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

May 5: Quivira and Elsewhere

We hitched a ride to Quivira today with our birding friends Jay and Verna Miller.  It's Verna's birthday and the excursion was Jay's present to her.  They were kind enough to let us go along, and the birding was amazing.

We arrived at about 6:30 and hit the Big Salt Marsh first.  It yielded its usual suspects.  A total of twenty-two species of shorebirds swarmed the flats. Highlights were three Long-billed Curlews, two Snowy Plovers on their nests, a Piping Plover, a Sanderling, a large flock of Willet, eleven Hudsonian Godwits, and more than a dozen Semipalmated Plovers.  The Snowy Plovers put on a show for us as they tried in vain to lead the van off the road and away from their nests (if you can call them that) with a fake broken wing tactic.  I also spotted a Northern Waterthrush near the hay barn on Hay Barn Road north of the marsh, but it flitted back out of sight before the other members of the party could glimpse it.

A Snowy Plover nest which consists of a shallow depression in the gravel: photo by Bryant

A Snowy Plover incubating its eggs: photo by Andrew

This Solitary Sandpiper sat still long enough for us to stop and snap a few pictures before it flew: photo by Andrew

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This Turkey Vulture, if not a gorgeous bird, was considerate enough to let us get decent pictures of it: photo by Andrew

We spotted this Long-billed Curlew along the Wildlife Drive: photo by Bryant

Apparently the Snowy Plover (flying) was somewhat annoyed by the presence of its close relative, the Piping Plover: photo by Bryant

I managed to capture this photo of an active Sanderling as it scurried back and forth along the shoreline: photo by Bryant

As we worked our way toward the south end of the refuge,  we picked up a few more notable birds, including a Black Tern and vibrant male Rose-breasted Grosbeak- both year birds for Andrew and me.  I also snapped a few pics of this beautiful Forster's Tern as it flew past.  By the time we left Quivira, we had tallied 104 species.

Forster's Tern: photo by Bryant

On our way home, we stopped at a few places along the way and picked up a few birds for our day list, as well as two for our year list: Blue Grosbeak and Western Sandpiper.  

Western Sandpiper: photo by Andrew

This Eastern Kingbird posed on the fence, giving us great picture opportunities: photo by Bryant

When we got home, Andrew and I birded around our place and in Irish Creek to add a few species to our day lists.  We found an excellent variety of migrants, most notably Blackpoll and Wilson's Warblers (which were year birds).  My final day bird, a White-throated Sparrow, put me at 129 species.  That's my third day over 100 within a span of three weeks!  This is certainly the time of year to be out!

Bryant

Quivira on 4-30-15

Bryant, Anthony, and I decided to go to Quivira today for a day of birding. We got there at about 6:30 and went straight to the Big Salt Marsh to listen for Rails. Yellow Warblers and Common Yellowthroats were singing loudly all the while and we even heard a couple American Bitterns doing their unique call.

After a little bit we met up with Barry Jones, the Public Relations person for Quivira, and birded together for two hours.  We made one pass around the Wildlife Drive and saw the following: 6 Dunlin, 2 Sanderling, 3 Black-crowned Night Herons, 2 Bonaparte's Gulls, 15 Hudsonian Godwits, and about 15 Forster's Terns.  Barry then had to go, so we walked up to scope some shorebirds on the flats north of NE 170th street.   People had been seeing a lot of Piping Plovers in the past week, so we thought we had a good chance of seeing one too.  I started to scope the flats with Anthony's spotting scope, but didn't see anything of interest, and we were just about to leave when Anthony said," I think I have a Piping Plover!" Sure enough, I had missed it with a spotting scope, and he found it with binoculars. Sharp eyes!

Sanderling: photo by Bryant

    

Snowy Plover: photo by Bryant

Piping Plover: photo by Bryant

Black-bellied Plover: photo by Bryant

We then proceded to go around the Wildlife Drive a second time a little more slowly, and were surprised to find a breeding plumage Black-bellied Plover and lots of Willets among the many shorebirds.  We were just finishing the second loop and getting very hungry (lunch time!) when I saw a large buffy shorebird with a VERY long bill sitting right across the ditch twenty feet away!  "Long-billed Curlew!" I yelled.  It just sat there as we backed into position and got great pictures.

Long-billed Curlew: photo by Andrew

We decided to recover from the excitement by eating lunch and parked in a nice shady spot beside the road to eat.  During our repast, I happened to glance up and saw a small hawk flying straight north at a fairly brisk pace.  I put my Binoculars on it a was shocked to see that it was a Broad-winged Hawk!  Anthony looked up and saw it, but Bryant could not find it.  Bummer!

We finished eating and went to bird some of the woodlots.  There weren't many interesting birds to be seen there, except a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that only Bryant saw.  We  had seen about 110 bird species by then and so we thought that it would be to fun to see if we could hit 130 in a day, which would be good for April.  We kept working our way down to the Little Salt Marsh, picking up birds as we went.  By the time we got to the Refuge Headquarters, we had a combined 120 species.  We were now really thinking we could get 130 species, so we went out of the way on the way home to pick up some birds we had missed at Quivira. By the time it got dark, I had seen 134 species. What a day!

This Killdeer gave us great looks and picture opportunities as it tried to lure us away from its nest: photo by Andrew

Killdeer: photo by Bryant

Andrew