A huge wildlife refuge near well, NOWHERE, KS.
I headed down after a photo contest in Topeka with my father on Sat night. It was the weekend of my happy 18th, and so he was willing to try one of my crazy adventures with me. I read about the whooping and sandhill crane migrations; they were due to peak this week.
FROSTY FOXTAIL
We went SW for hours; landing at a friends house in Garden City, KS at about midnight. THe night sky was incredible! We spotted a few plantes and constillations, the comet, the milky way and a handful of shooting stars.
When we woke up at some confused time, everything was icy and frosty. I even found some icecicles birthed from the overspray of a nieghbors sprinkler. We ate and hung out until about 1:30. The refuge was on our way home, and about 1/2 way back to topeka.
IN the refuge, which covered about 7000 acres of salt marsh, there are a few drives for cars to go along side of the marshes. I would have liked to have hiked, as they had many foot trails, but the sun was going to set an hour earlier than it did the night before and we became pressed for time. 
In search of the 5000+ cranes that were supposedly on the area, we found many different types of ducks and geese, some of which I had never seen before.
Many HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of white fronted geese, N.Shovelers, Mallards and other species of ducks and geese swarmed the wet areas, and the hawks, falcons and songbirds filled the dry ones. We even got to see a few pereguine falcons!!! Others, like the pelicans, snow geese and brants were common(had some fantastic images of them, but were deleted by a corrupt memcard !) JUST LOOK AT THE DIVERSITY OF DUCKS!
At the last stretch of the first drive, about a 1/4 mile into the marsh you could see the cranes. There were only about a thousand of them, and they were way too far to take a decent picture of, but they were there!!! The cranes were in smaller groups in the grass just about the marsh, and were mixed with the swarms of white-fronted geese.
In hope of getting to see a group of cranes a little closer, we continued about 8 miles south to the largest marsh on the area. We found many herons, cormerants, ducks and deer -but no cranes
SUNSET
PHEASANT FLUSHED ABOUT 3FT AWAY;ONLY GOT ONE SHOT .
The area was defenatly a whole other one from Sqaw Creek, with witch many of you are more familiar. It was many times the size, very salty and sandy, and the vegitation was much shorter in most places. The water was crystal clear, and hosted a variety of fish and invertabrates seen from the shore. An I challange anybody to find a sandhill in Sqaw Creek ! My only complaint was the distance- You certainly have to see the area, but its about 4.5 hours away(if you follow the speed limits) from KC.
2 comments:
Hey Dylan,
This is Chris T. from the MMN group. What do you think the little brown bird is? I went to the "little brown bird" class and I'm guessing that it is an American Tree Sparrow - rusty head cap, unstreaked chest, and dark chest spot. Did you ID it?
Though its not very apparent in the photo, tree sparrows are the only ones that have the large dark spot on its breast. Other visual indicators on this bird are the two-toned beak and black legs. I agree with you; I think that this guy(and the rest in his flock), was a tree sparrow.
The other option is that maybe, because of the surrounding country (expansive sagebrush, high plains, no trees), it was a chipping sparrow. This species is just as common this time of year, and much more so in the summer months, but does not have those tell-tale signs that we see on my bird.
Congradulations on your class, and thanks for your comment!
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