Despite myriad setbacks, Week Fourteen was a truly spectacular week of birding primarily focused in Missouri. While in the end the week was a great one, it certainly got off to a painfully slow start. Initially I had planned on being in Arkansas through Monday the 31st, but a combination of some plans falling through and the sudden sickness that had struck me over the weekend resulted in me spending pretty much all of Sunday resting; by the time Monday rolled around I was feeling much better and still being in western Arkansas I decided to just head north and get started on birding Missouri, but as I did a new problem arose.
Over the course of the past few days my brakes had been starting to make some noise and I knew I would need to schedule an appointment soon to get that taken care of; unfortunately, as I began my birding for the week that “soon” became “immediately” when the sound became a loud, harsh grinding noise. Not wanting to risk the issue getting worse and become even more costly – or potentially progress into a danger – I made the decision to cut my birding short after just my first stop of the day, the Commercial Drive Pond. I managed to pick up a smattering of Missouri birds there: Red-shouldered Hawk, Fish Crow, Carolina Chickadee, and Dark-eyed Junco to name of a few of the eighteen birds picked up there.
After that one stop I headed to the city of Joplin, where I stopped by a Discount Tire. Unfortunately, after about a two hour wait, I was informed that Discount Tire didn’t actually work on brakes (Doh!), and so I was forced to look around and schedule an appointment elsewhere – and even more unfortunately it was too late in the day for me to be able to guarantee that I get my car back by the end of the day if I dropped it off somewhere on Monday, and with my car being my bed that wasn’t something I could risk and as such I was forced to make the decision to wait until Tuesday morning.
I probably could have done a bit more birding in the area, but I decided to take advantage of the situation to get a bit more rest to put the nail in the coffin of my sickness as well as avoid as much driving as possible. Tuesday morning I dropped my car off at the local Firestone Auto Service Center, and after a few hours my brakes had been replaced (rotors were damaged, hence the grinding) and I was on the road.
My first stop of proper birding for Missouri was at the Webb City Wastewater Treatment Ponds, a fantastic publicly-accessible set of pseudo-natural ponds which hosted a large variety of birds including nine species of ducks and six species of shorebirds, as well as six species of sparrows singing and chipping from along the vegetation between the ponds and around the facility’s edges. Wood Duck, Northern Pintail, Wilson’s Snipe, Lesser Yellowlegs, Greater Yellowlegs, Pectoral Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, and Lincoln’s Sparrow made up some of the highlights of the 39 species I tracked down in my hour-and-a-half at the ponds. Next I began working my way towards Prairie State Park, picking up a Black Vulture along the way but not much else noteworthy at the park itself, as the winds over the open prairie made birding challenging – though a herd of Bison was an exciting enough sighting.
After leaving Prairie State Park I made my way to the nearby Bushwhacker Lake Conservation Area, where I spent the rest of the day. The great birds came early and often at Bushwhacker, and before it started to get dark out I’d racked up an impressive list including Northern Bobwhite, American Golden-Plover, Loggerhead Shrike, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Brown Thrasher, Fox Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, and Brewer’s Blackbird. As dark set in I decided to stay and try for a handful of dusk and nocturnal birds, most particularly Short-eared Owl and American Woodcock. Short-eared Owl showed itself as the daylight faded, and as I waited to hear a woodcock peenting I was pleasantly surprised to be first greeted instead by a pair of calling Henslow’s Sparrow, my first of the year and only the fifth time in my life I’ve heard them. Soon after the Henslow’s came the distinct “peent” of American Woodcock. I stayed around the spot for a bit longer in hopes of hearing any owls, but decided to move on after about twenty minutes and headed north towards Kansas City.
I spent the night in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel along the south end of Kansas City, and slept in a bit as Wednesday was to be a day of crazy rain, and possibly even hail and risk of tornados in the morning – though fortunately those latter two forecasts never realized. Once the worst of the weather had subsided I bit I made my way north through the city to Smithville Lake, where I planned to meet Doug Willis in the early afternoon. While I waited for him I scanned the reservoir, spotting American White Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant, Horned Grebe, Common Loon, Franklin’s Gull, and Bonaparte’s Gull. When I was satisfied with my time spent scanning from my current location I still had a bit more time until Doug arrived, so I headed to the nearby Smithville Lake Nature Center, where I added Yellow-rumped Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Brown Thrasher, and Black-capped Chickadee.
Once I was done with my short walk there it was time to head back towards the lake to meet up with Doug at the Camp Branch Marina. From there we headed to the Crow Creek Picnic Area, where we scanned the lake and tallied an impressive array of waterfowl including Lesser Scaup, Greater Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Bufflehead, Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, and American Wigeon. At Sailboat Cove we got another got another look at a Horned Grebe before heading to the Smoke and Davey Trail for a nice hike. Eventually we went and got lunch, and then went for another hike at the Smith Fork Park, which was hopping with birds including Red-headed Woodpecker, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and Brown Creeper. After our walk Doug and I parted ways and I made my way north to put myself in position to visit the legendary Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday.
Thursday would prove to be the day that defined my time in Missouri, kicking off right from the dawn when I started my day at Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. At Loess Bluffs I propelled myself over the century-mark for the state with a 71-species checklist containing a wide variety of species. Loess Bluffs was truly spectacular, and reminded me of what I’d imagine Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge would be like back home if the wildlife drive were accessible during the spring. At the right time of year Loess Bluffs holds massive flocks of Snow Goose, but there were only a few hundred lingering during my visit, along with some Ross’s Goose and Greater White-fronted Goose. There were thousands of American Coot and a ton of ducks, a variety of shorebirds, and a good mix of songbirds.
After nearly three hours at Loess Bluffs I departed and headed east, working my way through north-central Missouri to Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge. While there was still a large variety of ducks at Swan Lake, at first it seemed like the lesser of the two refuges of the day, however as I continued working my way around the dikes the species piled up more and more, and by the time I was making my way out of the refuge I was sitting just shy of the 70-species mark. I would cross that mark along the road out of the refuge when I spotted what I at first thought was a flock of a couple hundred American Golden-Plover, but soon realized was actually three flocks, each ranging from 300 to 600 Golden-Plover.
In the same field there were also Lesser Yellowlegs, Greater Yellowlegs, Wilson’s Snipe, Solitary Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Baird’s Sandpiper, and Least Sandpiper. Watching the river of plover flow through the sky as they were flushed by a flyover Bald Eagle was one of the most spectacular spectacles I have ever had the privilege of spectating, and while they weren’t even a new bird for the state the flock at Swan Lake may be my highlight of the week and of Missouri.
After Swan Lake I paid a quick stop to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, a spot which can be fantastic but was underwhelming during my visit due to the pumps that keep the area flooded being down for maintenance. I then settled in for the night in the town of Columbia, preparing to head south on Friday morning to make my way down to the Ironton area, where I would be meeting Keith Brink.
So far my time in Missouri had been wet, but Thursday night into Friday the rain increased in intensity, and with the ground already pretty well saturated from the rains earlier in the week, the result was every body of water rising rapidly. My driving Friday was mostly unaffected by this impending flooding, though the pouring rain caused me to not get very much birding in, making only a couple of insignificant stops early before heading to Keith’s house to meet up with him in the afternoon.
After meeting up with Keith we headed a short ways out of town towards the feeder’s of one of Keith’s friends, where we got spectacular views of a Pine Warbler. We then made our way to the Roselle Access, where despite the crazy volumes of water flowing through the river we still managed to successfully locate a pair of singing Louisiana Waterthrush. At our next stop, the Fredericktown City Lake, we were unsuccessful in locating our target – a Bewick’s Wren – due to the lake being so high the roads around it were impassible, but while stopped to think about what to do next we added Yellow-throated Warbler.
We made the decision to call it a day on Friday and headed back to Keith’s house after picking up a pizza, and after dinner I took a shower and called it an early night. The next morning we headed north towards St Louis, with the hope of tracking down a Eurasian Tree Sparrow, a St Louis-area specialty bird.
Our first stop on Thursday was at the Waters Point just south of St Louis, a spot where Eurasian Tree Sparrow had been recently reported. While we didn’t have any success at the hotspot itself, we made the decision to drive some of the nearby roads in search of some feeders that may be attracting the species. It only took a couple minutes before I spotted a Eurasian Tree Sparrow on top of a shed along the very first road we began to drive before we even spotted any feeders! With our target for the day in the bag we made the decision to just continue north to the Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary, where we spotted another flock of the Eurasian Tree Sparrows as well as a variety of ducks, primarily Lesser Scaup and Ruddy Duck.
From Riverlands we made our way to the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, but by then the rain had picked up and we made the decision to just call it an early day and headed back to Keith’s. The next morning Keith and I had plans to head south to the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge, however after being forced to take a couple detours due to flooded roads we made the determination that getting to Mingo wasn’t going to be reasonably possible, and so we parted ways and I started heading east towards Kentucky. I encountered yet more flooded roads along my drive and was forced to detour through Illinois, where at the Cape Bend Wetlands I spotted some Lesser Yellowlegs, Greater Yellowlegs, and Pectoral Sandpiper.
Eventually I entered Kentucky and, despite the occasional continuing sprinkles of rain, got off to a fantastic start for the state. My first stop, the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area, hosted a good variety of woodland birds as well as few ducks and a bunch of Great Egret. The new birds continued to drip in along with the rain as I drove, and at the Harry Lee Waterfield Roadside Park I picked up Lesser Scaup, Osprey, Tree Swallow, Barn Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, and Purple Martin. At Kenlake State Resort Park I tallied a good variety of woodland birds including Louisiana Waterthrush, Black-and-white Warbler, and Northern Parula. Out on the water by the park was a massive raft of ducks, the majority of which were too distant to ID but I did pick out Bufflehead and a huge group of Lesser Scaup, as well as a count of forty-seven Common Loon.
My last stop of the day, the Lake Barkley State Resort Park, brought another patch of new Kentucky birds including Red-headed Woodpecker, Horned Grebe, Bonaparte’s Gull, and Yellow-throated Warbler, but the highlight of my time at the park was the flock of several thousand swallows, consisting primarily of Tree Swallow, Barn Swallow, and Cliff Swallow, but with some Northern Rough-winged Swallow and Purple Martin also in the mix.
Fortunately Sunday was supposed to be the last day of significant rain, though throughout Week Fifteen I would be forced to navigate the extensive flooding in the region that has left many areas inaccessible – this would prove to be more a blessing than a curse, however, as my expectation that Kentucky would be a challenging state to find ducks in would be proven a false worry as the same waters that are making it impossible to drive down some roads are also holding a spectacular array of ducks. Kentucky was supposed to be the last state where 100 species would be a challenge, but would that really prove to be the case? Tune in next week to find out, and in the meantime: Happy Birding!
eBird Trip Summary:
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Follow me on my journey to see 100 species in every Lower-48 State during 2025, experience some of the incredible places and events in American birding, and meet and bird with as many local birders as possible along the way.
Posts will be made every Wednesday (I will try to have them out by 5pm, but situationally they might be a bit later) and will cover the previous Monday through Sunday. Additional posts will be made periodically with no set schedule.
