Area bird watchers flock to Eagle Watch Trail

Westside Eagle Observer/Randy Moll Joe Neal (left) and other members of the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society stop along the Eagle Watch Nature Trail on Saturday (Aug. 4, 2018) to view a bird. The group of local bird watchers and photographers was there on a field trip Saturday morning.
Westside Eagle Observer/Randy Moll Joe Neal (left) and other members of the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society stop along the Eagle Watch Nature Trail on Saturday (Aug. 4, 2018) to view a bird. The group of local bird watchers and photographers was there on a field trip Saturday morning.

GENTRY -- Almost 20 area bird watchers attended the Saturday morning field trip of the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society to the Eagle Watch Nature Trail in Gentry.

Those attending saw a variety of songbirds, as well as egrets, herons, double-crested cormorants, a neotropic cormorant, and an adult killdeer with three recently-hatched chicks. Among the many insects were the monarch butterfly and swallowtails.

Joe Neal, area bird expert, and Terry Stanfill, Eagle Watch creator and manager, served as guides for the field trip. Stanfill shared swamp milkweed plants he had grown at his home with Audubon Society members to be planted at their homes for the benefit of Monarch butterflies, which are dependent upon the plant.

The group makes annual trips to Eagle Watch each year to view birds and eagles.

General News on 08/08/2018