Trip to Arkansas

Hi. I first posted this in the MW forum, by mistake. I live in Florida. In January-February, I may be taking a business trip to Walmart in Bentonville.

Do any of you live in this area? While I'm there I'd love to get some images, and I will definitely need a guide.

I've never been to this part of the country, so I'm looking forward to it.

I have a 40D, a 17-85 lens, a 70-300, and a 400 5.6. I use the 400 for birds. That brings up another question - should I bring the 400, which I normally don't bring because it is heavier (unless I'm specifically travelling for wildlife shots) or should I just bring the other two lenses for landscape shots?

Thanks in advance.

Glad to hear you'll be up in this neck of the woods. I say bring all of your camera equipment - you never know what you might want to shoot, especially if you want to shoot any wildlife. If you are not a wildlife shooter, then you might not need the 400. The best guide is ARKANSAS NATURE LOVER'S GUIDEBOOK, which you can find online or at the Barnes & Noble store in Rogers (it has maps, photos, and directions to more than 100 great scenic areas all over the state, but many of them are in the northwest Arkansas area, including an entire section on the Buffalo River hot spots). You will find many great places to shoot within an hour or two drive, with the Buffalo River area being one of the best. Many of the folks on this board live within an hour of WM headquarters, in fact a couple live within about ten minutes of there. I'm sure many more will chime in as well. Hope you have a great trip...

Tim is correct Lance, although I don't live in the Buffalo National river area it is great for photo ops. Bring your hiking boots and lots of stamina, them ridges are steep.

Check out Tim's Journal at www.timernst.com and his guide and photo books. You even have time to get them direct from him.

End of January I will be in Duck Key, FL. Guess we are trading places, any suggestions? I will be driving down.

Hi Lance,

Let me know the dates when you're coming down, and I'll do my best to meet up with you. Currently I'm still waiting to find out if I'm doing a commercial shoot on the west coast and the Sierra Nevada area sometime in Jan./Feb. I wish I knew now...

I've got everything from a 12-24 for landscapes to a 300/2.8 + TC for wildlife images, but that 500 or 600mm lens is still on the back burner... The landscape may be a little brown, but you never know - perhaps some Elk might oblige us... do you have hip waders?

Please feel free to send me a note and we'll see what can be done!

Cheers,
Marc

Thanks, guys.

Larry, you definitely want to spend some time at Green Cay and Wakodahatchee. They are located within 5 minutes of each other on the east side of Florida, near I-95, approximately 35 minutes north of Fort Lauderdale. They should both be within your driving plans, or very close, anyway.

Green Cay has a wide variety of species at the moment, including spoonbills, hawks, northern harriers, and warblers, along with the herons, egrets, ibis, limpkins, gallinules, gators, ducks and teals. Also an occasional osprey and snail kites.

Wako has at least 5 Great Blue Heron nests, along with a lesser degree of the other species found at GC.

At the moment, I know that I'll be out of town Jan 28-Feb 1, but that's for a personal trip to Moab. I don't know about the WM dates yet. If you're going to be down here any time other than 1/28-2/1, please give me a call and I'll be happy to take you around GC and Wako. I'm at 561-945-2074.

I hope someone does live near the Bentonville area and responds to this thread, because I know I would welcome the help in finding my way around the Buffalo River area.

Lance,
Thanks for the invite. Not sure of my itinerary yet. Will have to see if that will work.

Wish I could help on your trip to Bentonville.