. Anyway, as I passed a wet grassy and weedy field I heard a rattle that was different from the Eastern Meadowlark rattle I’d been getting used to that I didn’t recognize. The Merlin Sound ID app immediately identified Sedge Wren, and I was stoked. I spent just a minute looking and then saw the small very vocal Sedge Wren singing like crazy from the low branches of a small bush in the field. My only prior Sedge Wren sighting was in TX maybe 30 years ago, and was very brief. These birds were really cooperative, flitting around in the grass and bushes singing and calling, for recordings and photos. I was a happy birder.
Overall it was a great last birding stop. I went to try to help Marian’s brother Jim hand an old family Cuckoo Clock in their new apartment. Hanging it was easy. Trying to figure out the chains that use weights to run the clock, not so easy. It’s hung, but not running. A task for someone more mechanically minded than me.
We fly home tomorrow, and it will be good to be home. The breeding neotropic migrants are showing up, and hopefully a few of the passage migrants will still be available for me to catch up on then. That along with good home cooking, my usual pillow, and a lot less driving will be appreciated.
So, what are my takeaways from this trip?
• First is that the Great River Road is rarely very near the river in the lower Mississippi area.
• Second is a huge sense of gratitude that we have such a great NWR system, and that many of them allow some degree of access for birding.
• Third is that if you want to see a lot of our neotropic migrant birds, doing it the typical way of visiting a migration hotspot like South Padre Island, Dauphin Island, Magee Marsh, Point Pelee or any of many others is going to yield a lot more birds a lot more easily than the trip along the Mississippi River we took.
• That said, the trip was great, and I saw a lot of places and things I’m really happy to have experienced.

I have several good guests schedule for the near term, so it will be back to the more usual episode soon. Thanks for listening

Good birding. Good day!