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Fall Bird Migration in Arkansas

Arkansas is Delta rice country where the state agency's December flight estimated close to three million light geese, and the designated viewing is at refuges built for those geese plus a state park bluff where broad-winged hawks pass in September.

Agency viewing sites
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Species documented
3
Mapped
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Where to stand

Public viewing sites in Arkansas

Every place below is one an agency itself describes for watching the fall passage, with the agency named and linked, the species it documents there, the months it names as the peak, and the facility that exists: a tour route, a platform, a tower, a visitor centre. Where the agency wrote a sentence worth reading, it is quoted exactly.

Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge, refuge roads and visitor center FederalMarquee site

Farmed and flooded Delta bottomland near Bald Knob

Snow gooseGreater white-fronted goose

The refuge calls itself a winter home for large concentrations of many species of ducks and geese and says that during the late fall and through winter large concentrations of blue, snow, Canada and white fronted geese can be seen feeding in the stubble left from farming; it is also the largest staging area in Arkansas for northern pintails, with more than 200,000 once recorded in a single day. The visitor center at 1439 Coal Chute Road, Bald Knob, opens weekdays, and refuge roads are open to vehicles subject to closure. The Waterfowl Sanctuary marked on the refuge map is closed to all entry and public use from November 15 through February 28, and the Core Waterfowl Area closes to all entry after 1 pm each day in the same window.

“large concentrations of blue, snow, Canada, and white fronted geese can be seen feeding in the stubble leftover from farming.”
US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge, quoted exactly.

Run by US Fish and Wildlife Service

Mount Magazine State Park, Cameron Bluff Overlook Drive hawkwatch State

Bluff top in the Ozark National Forest, 18 miles south of Paris on Highway 309

Broad-winged hawk

The HawkCount profile places the primary viewing site along Cameron Bluff Overlook Drive, at the third parking area about two miles from the park information center, where a stone wall protects viewers at the cliff edge; the state park manages the land inside the Ozark National Forest. The fall count season runs September 1 to October 1, and the profile's season average for broad-winged hawks is 717 birds, with a high season of 3,117 in 2017 and a largest day of 1,788 on September 28, 2017. Sharp-shinned hawks average only ten a season here, so they are not listed.

Run by Arkansas State Parks, count reported to HawkCount

The map

Arkansas sites, refuges and the reporting record

Style
Records
Layers

Viewing sites in Arkansas, with the national wildlife refuges in the state drawn underneath. The coloured grid is where people have uploaded a verified sandhill crane record to iNaturalist in September, October, November and December, brighter where more have been logged. It is a map of reports rather than of birds: it thickens around refuges, car parks and towns because that is where observers stand, and it shows past reports rather than birds present today. Pins are public viewing sites an agency itself describes; grey dots are US Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and hatcheries, drawn because the refuge system is where most of the staging happens.

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When

When the passage peaks in Arkansas

US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge puts the Arkansas peak at late fall and through winter. That describes a pattern across past autumns. The week itself swings with the weather: a cold front to the north moves cranes and geese south in a single night, and a warm spell holds them for weeks. Dawn and the last hour before dusk are when cranes and geese move between the fields and the water, and that movement is the spectacle the platforms are built for.

Arkansas is the wintering floor of the Mississippi Flyway's rice belt, and the state agency's flights are the best published measure of the fall arrival. AGFC flies transect surveys of the Delta in late November, early to mid December, early January and late January and posts each as a report; its December 2025 flight estimated 2,992,914 light geese, lesser snow and Ross's together, and 285,292 greater white-fronted geese in the Delta. The Service's Bald Knob refuge is the one agency page that ties named goose species to a public place in fall, with the caveat that its waterfowl sanctuary closes to all entry from mid November, while Holla Bend on the Arkansas River offers the classic auto tour and observation tower. The other fall movement is overhead: the state park hawkwatch on Mount Magazine reports its broad-winged hawk flight within a September count season.

Below, one curve per species the agencies document in Arkansas: every research grade observation members of the public have uploaded to iNaturalist for the state, by calendar month across every year the platform holds, with September to December shaded. Counts of uploads, so they measure observers as well as birds, and the shape is worth reading where the absolute numbers are not.

Snow goose

291 research grade snow geese observations have been uploaded to iNaturalist for Arkansas across every year the platform holds, and 47 percent of them fall in the four shaded autumn months. The busiest month in the record is December. An autumn month carries about 1.75 times as many uploads as an average month outside autumn. People upload most of everything in May, so a bar that rises after that is the stronger signal. Counts of what people reported, measuring observers as well as birds. See the autumn records.

Greater white-fronted goose

141 research grade greater white-fronted geese observations have been uploaded to iNaturalist for Arkansas across every year the platform holds, and 45 percent of them fall in the four shaded autumn months. The busiest month in the record is February. An autumn month carries about 1.66 times as many uploads as an average month outside autumn. People upload most of everything in May, so a bar that rises after that is the stronger signal. Counts of what people reported, measuring observers as well as birds. See the autumn records.

Broad-winged hawk

219 research grade broad-winged hawks observations have been uploaded to iNaturalist for Arkansas across every year the platform holds, and 11 percent of them fall in the four shaded autumn months. The busiest month in the record is April. An autumn month carries about 0.25 times as many uploads as an average month outside autumn. People upload most of everything in May, so a bar that rises after that is the stronger signal. Counts of what people reported, measuring observers as well as birds. See the autumn records.

Sandhill cranes flying in a loose line across a pale open sky, necks held straight out in front and long legs trailing behind them
Sandhill cranes crossing a refuge on the morning flight. The movement is watched from the designated pullout or platform: the birds settle on shallow water for the night, and the roost itself is the one place a viewing site is never placed. “Sandhill cranes flying over Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (24542820818)” by USFWS Midwest Region from United States, CC BY 2.0
Latest reports

What people have reported in Arkansas lately

The most recent research grade autumn observation of each species that anyone has uploaded to iNaturalist for Arkansas, as a date and the platform’s own coarse locality. Evidence that people do find snow goose and greater white-fronted goose here. Each is one bird on one past day: the flocks move with the weather, so where they are this week is what the agency page and its counts answer.

Checking the most recent autumn uploads for Arkansas on iNaturalist...

Where Arkansas counts are published

Elsewhere

Other states with agency designated migration viewing

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Questions about Arkansas

Inventory compiled 2026-09-19 from the agency pages linked above. Agency text is quoted exactly with its source named and linked; the observation curves and latest reports are counts and dates from public uploads to iNaturalist.

Winter eagle watching in ArkansasThe same refuges and rivers three months later, when the ice concentrates the eagles.Arkansas waterfowl seasonThe hunting calendar on the same marshes, worth knowing before standing on a dike in October.Arkansas daylight hoursThe dawn and dusk flights are the spectacle, and the clock change moves them.