Degray State Park Eagle Etc Weekend

We went camping last weekend up at DeGray State Park outside Hot Springs. It was our second year to go to the Eagle Etc weekend that they plan. We met Don and Susie up there. They stayed at the lodge which is beautiful. Mom, Dad, George Wesley (nephew) and I went and camped in my hybrid. I thought George Wesley was the perfect age (9) to introduce him to bird watching. I think that he really enjoyed it.

The weekend starts out Friday with tours on the lake and different educational classes about birds of prey of Arkansas. It is a very interesting two days.

We got up there Friday afternoon around 5 PM and set up the hybrid in my favorite camping site #78. The lake was up 9 ft, so if I had brought my kayak (way too cold for kayaking), I could have gotten into it easily from our campsite. We asked the ranger what the water temp was when we were out Saturday in the boat to look for eagles. He said it was around 45 degrees. So I am very glad that I did not bring my yak! Besides it was cold and rainy most of the day Saturday so there really was no opportunity to get a good paddle in.

Friday Night we went on an "Owl Prowl" to see if we could call up some owls. Unfortunately they all decided to stay away so we did not get to hear any wild owls calling back to the ranger. After the 10 PM walk in the woods we went back to the conference center and George got to dissect an owl pellet. It was really cool. We found 3 heads all from a western rat like animal. I think I enjoyed it more than George...it kinda brought back my biology lab days. I always ordered owl pellets for my classes to dissect when I taught.

Saturday morning we went out on a party barge looking for eagles. It was very cold and damp, and I had misplaced my gloves and heavy coat so I was pretty miserable the whole time. And as we were starting back to the landing it started to rain. We only saw one eagle the whole hour that we were out, but we were able to get pretty close to that one. We got back in and went back to the camper to eat lunch and warm back up. That afternoon an eagle that had been rehabilitated was released. It had been shot with buckshot and could not fly. It was picked up by the Little Rock Zoo and nursed back to health in time to be released during the Eagle Etc weekend. It was really great to see it step out of the cage, get it's bearings and fly off into the misty afternoon.

We also had a "Meet and Greet" with the birds that the Little Rock Zoo brought. These are all birds that have been rehabilitated and cannot be sent back to the wild for some reason. I got a couple of pictures that I liked. Especially of the hawk and owl.

And George got to pose with an eagle. It kept trying to take a small bite out of him!

The program ended Saturday night with a wonderful talk by a naturalist who works with the birds of prey. She is a very interesting speaker. But my back was hurting from sitting in those awful plastic chairs for two days, so I stayed in the lobby of the resort and fell asleep on the couch there. Don and Susie woke me up as they were going up their room. They told me that Mom and Wesley would be along soon...as soon as George finished picking up the poop... It seems that the naturalist had asked for a volunteer...without telling what they were volunteering for...George got his hand up first...whoopee...he was the pooper-scooper for the night! So he had a lot of poop to clean up before he could leave! LOL! That will teach him to volunteer before they tell him what for!

Sunday morning it was 21 degrees! The water was frozen coming out of the spigot and the hose coming in to the trailer was frozen too. Dad had to go outside with my hair dryer and blow hot air on the spigot and hose so we could wash up after breakfast! But we were nice and warm inside the hybrid. When we finally ventured out of the trailer we found that one of my back tires on the 4Runner was flat. Luckily Mom (on her way to the park bathroom) talked to some boy scouts who were camping and they said they would change it for us. Thank goodness good deeds are still done by the Boy Scouts! They got out in the cold and got on the wet ground and had my tire changed within 30 minutes. I'm very glad that I did not have to call AAA to come out. It probably would have cost a good bit since we weren't close to any town.

Well that's it for this report. We were so busy going to the seminars that I did not get any pictures of the campsite... I do have more pictures from the trip on my Webshots Album. You can click here to go to the album.

'til next time

Cathy