Deb and I went on another of our birding jaunts the last weekend in July. This is a very brief blog entry of the highlights of our adventure.
Basically it takes about three and a half to four hours to drive to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Wichita, Kansas, and about another hour to drive from Quivira to Cheyenne Bottoms, a little farther northwest.
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It's Quivira--disregard the misspelling on the map above
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Both have pretty extensive salt marshes. Since these two areas are on the migratory flyway, plenty of shore and water birds can be seen at these locations during both spring and fall migrations. The area is also an attractive resting place and breeding area for many species. Here is what the Nature Conservancy has to say about Cheyenne Bottoms and their own tract just north of it:
Cheyenne Bottoms is one of the top staging areas (the places migrating birds stop to feed and rest) for shorebirds and waterfowl in the United States. These wetlands host tens of thousands of shorebirds and up to 1/4 million waterfowl each year during their migrations. The shallow marshes — averaging less than one foot deep — are ideal habitats for wading shorebirds.
Of the 478 species of birds that have been documented in Kansas, 346 have been observed using Cheyenne Bottoms. Through banding efforts, we know that birds here migrate north as far as western Alaska and the tundra at the edge of the arctic, and south to Louisiana, Texas, Central America and the far reaches of South America. Providing abundant food and a place to rest, Cheyenne Bottoms is an essential link in this migration.
Yes, it is flat and both areas are surrounded by fields and fields of corn, wheat and other crops. The roads in both are primarily dirt, and in Cheyenne Bottoms much of the birding route is atop low dikes. Four years ago when Kansas, like Oklahoma, was experiencing prolonged drought, Deb and I visited these refuges and found them nearly dry. This visit they were lush and filled with water.
Because it takes so long to drive up from Stillwater, we booked a room at a Rodeway Inn in Hoisington, Kansas. I say "a" Rodeway Inn but I should say "the" Rodeway Inn" because this hotel is the only nearby accommodation this side of Great Bend. Restaurants and stores are nearly nonexistent, too. Though they do not look it on the map, these marshes are really isolated. We plan on taking plenty of food and water the next time we visit. We spent all of Saturday afternoon into early evening driving through Quivira.
At Quivera we saw many stilts, avocets, white pelicans, sandpipers, and killdeer as well as many eastern kingbirds and a couple of western ones as well. We were looking and listening for bobolinks but neither heard nor saw any. Deb got some good shorebird photos at Quivira:
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White-faced Ibis (Internet)
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Immature ibis with crayfish (Internet)
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At both reserves we saw lots of adults and teenagers, including the stilts above and herons, egrets, grebes, blue-winged teal, killdeer, etc. The little blue herons were still mottled with white. Deb got several shots of young coots and ruddy ducks.
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| Ruddy Duck female and young; c Deb Hirt |
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Coot mom and young; c Deb Hirt
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At lunchtime we were lost in Quivira in the middle of nowhere so munched through our convenience store popcorn and the snacks we had bought on the way up. Then we ran out of water and there was nowhere nearby to get any. Temps were in the 90Fs, the Quivira Visitor's Center was closed, and the nearest town was 50-some miles away. We stopped the only car we saw that day in the refuge. A Kansas couple were birding. He got out, helped us find the way to Cheyenne Bottoms--we had a map of the refuge but were lost. The map was useless without road names and our cell phones showed "no service." This couple also gave each of us an icy bottle of water and a power bar. These good Samaritans saved the day.
It took us forever on featureless dirt and back roads to get the 50-some miles to Cheyenne Bottoms and then to our Rodeway hotel in Hoisington. That evening, after getting cleaned up at our Hoisington Inn we located what seemed to be the only open restaurant in Hoisington, a Mexican restaurant called Mi Terra on 1st Street. So dinner was taken care of.
After our night in Hoisington Rodeway Inn, we birded the Nature Conservancy land north of Cheyene Bottoms. Here is what the nature Conservancy website says about this land:
Between 1955 and 1978, about 40 percent of the wetlands in Kansas disappeared. Wetland losses throughout the nation, and internationally, have caused populations of some shorebird species — starved for water, food and nesting sites — to shrink by 60 to 80 percent. Cheyenne Bottoms Preserve is a step toward reversing these trends by safeguarding and enhancing wetland habitat.
Central to the Conservancy's restoration and management plan is the importance of providing a mosaic of aquatic habitats — large, small, shallow, deep, salty, fresh, weedy and open water — to attract a diversity of bird species. A single wetland type cannot provide all the resources required by many plant and animal species. Ensuring this diversity is the best opportunity to meet complex conservation needs and support greater biodiversity of plants and animals. The adjacent grasslands provide nesting and wintering habitat for grassland birds like ring-necked pheasant and raptors like red-tailed hawks that stay in the area year-round. During the spring and summer, visitors will see cattle on the Conservancy's land at Cheyenne Bottoms. Controlled livestock grazing is an effective and inexpensive management tool for maintaining the range of habitat conditions.
At the Nature Conservancy land, Deb nearly fell out of the car at her excitement at getting a photo of what she thought was a Henslow's sparrow for her sparrow photos, but it turned out to be a grasshopper sparrow instead. Good sighting and great photo nonetheless.
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Male grasshopper sparrow advertising for a female; c Deb Hirt
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It was here also that Deb got a shot of some bank swallows that were on her wish list. At one place along the dirt road seventy-some of them were on the road eating something. What they were eating we never determined. They were reluctant to leave the road. When I inched the car close, many landed on a nearby barbed wire fence for Deb's photo op. I can't remember where she took the photo of the cliff swallow.
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| Bank swallows on barbed wire fence; c Deb Hirt |
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Wind ruffled cliff swallow; c Deb Hirt
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In the large Cheyenne Bottoms reservoir, which is normally about four feet deep, the wind was fierce and causing whitecaps. We were driving the dikes around the reservoir when we spotted a male whitetail with a pretty good rack swimming for shore. I stopped the car well back from it so not to frighten it, and we lost sight of the deer behind the bank grasses but we expected it to climb to the dike ahead of us. It didn't. Instead it swam toward us about 15 feet from the shore. A jeep pulled up behind us and I asked the man if he was a ranger and could help. He wasn't a ranger, just a wiseass who remarked on the size of the deer's rack, pulled out his camera, and took a photo of the poor struggling animal that was having difficulty holding its head above the waves. You know I am a softy and I was in near tears. We were miles from anybody in any direction so there was nothing we could do. When the man pulled up behind us, the deer swam out much farther and headed for a distant dike. That was the last we saw of it. I hope that it made it to shore and had the strength to climb the dike.
The wind this morning also caused another odd sighting. In one corner of the reservoir that directly faced the wind, numbers of white pelicans, gulls, and terns were trapped. For some reason they all tried to fly directly into the wind and were repeatedly pushed back. Only the pelicans rested briefly on the water before trying again, but they could make no headway, too. Some seemed to drop from exhaustion. I don't know why they did not try to change their course or rest a bit. I took a photo of them with my cell. We were only about 15 feet away but the birds look tiny in my cell photo below. Deb's more professional, high resolution photos follow. I have cropped and enlarged them for this blog.
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My cell photo of some of the Franklin's gulls and Forester's and black terns trapped
by the wind in a corner of the Cheyenne Bottoms reservoir; I've a photo of the white pelicans, too but it is too blurry to post
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Forster's tern in non-breeding plumage; c Deb Hirt
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Black Tern, non-breeding plumage; c Deb Hirt
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Franklin's gull in non-breeding plumage; immatures look similar but have smokier faces and gray necks; c Deb Hirt;
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Franklin's gulls, one in breeding and two in non-breeding plumage; c Deb Hirt
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Franklin's gulls establishing a pecking order; c Deb Hirt
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Nothing much to tell about our journey home except that we returned to Quivira Sunday afternoon after birding Cheyenne Bottoms and the Nature Conservancy tract in the morning. Deb wanted to get some more shots of shorebirds. In seeking the viewing platform and area where we'd seen shorebirds Saturday afternoon, we got lost . . .again . . . this time for a very frustrating hour! The roads in the refuges are unmarked or poorly marked so we have vowed to take a detailed map of the area and both refuges before returning.
On the way home we could again find no gas stations or open restaurants until we were nearly at the Oklahoma border in Wellington, Kansas. In Wellington we found another open Mexican restaurant close to dinner time and a gas station out by I-35. Arrived home about 9:30 PM.
