Birding patrons of the arts missed a stellar day afield May 7 – the date of this year’s annual “Birding for the Arts.” There seem to be more and more competing interests around this weekend every year – Razzle Dazzle and The Whole Blooming Thing are a couple that come to mind. No doubt these are fine events and if that’s your cup of tea, cool. But if you enjoy getting out to see the spring birds, butterflies and wildflowers, you should keep an eye out for next year’s “Birding for the Arts.”

We began as usual at the Performing Arts Center in Waynesville. Kudos to the Haywood Waterways Association’s efforts to improve the riparian habitat there. They’ve put the meander back in the stream and they’ve done some planting. The difference was noticeable right away as a little green heron flew into a tree along the stream as we were standing there. When we walked over, we flushed a spotted sandpiper. Next, thanks to Bob Olthoff’s great ears we picked up a northern waterthrush. We walked down to the end of the parking lot straining to hear the waterthrush in the distance.

That’s where we found our next sandpiper, a solitary, across the stream. As we watched the solitary, the waterthrush got louder as it came closer. Soon it was foraging on the ground and in the low vegetation across the stream in front of us. I sure hope Haywood Waterways plans to leave some open/marshy area along the stream – great habitat for sandpipers and waterthrushes.

Our next stop was the Barber’s Orchard fruit stand and up the road to the railroad tracks. There is more development there, but we did find a couple of fruit stand regulars – least flycatcher and Cape May warbler. Hopefully the row of spruces near the fruit stand will stay; they are a Cape May magnet.

Next we went to Lake Junaluska. We stopped to look at the small green heron rookery at the newly formed wetlands. We found two birds on nests there. We got our quota of swallows at the lake – purple martin, barn swallow, tree swallow and northern rough-wing swallow. We also picked up a common loon. Unfortunately it was still in its dingy, winter garb.

A stop near the Lambuth Inn produced outstanding views of a blackpoll warbler. We were able to the view the bird at length, at eye level and below from as close as 50 feet.

We hit the Blue Ridge Parkway for lunch at the Waynesville Overlook. We had American redstarts and chestnut-sided warblers practically peering in our lunch boxes.

We changed our route this year to include a greater diversity of habitat. From the Waynesville Overlook we traveled south on the BRP to Cherokee and then on to Kituwha (Ferguson’s fields.)

The birds and birding were steady at the lower elevations along the parkway. The cold snap had burned and/or delayed a lot of the tender buds and leaves at the higher elevations and birding was pretty slow up there. We did pick up a few high-elevation specialties, however – winter wren, golden-crowned kinglet, veery and common raven.

Along U.S. 19 between Cherokee and Kituwha we heard a yellow-throated warbler (new species for the day) singing from the riverbank. We pulled over at a convenience store to get a positive ID. As we got out of our vehicles, a yellow-throated vireo sang from directly across the highway.

I trotted back down the highway to get a bead on the yellow-throated warbler. Beth Brinson and Cathy King got their scope out to focus on the vireo. They found a nest and got brief looks at the female sitting in it.

Next was Kituwha. Kate Queen had been to Kituwha the week before with George Ellison’s annual Smoky Mountain Birding Expedition. They had great looks at some of our target birds. We got to the area where they had blue grosbeaks the week before and nothing – not a flutter, not a peep.

A bit disillusioned, we pressed on to the next fencerow – still nothing. We stopped and listened, heard nothing and turned around to find a male blue grosbeak in a large locust giving us the eye.

The beavers and the hay farmers at Kituwha have an eternal pitched battle — the beavers trying to create wetlands, the farmers trying to create hayfields. The week before we were there the beavers must have been winning and George and his group found wood ducks. This week the wetlands were shrinking. There were no wood ducks but there were at least eight solitary sandpipers, one spotted sandpiper, two sora rails and one marsh wren.

We ended the day with 94 species including 19 species of warblers. We also got great looks at several bobolinks. It was a great day. Next year will be a great day too. Join us.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at ddihen@earthlink.net.)