The Search

Seven people participated in the search:

Woody Bynum - an Arkansas native and opera singer from New York City.
David Hayes - a biology student at Hendrix College.
Robert Henderson - a computer systems engineer from Little Rock, Arkansas, and my brother-in-law.
Matt Largess - an arborist from Rhode Island with a particular interest in old-growth forests.
David Luneau - (author) an Associate Professor of Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Matt Moran - an Associate Professor of Biology at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, whose specialty is entomology.
Bill Shepherd - retired from the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, a life-long birder, a tree and plant expert, and an active member of many nature organizations.

The diversity of backgrounds on this search team was its strength.  Because of the nature of such a search, it is important to not lose sight of the interaction between birds and their environment.  Having searchers that were knowledgeable about trees, plants, insects, and general forest ecology kept the focus of the search broader than just trying to spot a bird.

January 2, 2003

Matt Largess and I met Richard Hines at the refuge office in Dewitt.  Richard and his son, Sean, led us to the Sub Headquarters (known locally as the levee building), where we arrived around 3:00 p.m.  As Richard was giving us keys and pointing out interesting places on the map, Woody, Matt Moran, and David Hayes arrived.  The five searchers used the remaining daylight hours to take a scouting trip to the south end of the refuge where we would be searching for the next 3 days.

We passed through 2 locked gates on the levee and one locked gate just after leaving the levee heading west into the refuge.  The refuge road makes about a 10-mile loop after it splits at the Prairie Lakes campground.  The road to the west was blocked just past the campground by a fallen tree.  We took the road to the south, and after driving 3.7 miles and moving a dead tree off of the road, we came to another tree across the road (a large cottonwood tree) that could not be moved easily.

The team wandered into the woods and promptly found a tree with extensive bark scaling.  The tree was near the base of the fallen cottonwood tree (N 34 02' 42.9", W 91 05' 16.9").  The scaling was low to the ground on a recently dead 10" diameter tree (twigs still attached, not sure of the species), was extensive (two feet by eight inches), and showed horizontal gouge marks.  The scaling was remarkably similar to some much of the scaling I saw in Louisiana.

The team spread out a found a few other trees with similar scaling.  We decided that this would be a good place to start the search in the morning.  We also resolved to find a way to clear the tree from the road so that we could more easily access the remainder of the refuge.

Back at the levee building we discussed key field marks, vocalizations, and double-raps of IBWs.  We also agreed upon a data collection protocol.  We decided that we would take waypoints, or global positioning system (GPS) location marks, every half-hour.  Additionally, each hour one person in the group would do a five-minute point count of all birds while another group member would take tree data.  The tree data information involved counting all the trees in a 20-meter circle and categorizing them into small (less than ten inch diameter), medium (ten to twenty inch diameter), and large (greater than twenty inch diameter).  This protocol was similar to the collection protocol used on the Zeiss search.

January 3, 2003

We found an ax at the levee building and used it to clear enough of the tree from the road to drive around it.  We did the clearing work right at dawn and spent the first 30 minutes of the morning around the site of the fallen tree and the scaling.  Woody saw a large crested woodpecker in the early morning dim light that he could not see any red on.  Unfortunately, the bird never vocalized and flew directly away from view before anyone else had a chance to see it.

We formed two teams that morning:  Woody and Matt Largess were together, and Matt Moran, David Hayes, and David Luneau were the other team.  The team of two explored the area south of the loop road, and drove around the loop scouting other area later in the day.  They canoed across Scrubgrass Bayou and explored part of the Sugarberry Natural Area also.  The team of three headed northwest inside the loop road.  They went as far north as the north part of the loop road below Prairie Lakes, turned east, then headed back south to the van.

Both teams were impressed with the size of the trees and the general quality of the forest as a potential IBW habitat.  The areas covered had a good amount of standing dead timber.  Matt Largess took a number of measurements of large trees, finding an American Sycamore in excess of eight feet in diameter and many oaks (primarily Overcup) in excess of four feet.  No additional signs of tree scaling were noted.

Birds of note were a Blue-headed Vireo and two Pine Warblers.  The vireo is an uncommon bird in the winter in Arkansas.  The warbler is notable because of its presence in a bottomland hardwood forest with no pine trees for many miles around.

We all drove around together in the evening to scout areas for the next day's search.  We noticed some scaling near the road at the south end of East Moon Lake.  There were several trees with extensive scaling at heights of six to ten feet.  The scaling was different than what we had previously seen - it had pairs of parallel gouges in the wood.  (We determined later that beavers did the scaling.  They must have done it during periods of high water.)  We left the area just before dusk.  We observed tens of thousands of ducks, mostly Mallards, flying into the fields east of the levee on our way back to the levee building.

Robert Henderson and Bill Shepherd joined us in the evening.  We planned the next day's search, which would have three teams.  David Hayes and Bill would have to leave before the end of the day, so we put them together with Matt Moran on a team of three.  David Luneau and Matt Largess would be together, and Woody and Robert would be the third team.

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