Enterprise Breeding Bird Survey -- June 3, 2018

view from stop 13 in the Chalk Hills

**Related Posts:
   Enterprise BBS, Previous Years: https://falloutbird2014.blogspot.com/2017/06/breeding-bird-survey-enterprise-route.html
 & https://falloutbird2014.blogspot.com/2016/06/enterprise-bbs-route-2016-catahoula.html

   Frogmore BBS, 2018 (will be posted soon): https://falloutbird2014.blogspot.com/2018/06/frogmore-breeding-bird-survey-june-7.html
   Frogmore BBS, Previous Years: https://falloutbird2014.blogspot.com/2017/06/breeding-bird-survey-frogmore-route-2017.html
 & https://falloutbird2014.blogspot.com/2016/06/frogmore-bbs-route-2016-concordia.html
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   This year, I did the North American Breeding Bird Survey Enterprise Route on June 3. The route runs roughly north to south and covers a variety of terrain and habitats in northern Catahoula Parish.
   The route starts where Catahoula Church Road turns south off of LA-124, between the duty ferry on the Ouachita River and the community of Enterprise. From there it follows Catahoula Church Road up into the hills...

Catahoula Church Road around stop 5 (Chuck-will's-widow, Barred Owl, ...)

...then left onto Old Columbia Rd...

stop 9 -- Old Columbia Road

stop 10 -- Old Columbia Road (Hooded Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, ...)

stop 10 -- Old Columbia Road (American Redstart was just around the bend)

...snakes its way over the Chalk Hills and beyond...

stop 13 -- Chalk Hills (Blue Grosbeak, Prairie Warbler, ...)

stop 14 -- Chalk Hills (Swainson's Warbler, Hooded Warbler, ...)

coming down to creek bottoms and stop 17

an upper branch of Rawson Creek near stop 18

stop 21 -- hills south of Rawson Creek and north of Posey-Webb Camp Hwy (Carolina Larkspur spot // Yellow-breasted Chat, Mourning Dove, Indigo Bunting, Hooded Warbler, Pine Warbler, ...)

to Posey-Webb Camp Highway, then south down Posey-Webb Camp Road.

pines along Posey-Webb Camp Road -- stop 29 or 30? (Pine, Kentucky, and Hooded Warblers, ...)

It comes down out of the hills northeast of the Manifest community, on LA-126, crosses the Catahoula NWR Bushley Bayou Unit on this highway...

a stop along LA-126 (Kentucky and Prothonotary Warblers, Painted Bunting, ...)

stop 41 -- Ponderosa Rd and LA-126 in Sandy Lake community (Eurasian Collared-Doves, Eastern Meadowlark, Northern Mockingbird, ...)

then turns south onto LA-923. The route ends on this highway, in the middle of an ag. field about a half mile from where the highway ends and becomes Little River Road at the north bank of said river.

stop 49 of 50 -- LA-923

   The way a BBS is conducted is that there are 50 stops at half-mile intervals along a preset route. The observer stops at these same stops each year, and counts the birds seen or heard during a three minute period at each stop. Over the years, this builds a picture of populations of birds at the same locations during the height of breeding season. I run this route around the beginning of June, give or take a few days (I believe I've done it on June 3 at least three or four times now, out of the [thinks for a moment] 7 or 8 years that I've been conducting this route).
   Over all, the list of birds detected this year was roughly what I've come to expect. Some misses -- both at stops and in between -- were Louisiana Waterthrush and Broad-winged Hawk. I also failed to detect Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, which is at stop 49 some years. Some notables (though nothing new for the route; nothing that I haven't found here multiple times before) were Wild Turkey (gobbling at a spot where I've heard him or his predecessor at least a couple of other times over the years), and a heard-only singing American Redstart (not at a stop, but between stops 10 and 11 on Old Columbia Rd, at a spot where I have heard and seen the species in the past).

   Here's the composite list of birds, both from the official stops and those detected between stops.

Enterprise BBS Route
6/3/2018
5:41 am to 10:55 am
~25 miles
Conditions: 78 - 83 degrees F.; on-and-off light breeze; sky cloudy; thunder during the first couple of hours; about an hour of inconsistent, very light drizzle (not an impediment to birding and didn't seem to negatively effect bird activity) staring at roughly 6:30 or so.

65 species, 64 of them making it onto the BBS list (during 3-minute periods at designated stops)

Wild Turkey - 1
  (video: To get the turkey to gobble on cue for the camera, I did the old trick of hooting like a Barred Owl. This was after the three minute count period, as inducing the birds to vocalize to be included on BBS isn't allowed.)

Anhinga - 1
Great Egret - 5
Snowy Egret - 6
Little Blue Heron - 7
Cattle Egret - 14
White Ibis - 3
Turkey Vulture - 1
Mississippi Kite - 1
Red-shoulered Hawk - 2
Killdeer - 1
Eurasian Collared-Dove - 5
Mourning Dove - 33
Yellow-billed Cuckoo - 14
Barred Owl - 1
Chuck-will's-widow - 1
Chimney Swift - 3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 11
Downy Woodpecker - 3
Pileated Woodpecker - 6
Eastern Wood-Pewee - 1
Acadian Flycatcher - 5
Great Crested Flycatcher - 7
Eastern Kingbird - 1
Loggerhead Shrike - 1
White-eyed Vireo - 45
Red-eyed Vireo - 21
Blue Jay - 15
American Crow - 17
Purple Martin - 1
Barn Swallow - 4
Carolina Chickadee - 10
Tufted Titmouse - 14
Brown-headed Nuthatch - 1
Carolina Wren - 43
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 11
Eastern Bluebird - 6
Wood Thrush - 8
Brown Thrasher - 1
Northern Mockingbird - 9
European Starling - 2
Worm-eating Warbler - 5
Black-and-white Warbler - 1
Swainson's Warbler - 7
   (video: song of Swainson's Warbler -- Chalk Hills)

Prothonotary Warbler - 8
Kentucky Warbler - 12
Common Yellowthroat - 9
Hooded Warbler - 39
American Redstart - 1
Northern Parula - 3
Pine Warbler - 21
Prairie Warbler - 9
Eastern Towhee - 24
Yellow-breasted Chat - 45

Yellow-breasted Chat

Summer Tanager - 15
Northern Cardinal - 63
Blue Grosbeak - 4
Indigo Bunting - 31
Painted Bunting - 4
Eastern Meadowlark - 2
 (video: Eastern Meadowlark -- LA-923)

singing Eastern Meadowlark -- stop 42

Eastern Meadowlark

Orchard Oriole - 2
Red-winged Blackbird - 7
Brown-headed Cowbird - 10
Common Grackle - 2


A few other things along the route:

butterflies: 'Astyanax' Red-spotted Purple, Red Admiral, and two Question Marks

   Mammals seemed to be active during the morning. I saw Nine-banded Armadillo, multiple Eastern Cottontails and Eastern Fox Squirrels, and White-tailed Deer.

Run, armadillo, run!

   Frogs heard included Cope's Gray Treefrog, Green Treefrog, Blanchard's Cricket Frog, Green (Bronze) Frog, and maybe others, but focusing on the BBS meant that I neglected to record herps in my notes.
   If's fun finding the same wildflowers in the same spots each year that I do this route. There are some species that I used to see each year that I've not seen this year or last year along the route (Texas Bull-nettle, Coralbean,...) but others are still reliable at the same old places, much like some of the birds. Some of these include...
...Coneflower sp. (Echinacea) ...

coneflowers -- Chalk Hills

...Orange Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) ...

Orange Milkweed -- Chalk Hills

...Cherokee Rose (Rosa laevigata)...

Cherokee Rose -- near branches of Rawson Creek

...Beebalm sp. (Monarda) ...

Beebalm -- south of Rawson Creek, north of Posey-Webb Camp Hwy

...Larkspur (Delphinium) ...

Larkspur (Delphinium); presumably Carolina Larkspur (D. carolinianum) -- south of Rawson Creek, north of Posey-Webb Camp Hwy

Larkspur (Delphinium); presumably Carolina Larkspur (D. carolinianum) -- south of Rawson Creek, north of Posey-Webb Camp Hwy

...Dayflower (Commelina) ...

Dayflower (Commelina); maybe Whitemouth Dayflower (C. erecta), if I had to guess (just a guess) -- Posey-Webb Camp Road

...among others.

If you spot an incorrect i.d. for the wildflowers, please feel free to drop a comment and let me know.

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