Large numbers of creatures that head south for winter are flying or floating high in the air, which makes Mount Magazine State Park -- location of the state's highest elevation -- a good place to watch the show.
The park has a Migration Celebration theme for this weekend's interpretive programs, with activities relating to several kinds of migratory creatures.
Among other attractions, interpreter Don Simons plans to post himself on the high cliffs of Cameron Bluff from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Visitors are welcome to join him to watch birds, butterflies and (as the park calendar puts it) "even spiders" passing overhead.
Spiders? Spiders migrate?
"You've heard of gossamer?" Simons asks. "That's when little spiders make gobs of spider silk and get airborne. It's also called ballooning, like a hot air balloon. It wouldn't be true migration, but it's a way of moving from one place to another."
Spider gossamer snags on tree limbs, and in places where many spiders float from the place they hatched to wherever the breeze drops them, "it kind of looks like somebody [toilet-papered] the place," Simons says. He says he hasn't often seen massive amounts of gossamer caught on trees and wires in the park, but he has seen some.
"Tarantulas don't do it, but lots of itty bitty brown spiders do."
Of course, ballooning spiders are not the main attraction during migration season.
"I've been doing hawk watching for a few years up here," he says. "We see pretty good numbers this time of year. If the weather's just right you can see hundreds during the day, heading south to the Gulf Coast or South America.
"The most common seen are broad-winged hawks, but we get red-tailed, red-shouldered, Accipiters, falcons.
"The broad-wings like to go in big groups. They get on thermals [upward currents of warm air], and you'll see them spinning big circles. Working their way up in the thermal that way, they don't have to flap their wings. When they get to the top of a thermal, they glide out until they catch another thermal.
"Sometimes they come right by us, right over our heads or right at eye level.
"It's pretty neat. It's possible to see 200 or 300 in one thermal at one time."
Other Migration Weekend programs, taking place at the lodge, include chances to:
• Watch rehabilitator Lynn Sciumbato handle birds of prey, alive and up close, from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday in the banquet hall.
• Make a golden eagle claw necklace and learn about raptors for $1 from 2:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday, on the patio.
• Meet butterfly expert Lori Spencer, author of Arkansas Butterflies and Moths, and learn about migrating butterflies at 3 p.m. Saturday in the banquet hall.
• Learn about the habitats the mountain provides for birds and get birding tips at 4 p.m. Saturday.
• Create an 11-by-14-inch painting of a bird of prey during Art Atop Arkansas, from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday. The $35 fee includes refreshments and art supplies.
• Learn about hummingbirds and create a small feeder on the patio during a $2 program from 1 to 1:45 p.m. Sunday.
More information is available by calling (479) 963-8502 or emailing mountmagazine@arkansas.com.
ActiveStyle on 09/22/2014