Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden, Kisatchie National Forest in Grant Parish

 

   This post covers a couple of trips (5/28/15 and 6/28/15) to the Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden and the Work Station Road (national forest road 147) area in Kisatchie National Forest's Catahoula Ranger District near Bentley in Grant Parish. I had to delay completing these blog entries (its been a distracting past few weeks), but hopefully they are still of interest. The 5/28/15 outing started at this locale, then continued at Snyder Road in La Salle Parish. That second part will be in a compilation post summarizing La Salle Parish trips from this May - July to be posted at some point in the near future.
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5/28/15

Little Wood-Satyr, Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly
Garden, Kisatchie National Forest, Grant Parish 

   The May trip was an excellent one for birds as well as butterflies and wildflowers (the later two groups I am only just beginning to learn to identify correctly, so there's a chance of misidentification in this post, though I've tried to avoid showing species I'm not confident about). I would join Tom Pollock, John Romano, and Katy Richard for some birding, but I arrived early and got started seeking out butterflies. One of the first things I heard when I drove up, however, was the distinctive whistle of a Northern Bobwhite. We'd hear two and see four while at this location.
In the garden itself I got my first photographs of two butterfly species: Carolina Satyr and Little Wood-Satyr.



Carolina Satyr, Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden,
Kisatchie National Forest, Grant Parish, Louisiana

   After Tom, John, and Katy arrived we had the good fortune to see one of the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers that roost in the Longleaf Pines adjacent to the garden. The bird had returned to these trees and appeared to be foraging. The bird was quite tame and after some time in the mature pines she flew down into the young longleafs where we got a closer look at her. It was a treat to watch one of these birds -- a rare species across much of its range -- going about its morning routine.

Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Kisatchie National Forest, Grant Parish, Louisiana (notice the color-coded leg bands)

   The Bachman's Sparrows were singing in the open pine woods down the trail from the garden. After looking for the nearer bird we spotted it up in a pine tree. It continued singing for several minutes as we approached and took some photos.
   Other iconic denizens of the southern pine forests that are found here include Brown-headed Nuthatch and Pine Warbler. This area of the national forest is an excellent place to find all four of these bird species.

Winecup or Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe digitata),
Kisatchie NF, Grant Parish

   Bordering the woods is a large area of meadow-type habitat. Weedy, grassy, with some brushy areas; it is an excellent place to look for wildflowers that typically grow in sandy soil in the longleaf pine belt. Among the species noted were the vibrant rose-colored Winecup or Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe digitata). They really stand out, even in a field of colorful flowers. The Rosepink (Sabatia angularis), Sensitive Briar (Mimosa microphylla), and Rudbeckia sp./spp. were a few of the other kinds of wildflowers that we noted there.

Rosepink (Sabatia angularis), Kisatchie NF, Grant Parish

   With all the flowers about, there were bound to be more butterflies here as well. Though I am too much of a novice to feel confident in identifying these, I can say that they are members of the family Hesperiidae; possibly Zarucco, Juvenile's, and/or Horace's Duskywings. I'm still trying to get confirmed i.d.'s from the photos I obtained of these butterflies.  A picture of one individual of one of these similar-looking butterfly species is below.

Below is a list of the bird species from this outing. Following that is the account of my 6/28 visit to this locale.
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Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden and Work Station Road area
5/28/15
7:36 am to 9:36 am.
Warm, sunny, light breeze
4 birders
about 0.3 mile, mostly on foot

Northern Bobwhite - 6

Turkey Vulture - 1
Red-shouldered Hawk - 1

Mourning Dove - 2

Yellow-billed Cuckoo - 1

Ruby-throated Hummingbird - 2

Purple Martin colony at Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden

Red-cockaded Woodpecker - 1
Northern Flicker - 1

Eastern Wood-Pewee - 1
Great Crested Flycatcher - 1
Eastern Kingbird - 2

Blue Jay - 3

Purple Martin - 10

Carolina Chickadee - 1

Brown-headed Nuthatch - 2

Carolina Wren - 1

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 2

Purple Martin, Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden, Kisatchie National Forest, Grant Parish.

Eastern Bluebird - 2

Gray Catbird - 2
Brown Thrasher - 2
Northern Mockingbird - 2

Pine Warbler - 5
Yellow-breasted Chat - 3

singing Bachman's Sparrow, Kisatchie National Forest, Grant Parish, Louisiana

Bachman's Sparrow - 2
Chipping Sparrow - 2

Orchard Oriole (1st-year male), Kisatchie NF, Grant Parish

Summer Tanager - 1
Northern Cardinal - 3
Blue Grosbeak - 2
Indigo Bunting - 3

Orchard Oriole - 1
Brown-headed Cowbird - 5

Purple Coneflowers at the Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden

 

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yellow 'coneflower' species (Rudbeckia)

6/28/15

   A month later, I returned for a solo afternoon visit to the garden and adjacent trails. My chief purpose was to get photos of some butterfly and wildflower species that I hadn't yet managed to photograph. However, it ended up being a decent enough birding trip as well.

Palamedes Swallowtail nectaring on Lantana blossoms, Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden

Spicebush Swallowtail, CH&BG

   A couple of Northern Flickers were among the first birds that I saw upon arrival. They're just uncommon enough (though certainly not rare)
during summer in our area to be of note. The resident Chipping Sparrows were singing conspicuously. Shortly after stepping out of the car, I heard the sweet song of a Bachman's Sparrow floating up from the pine forest down the road. I would eventually hear at least two individuals singing.

Carolina Satyr, CH&BG

   In the garden, the swallowtail butterflies were gathering around some particular clusters of flowers. I managed to photo a couple of species: the Spicebush Swallowtail and the Palamedes Swallowtail. The Palamedes -- the first of its kind that I've photographed -- was nectaring on Lantana. An 'Astyanax' Red-spotted Purple or two were also seen in the garden along with at least a couple of Carolina Satyrs.
  

Spicebush Swallowtail, Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden

Butterfly Pea (Centrosema virginianum)

    A walk down the path across the narrow bend of the meadow to the corner of the woods and along the north, then east, edges of the woods brought me through some decent wildflower areas. There were many species to photograph, some of which I am still having trouble correctly i.d.-ing. Some that I can identify (with relative certainty) include Butterfly Pea, Goat's Rue, Meadow-Beauty, Rosepink, and Yellow Bitterweed. (More on these and other recent flower observations in my upcoming post on wildflowers for this spring and summer)

  A White-tailed Deer --a buck with small velvet-covered antlers-- bounded off through the underbrush in the north edge of the block of open pine woods. Orchard Orioles and Eastern Kingbirds both were tending to noisy fledglings in the edge of the woods here.
   Taking the trail along the east edge of the woods brought me into earshot of a calling Northern Bobwhite. Along this side of the woods I found many Carolina Satyrs, and managed to photograph a few of them. These were perhaps the most common butterflies this day, though with their small size and brown coloring they are more easily overlooked than the larger showier swallowtails. (For more on local butterflies and moths see my upcoming blog post on Lepidoptera sightings for spring and summer 2015, which should be posted some time near the end of August.)

Carolina Satyr, Kisatchie National Forest west of Work Station Road

Purple Martins circling their nest "gourds".

   I returned to the garden once again before departing. The anurans were starting to chorus in earnest by that time. Fowler's Toads were common (heard, but not seen) along the pond in the garden, and a few Cope's Gray Treefrogs and a Green Frog or two were also heard. At one point the Green Treefrogs began calling -- there must have been dozens of them unseen in the vegetation around the pond and the edges of the garden.

  The Purple Martins were circling the area around their nest colony when I returned to my car. I drove the part of Work Station Road south to the fork with National Forest road 146. A few expected woodland bird species, such as Carolina Chickadee and Carolina Wren, were heard, but generally there wasn't much activity. I left with a pretty good general idea about what birds, frogs, butterflies, and wildflowers can be found at this locale at this point in the season.
   I'd recommend this location to anyone birding or participating in other nature-observation activities in the area who wants an easy place to get a quick look at pinelands flora and fauna or a visitor-friendly place to check out the local Lepidoptera and enjoy ornamental plantings of native and exotic flowers.

Pine forest along Work Station Road, Kisatchie National Forest Catahoula Ranger District

Below is a list of the bird species from this trip to the garden/National Forest.
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Catahoula Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden / Work Station Road area
6/28/2015
6:25 pm - 8:33 pm
Conditions: warm, sunny, calm
Protocol: traveling, approx. 1.1 miles (approx. 0.3 mile on foot and 0.8 mile by car).
Party Size: 1

Northern Bobwhite - 1

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron - 2, flyover

Mourning Dove - 4

Chimney Swift - 1

Ruby-throated Hummingbird - 1

Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Northern Flicker - 2

Eastern Wood-Pewee - 1
Eastern Kingbird - 3

Northern Mockingbird

Blue Jay - 2

Purple Martin - 12
Barn Swallow - 1

Brown-headed Nuthatch - 3

Carolina Chickadee - 1

Carolina Wren - 6

Eastern Bluebird - 4

Northern Mockingbird - 2

Pine Warbler - 3
Yellow-breasted Chat - 2

Eastern Towhee - 1
Bachman's Sparrow - 2
Chipping Sparrow - 2

Indigo Bunting

Summer Tanager - 1
Northern Cardinal - 6
Blue Grosbeak - 2
Indigo Bunting - 5

Orchard Oriole - 5

Orchard Orioles

   The next post will cover several outings in La Salle Parish during May and July of 2015; including the second part of the 5/28/15 trip from this post.

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