2020 Big Day recap: Lafayette County, Mississippi
On April 30th, 2020, J.R. Rigby and I, keeping a prudent distance and driving separate vehicles, conducted a big day in our home county of Lafayette, in northern Mississippi. We had never done this before in Lafayette County, and really had no idea what to expect. It was a really fun project to prepare for because, like any big day, it is an attempt to see all (or as many as possible of) the birds in a particular area. So, it really forces you to pay attention to the locations, habitats, and habits of all your local birds. Sure, you’ve seen Eurasian Collared-Doves around town before, but if you NEED to find one at a particular time of day, where should you look? Hmm, that spot I used to see them doesn’t seem to have them anymore, so where are we going to find one? These are the kinds of questions that arise. I think Ned Boyajian made this point to me a few years ago: Some species (Carolina Wren, Northern Cardinal, etc.), you will find so easily that it is not worth planning how to find them. Others will be so unlikely to find that it is not worth planning how to find them. It’s those in between that you need to strategize around.
Forster’s Tern during its spring migration through Mississippi
Anyhow, we decided to start at 4:00 a.m. near the check-in kiosk for the Sardis Waterfowl Refuge WMA near Sardis Lake. It was cool and breezy, but clear, with quite a few shooting stars. Fairly quickly, we heard all three target owl species (Barred, Great Horned, and Eastern Screech), as well as a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that would be our only one of the day. Moving into the refuge itself (where we had permission from the WMA manager to bird a bit outside the normal fenced area leading to the overlook platform), we tried in vain for rails and bitterns, which are difficult to come by in Lafayette County this time of year (we would end up with zero rails, gallinules, or coots), and had a tantalizing fly-by from a slim owl that was probably a Barn, but we didn’t count it. As dawn arrived, we were battling a cold northwest wind off the lake, but it was birdy–most key target birds (e.g., Swamp Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Sedge Wren, House Wren) cooperated, and most surprisingly, we ran into a nice collection of migrant warblers: although the Mourning Warbler from the day before was not among them, we had BLACKBURNIAN, BAY-BREASTED, BLACKPOLL, CERULEAN, BLACK-THROATED GREEN, TENNESSEE, YELLOW, PALM, and NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH, plus all the breeding warblers except SWAINSON’S & PROTHONOTARY.
Leaving the Refuge around 8:00 a.m., we had 84 species including 18 warblers, as strong a start as we could have imagined.
eBird checklist 1: https://ebird.org/checklist/S68094579
eBird checklist 2: https://ebird.org/checklist/S68094572
We zipped down to Lamar Park, picking up a few easy species (vultures, house sparrow, red-tailed hawk, etc.) along the way. Lamar Park quickly produced our top target species, BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCH and GREEN HERON, plus some bonus PINE SISKINS among the many American Goldfinches that have been feeding on the river birches there lately. On to Rowan Oak and Bailey’s Woods, which felt quiet (we would have liked to get there earlier) but produced some nice birds including one of our best birds of the day, a singing male WILSON’S WARBLER, plus AMERICAN REDSTART, CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER, and all three Catharus thrush species (including our only VEERY of the day). We were pushing 100 species now, at 10:15 a.m.
Prothonotary Warbler at nest hole
Heading towards the southern part of the county, a key stop was the old A&D Turf Farm, which gave us several shorebird species (most of which were the only ones of the day), plus BELTED KINGFISHER (usually a tough bird on a big day), SAVANNAH SPARROWS, and a lingering LINCOLN’S SPARROW singing quietly from the hedge row. Springdale WMA produced our last hoped-for breeding warblers (SWAINSON’S and PROTHONOTARY), plus TREE SWALLOW, putting us at 120 species by noon, and we also enjoyed a stunning pair of PROTHONOTARY WARBLERS visiting a nest hole. We took a few minutes to refresh, tally, and plan for the afternoon, which would consist of a series of stops where we would hope to add at least one new species per stop. Very few easy species (really only Chuck-will’s-widow) remained to be had. Everything else would take some work.
But new species did keep popping up: MISSISSIPPI KITE over the road, WILD TURKEY crossing the road, FORSTER’S TERN over a big flooded field north of the Prophet Bridge.
Having squeezed what we could out of the southern part of the county, we headed back north to Sardis Lake, to try to find a few more water birds and songbird migrants. Clear Creek Landing produced BALD EAGLE, Coontown Landing produced distant RING-BILLED GULLS, the Hurricane Creek bottom produced NASHVILLE WARBLER and a fly-by WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. An hour around Hurricane Landing campground was fairly birdy but turned up no new species. We had about 1.5 hours of daylight left, and were stuck at 126 species. 130 had become a target, being a nice round number, so we schemed how to come up with 4 more species.
We decided to try for NORTHERN FLICKER in my Timber Lake neighborhood, which proved successful. Then we headed for Camp Lake Stephens because JR had remembered that Northern Rough-winged Swallows (which we were still missing) nested there, and where we had gotten both Chuck and Whip when David Sibley was visiting for the MOS meeting a few years ago (Chuck would be easy anywhere, but Whip is the tough one). On our way out of Timber Lake, we unexpectedly ran into a EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE on the side of Hwy 30, and while watching it, several N. ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS flew over. We arrived at the gravel overflow parking area outside of Camp Lake Stephens, just as dusk was falling. A paper tally confirmed the eBird total of 129 species. A few minutes later, the CHUCK-WILL’S-WIDOWS started singing, and then boom, a few minutes later, an EASTERN WHIP-POOR-WILL broke into song! 131! Our day had come to a close, and we were exhausted but happy, having enjoyed a ton of good birds and gotten to know our home county that much more.