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| Catahoula Church Road near Haggerty Creek (or is this one Hooter Creek?... I've seen conflicting maps) |
This year I ran the Enterprise route on the morning of May 30, accompanied by my teenage nephew and promising young birder, Evan, who manned the stopwatch and helped keep track of birds between the stops for the complete trip list.
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| habitat shot: looking back along Catahoula Church Road as it climbs further into the hills (C. Church Road runs through some interesting, if now often disturbed/fragmented forest that have a heavy mix of deciduous trees in with the pines) |
The route starts where Catahoula Church Road turns off
highway 124 between the hwy 559 Ouachita River duty ferry turn off and Enterprise. Route climbs into the hills
along C. Church Road, heading south, and takes a series of roads -- including Old Columbia Rd -- crossing the Chalk Hills, takes
Posey-Webb Camp Road south to Highway 126 around Manifest; comes down
from the hill country on hwy 8 east and hwy 126 south where it enters
the floodplain region, crosses Bushley Bayou unit of Catahoula NWR; turn
off on highway 923 south through rural residential areas and scatterings
of pastures and patches of woods, and ends in a
soybean field within sight of where the highway ends and becomes a
little road on the north side of Little River. Some more habitat shots below:
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| habitat: Old Columbia Road by pastures in the hills between Haggerty and Sugar Creeks |
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| Chalk Hills south of Sugar Creek (the photos I took just don't do the views in this area justice!) |
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| piney-woods habitat south of Rawson Creek and north of Posey-Webb Camp Highway |
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| end of the route: a field in the alluvial plain just north of Little River |
Highlights were two singing Chuck-will's-widows (at stops 2 and 3, respectively), and a gobbling Wild Turkey further south along C. C. Road. I had a turkey gobbling at the same
stop a few years ago (6/3/12) and I find it interesting that it would happen
again. Video: Chuck-will's-widow can be heard, among other birds.
My general impression was that both Swainson's Warbler and Kentucky Warbler numbers were higher than usual this year. Total warbler list includes Louisiana Waterthrush (
which was between stops at an upper branch of Rawson Creek, so not on official count list), and Black-and-white, Swainson's, Hooded, Pine, Prairie, Worm-eating, and Prothonotary Warblers; Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-breasted Chat.
Lowlights this year: we didn't get Louisiana
Waterthrush at any of the stops, and didn't get American Redstart anywhere along the route. Broad-winged Hawk is
usually seen at one or more locations along a certain general area of the route -- maybe between stops 19 and 28,
sometimes not at the actual stops -- but we didn't get that species,
either. A logging/thinning operation was taking place between stops 24
and 25 and much of the general area around those stops had already been
thinned, so bird life along that stretch was at a minimum (and what an
unfortunate time of year to be doing it, given the nesting and all
that!). I was cautiously hopeful that we'd get Northern Bobwhite, after hearing them on this route last year, but no such luck this time. No Scissor-tailed Flycatcher at stop 49 this year, and we didn't see a Loggerhead Shrike along hwy 923 until the count had ended and we were on the way back out.
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| Green Anole on pine, north of Posey-Webb Camp Road |
Beyond birds...
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| Pearl Crescent, between Rawson Creek and P-W C Hwy. |
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Several White-tailed Deer crossed the road while at stop 3 -- some as we approached, some after I got out and started the count.
Herps included Green Anole and vocalizing Green (Bronze) Frog, Green Treefrog, and Cope's Gray Treefrog. No snakes were noticed this year, though in past years I've had some good snake sightings along the backroads of the upland section.
There were very limited chances to get a good look at butterflies, given the BBS protocol, but I noticed Pearl Crescent (stopped briefly and got photo) and Common Buckeye and what appeared to be either Clouded or Cloudless Sulphur or a similar species, as we drove along, and apparent duskywing sp. at one or two stops.
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| tentative i.d.: Vetch Looper Moth, P-W Camp Rd. |
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| Asclepias tuberosa (Orange Milkweed, Butterfly Milkweed), Chalk Hills, Catahoula Parish |
There was a nice variety of wildflowers to see, including some that are seen at the same spots each year. (Note that I am a novice at plant i.d., you can check i.d.'s for yourself at
http://southeasternflora.com/ and
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/.)These include Cnidoscolus texanus (Bull Nettle) on Catahoula Church Road
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| Bull Nettle (Cnidoscolus texanus), Catahoula Church Road |
, Echinaceae (cone flower) in Chalk Hills section of Old Columbia Rd, and a large patch of Orange Milkweed at a location south of there (one of many places where the milkweed grows along this route). This year I didn't notice the Coralbean that I usually see growing in the vicinity of the large patch of milkweed. Dayflower (Commelina, possibly Commelina erecta) were seen again at one of the stops on Posey-Webb Camp Road, as well as a new location on Cat. Church Rd.
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| Commelina sp. (maybe Commelina erecta?) Dayflower, P-W Camp Rd., Catahoula Parish |
The Cherokee Roses near Rawson Creek are covering a significant patch on both sides of the road and had blooms everywhere.
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| Passiflora incarnata (Maypop, Purple Passionflower), growing adjacent to the roses |
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| Tephrosia, south of Rawson Creek |
Hoarypea (probably Tephrosia spicata) were common, and at one stop in the piney woods south of Rawson Creek and north of Posey-Webb Camp Rd we found a patch of Larkspur ("probably" Delphinium carolinianum). Additional photos from this outing below...
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| Larkspur, probably Carolina Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum), piney-woods between Rawson Creek and P-W C Hwy |
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| Larkspur, probably Carolina Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum), piney-woods between Rawson Creek and P-W C Hwy |
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| Larkspur, probably Carolina Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum), piney-woods between Rawson Creek and P-W C Hwy |
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| Larkspur, probably Carolina Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum), piney-woods between Rawson Creek and P-W C Hwy |
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| woods along Catahoula Church Road | | | | | | | | | |
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| view from Catahoula Church Road near Haggerty Creek |
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| view from Catahoula Church Road near Haggerty Creek |
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| another Chalk Hills vista... sorta |
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| Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) in bloom, Chalk Hills, Catahoula Parish |
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