One of my birding goals, still unrealized, is to see a Swainson’s Warbler in Arkansas. A couple had been reported recently from this park in near Helena, and I drove down early on Thursday to see them. The birds were my priority, so I drove past the visitor center to the spot where they were reported and spent about an hour there and at various other spots along the road looking for them without luck. The road was a narrow blacktop through deep and tall woods. It was a cool morning, and the scenery was beautiful albeit Swainson-free.
The park is within the St. Francis National Forest and shares a visitor center with it. I had to backtrack about six miles to get there.
The enthusiastic woman behind the counter who stamped my passport attempted to get me involved in a second state park program, this one for kids, which involved interviewing a park ranger, writing down safety guidelines, pledging not to litter, etc. I declined. But I did get my fifth passport stamp and earned a Club 52 sticker.
I walked a short trail by the visitor center, then drove south through the park. I had the choice of two roads. I stuck to the paved one that I’d been on earlier, hoping still to hear a Swainson’s. I passed the two man-made lakes in the park — This is Bear Creek Lake.
I think a bit of the park borders the Mississippi River, but I never saw it. I pulled over at an overlook, thinking I could glimpse the water from there, but it was just “the view from Crowley’s Ridge,” and not much of a view at that.
There were a few other short trails I could have taken, and the second, dirt road that runs parallel to the one I took but down in the valley, but that wasn’t the day’s objective.