Looking into the crystal ball, Kansas' Next Ten Birds.

Part of the fun in birding is trying to predict what is going to show up where. While it is often guessing as much as actual prediction, you can be surprisingly accurate, and it's fun when you are actually correct. I've had a Top Ten Next-up Birds for Kansas list, (really more of a top thirty next birds, I went way out) for a while, and have been lucky enough to actually have a few of my predictions come true. I convinced Andrew to come up with a list of his own, so that we could post them here for all to see.


So, without further ado, here are our predictions for the next ten birds to be added to the Kansas state list. You may notice that there are actually thirteen species in the first list, due to my including my successful predictions (in bold) as well.

1. Eurasian Tree Sparrow. March 19, 2016. Doniphan Co. Pending acceptance
 

2. Pacific Wren. Dec 20, 2014 Scott Co. Accepted by the KBRC

3.Slaty-backed Gull. A  fairly regular vagrant into the interior of the continent.

4.  Pacific-slope Flycatcher. Probably overlooked in western Kansas.

Tropical Kingbird. This one from Costa Rica, not Kansas

5. Tropical/Couch's Kingbird. History of straying

6.  Sharp-tailed Sandpiper. Overdue in my opinion, neighboring states have multiple records.

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper eBird sightings map

 

7.  Common Black Hawk. One recent unconfirmed report. Likely to be found in extreme south-west Kansas but could show up anywhere.

8. Blue-throated Hummingbird. Several reports already, only a matter of time for a confirmed one. 

9.  Black Swift. Swifts are highly migratory and this species breeds within a few hundred miles.

  

10. Grace's Warbler. One unaccepted report already, I think?

  

11. Black-chinned Sparrow. Breeds not far away in north-east Arizona. Morton County somewhere?  

12. Purple Sandpiper. December 23, 2015. Russell Co. Accepted by the KBRC

13. Acorn Woodpecker. Breeds within a couple hundred miles. 

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And here is Andrews list. We agreed on a lot of species, but he has some likely ones I hadn't thought of. It will be interesting to see who is more accurate in the long run.

1. Slaty-backed Gull

Slaty-backed Gull eBird sightings map

2. Bar-tailed Godwit

3. Black-chinned Sparrow

4. Zone-tailed Hawk

5. Black-tailed Gull

6. Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

7. Common Black Hawk

8. Blue-throated Hummingbird

9. Golden-crowned Woodpecker

10. Lawrence's Goldfinch



Will any of these actually be the next on the list? It's impossible to say, but I like to think that at least a couple of these predictions will come true. What do you think the next first state record will be? Leave you guesses in the comments below and we will see what shows up!

Joseph

Chickens and Curlews

A few days ago, Andrew, Anthony, Bryant, Michael Yutzy and myself finally made the trek down to southern Kansas to look for Lesser Prairie Chickens, a gaping hole on our state list.

Photo by Andrew

After cruising down some very bad back roads, we finally arrived at the lek just before sunrise. We could see several males actively lekking a couple hundred yards of the road right as we pulled up,  at least that was an easy lifer.

 Since it was still fairly early in the morning when we left, we decided to run over to the Sun City area to check the area of the Anderson Creek Fire.

It turned out to be a great decision, starting with a Burrowing Owl we found just down the road from the lek, chilling in a Prairie Dog town.

Photo by Andrew

We continued on, finding a clump of balloons originating in Colorado Springs, and more importantly, a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks and couple of Long-billed Curlews in a random wheat field beside the road.

Photo by Andrew

Had the hawks been a couple miles further west they would have been a new Kiowa County record.

One of two Long-billed Curlews. Photo by Andrew

When we got to Sun City we were impressed by the amount of fire damage that far north. I knew about where I had taken some landscape shots last summer and thought it would be kind of fun to get a before and after shot of the burned area.

Before the fire

And after the fire. I was surprised how close I actually got to the same view!

More burned prairie south of Sun City

We decided to stop in at Kingman State Fishing Lake on the way back home. Birdwise it was a little drab, but we did find a female Falcate Orangetip, a lifer for all of us.

Falcate Orangetip, note the hooked, "falcate," wingtip.

This is a really amazing looking butterfly, although a lot smaller than I expected.  They are very well camouflaged on the underside, so we would occasionally lose it when it landed.

Falcate Orangetip

There were also several Olympia Marbles flying about. Although these are my best photos so far, I still haven't quite gotten that perfect shot yet

Olympia Marble

It was a great morning out, and we definitely plan to do more of these outings to other parts of the state.

Joseph