Making the list in Kansas

I seem to manage breaking 50% of the species in about one state per year, which means getting my name in the ABA list report. Usually at the beginning of any year I have a short list of possible places to concentrate on. It shifts around depending on what happened along on side trips and chasing lifers the previous year as well increasingly on the price of gas and possibilities to compact targets into the minimum miles. Visiting friends and making contact with the local birders is also a consideration. At the beginning of 2007 the closest state that I had a pretty good count in was Kansas and the annual meeting of the Kansas Ornithological Society, hereafter KOS, was set for the 4-6 of May. I'd already had a great trip early in the year to see the Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska, which had given me a running start. It's posted below in this blog. I'd just finished the Elderhostel boogie the weekend before, and still had the spring hypomania urge to travel, so it was off to Kansas again. I ended up hitting Missouri, Oklahoma, and Nebraska as well.

Getting to the KOS meeting

May 2, 2007

It took a little while to escape town, always last minute things to fix for someone. Anyway, around 11am I headed for Roaring River State Park in Missouri, just over the border and a famous warbler spot. Payoff too, got four species new for MO, including Golden-winged and Worm-eating. There were also Blue-wings among others, and on the dirt road above the hatchery I found one of the Golden x Blue-wing hybrids. I don't know which one, by the time I'd failed to make it definitely one or the other and realized it was somehow both and neither, it had flown, and I couldn't clearly remember just what I'd seen and what not, and no field guide as usual. I don't carry them now, since they distract me from watching the birds. I'm usually familiar enough with the possibilities and what has to be seen to make distinctions that I look for those markings and remember them for later field guide consultation. For example, on Scaup the important thing is head shape and height, but each fall I have to remember which goes with Lesser and which for Greater, meaning check the book. But I hadn't studied to get the hybrid distinctions.

From there I headed west into Oklahoma and Cherry Creek State Park, sort of ho-hum, but I'd never been there. Did find a Tennessee Warbler which was new for OK. From there north to Baxter Springs, Kansas and the serious business of the trip. It had started raining pretty hard, and by the time I got to the sewage lagoons there it was either stay in the fogged up truck or plod around in the mud. I did both. Did manage to find Blue Grosbeak and Northern Rough-wing Swallow. A couple of Warblers too. It was turning evening so I went over to the other side of the river where there's a small campground. It hadn't even gotten late enough to go to sleep when I started having something like an allergy attack, the wind was blowing from the lagoons, and after half an hour of trying to endure, I said bag this, and started driving again, all the way to Marais de Cyngnes, where they have a little camp ground I like staying in.

May 3, 2007

Had a great morning at MdC. Migrant passerines were easy to find in the tall trees at the end of the road to the campsites, and I walked across the gated road that crosses the wetlands near there. I saw nearly 50 species in about three hours, seven were new for KS, including Lincoln's Sparrow, Blackpoll Warbler, and three Vireos. That got me buzzed. I made several more stops on the way to the meeting site, including Hillsdale Lake, Baker Wetlands, and Clinton Reservoir. Also a research area which forbade access, but as I sat there in the truck staring in, a Broad-wing Hawk flew up and landed on a branch about thirty feet away, then it pounced on a lizard and landed even closer to enjoy a meal. I found Bobolinks on electric wires along a dirt road near Hillsdale, and a Sora and Northern Waterthrush plus others at Baker Wetlands. That was a really enticing place, with a nice viewing blind. I was following Patti and Zimmerman, "A Guide to Bird Finding in Kansas and Western Missouri", which I had read and plotted most of the sites on the GPS software. That made finding places really smooth.

The GPS software, usually DeLorme Street Atlas, is running on a laptop that rests on a little platform on the passenger seat. Four times the viewing area of the expensive dash mounted types, not too expensive, $80-100 with a receiver. It can be set up for voice but I don't use that. I have no financial interest in the company. I have several map files where I've made site plots and am willing to send the draw layers to anyone using the software. I'll put a list in one of the posts. Put a request in the comments on the blog.

Somewhere along there it started raining again, so I skipped some sites and just kept driving until I got to Sycamore Springs. It was such a neat place, a resort built in 1886 with a twenties feel, with a huge skating rink, cabins, a strange small hotel, and camping. The whole place was small but had a surprisingly good variety of habitat, especially the creek that the springs fed. Apparently quite popular with the local kids. I got checked in, I was a day early, and stared birding around since the rain had stopped. Found a Louisiana Waterthrush, apparently nesting by the creek, and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. There was a resident Red-Tail, with a nest up a prominent tree, that would break into screams from time to time.

Nebraska, and a muddy adventure

May 4, 2007

I decided to check out Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska, located on bluff land overlooking the Missouri River. It was the goal of one of the day trips on Saturday, and I figured I could take a different trip that day. Went into Sabetha for a down home style breakfast, and then started following the GPS along back roads into the park, since I wanted to get into the loess bluff zone along the river. That worked really well, and I was having great luck with fence-line sparrows, including LeConte's, and found a colony of Bank Swallows right on the edge of the road. There had been enough rain that some of the roads were pretty muddy and slippery, but I always managed with the four-wheel. As I was approaching the park from the south on a road that seemed to go in, I got the dreaded dead end sign.

Let me say a few things about GPS and the maps that come with it. They are sometimes terribly wrong, not with main and secondary roads (but those do get realigned sometimes and it takes awhile for the changes to get into the database), but the little dirt roads can end up being gated farm roads, or something that just doesn't exist any more, and there's a level where the roads aren't coded very accurately for quality. So a good wide heavily graveled main county road looks exactly the same as an unimproved dirt track. Now in Arkansas, at least in the Ozarks, unimproved is still graveled, since the soil is half rock. Nebraska is a little different. Loess is windblown soil deposited by the great storms as the glaciers retreated, and a dirt road can be sixty feet deep to the first rock. Sixty feet of fine just-add-water gumbo.

At the dead end sign I did the logical thing, turned left on the graveled road, headed west, breasted the little hill by a farm yard and, before I could touch the brakes, was sliding down deep wet mud. Gravel ended. There were squirelly tire tracks slithering back and forth as the road descended and disappeared up a rise. I kicked in four wheel and tried to back up. Too steep too wet slide into ditched edge. Go forward get back in center, try backing again, same thing. Repeat. There are times when you need a tractor. So I left the truck comfortably against the bank, had no choice, and started walking back to the corner. At least it wasn't far.

There was a nice well kept farm house with bird feeders, and Harris's Sparrows among others. When I knocked a woman answered, and I explained my predicament. I was lucky she said, since she usually wasn't home at that time, being head nurse at the local hospital. Fallsville. And I was lucky that her husband was not far away, visiting his mom. She called, we talked, drank water and ate cookies, and he arrived after a short wait. I explained again, and he led me with a content and bemused look out to a really big tractor. He was wearing knee high rubber boots. Getting on was like climbing a ladder. I have to say that they were a couple out of the American dream, old style. The farm was huge, and given the dirt he had, rich and productive, also hell on tractors. We drove out the short distance, chained up the truck, and after I figured out what I was supposed to do (don't drive and let the machine do the work) he had me out in a couple of minutes. Deep relief, deep good luck all around. I offered money which he declined, made sure I knew how to get to the park on good roads, and drove back the way I'd been coming. I didn't make myself remember their names, no address, but I'm so grateful, and hope someday I can do something nice for them.

Eventually in a few miles I got into the park, Indian Cave. The quality of the place is indicated by the seventy species in about three hours, including the back road birding. It's a big park with lots of well maintained facilities. I found three different approaches to the river as well as good upland forest and meadow habitat. Passerine heaven too, lots of migrants. Five kinds of flycatchers, eight warblers, and eleven species of sparrows. I wasn't really trying, but ended up with more than a third of the Nebraska species, building on a list from a trip in 2001 and the Sandhill Crane trip earlier in '07.

I stopped in Fallsville at the library to get email on their Internet. It had become a hot and really muggy day, more rain building up, and it did rain that night back at the campground. I was back early enough to bird around there, meet the folks arriving, tell some stories, mostly my mud deal and generally mellow out after a great day. Last thing was a quick local trip for some owling and Whip-Chucking. Got them both, Whips and Chucks.

Kansas Meeting trips

May 5, 2007 (Sat)

Coffee and donuts or the equivalent in the big hall in the morning. Talk of the morning was a tornado that nearly wiped out the town of Greensburg. National news stuff. Folks were birding the grounds, with some good luck including me finding an Olive-sided Flycatcher. Also Least Flycatcher, which we saw several of during the day. I rode with Matt Gearhart and his friend ??, a McDonald's manager. We rode all over Nemaha, Johnson and part of Brown Counties. Kansas listers are big on county listing, something that will spread as gas prices continue to cut into longer distance birding. It puts a renewed thrill into birding, a House Sparrow can be a big deal a hundred more times. The Kansas birders had small decks of checklists and were loving this meeting since it had dragged them to a corner of the state where many had rather weak lists. We started out with a nearby reservoir, and got a Lazuli Bunting to get our juices flowing, then Nemaha Reservoir where we found a virtual fallout. We spent most of the morning there, until lunch, finding Willow Flycatcher, five new Warblers for me, a Gray-cheeked Thrush etc. The afternoon was more driving and not so birdy, but we steadily added new species, including Yellow-headed Blackbird as we were driving back in a roadside paddock near the meeting site.

When we got back to Sycamore Springs we found that another group had a similar Warbler bonanza in the very north-east corner of the state, and that the group which went to Indian Cave had been also been very lucky. Dinner was excellent, locally home cooked, a cheerful gathering of jazzed birders telling tales. After that presentations and picture shows, and they gave me a T-shirt to honor my out-of-stateness. At first they offered me a hat, but I'd already bought one. So now I have both, and a decal. Later the rain started, really big dramatic lightning and thunder rain.

May 6, 2007

In the morning we saw what six inches of rain would do. The campground had flooded during the night, roads had been overtopped and washed badly, fields were full of windrows of flood wrack, the parking lot was a pond, streams swollen, and mud everywhere. I did not sleep well since camping in the thin sided campershell is like sleeping in a drum. I rode with Matt again and we tried several stops including Brown WMA, good for a Sedge Wren and a Caspian Tern. Our main goal was the place in the corner with the amazing warblers, but the rain had changed it a lot. A little used trail up a wooded draw. The birds were good, but hard to see, since the trees were mature and the canopy high, and still some wind. Managed to add Golden-wing Warbler, but had some serious misses too, others would get a glimpse, but I couldn't get the look. Varied from drizzle to rain. The Missouri River was in serious flood, whole trees blasting along at 20+ mph. After the mop-up and final listing tally, which I've somehow lost, I started driving west to continue ticking in the rest of the state. First I tried a place where I'd failed to find Upland Sandpiper and Henslow's Sparrow the day before, frustrated by the wind and not knowing the call well enough to pull it out of the background. Also met Matt again on the road and followed him into Topeka where we tried to find Yellow-crowned Night-Herons. We found the street with a little poking around, we found the nests, but not the birds.

It was raining again hard. I pulled off the main highway in Salina and couldn't get back on at that exit since the ramp was flooded. Drove around trying to find an alternate entrance, passing folks piling sandbags to levee the town against more flooding. I ended up skipping several areas I had noted on the map since it was miserable. Finally got down to Cheyenne Bottoms near Great Bend. The storm had been really bad there too, signs and power poles were down, buildings caved in, grain towers imploded, even 18 wheelers rolled around. The bottoms themselves were a lake, after several years of low water. In places the fence-lines were just pole tops in a row with swallows alit on them. I drove around to the west-side entrance road and stayed in the campground there, a little edgy worried about getting flooded in there as the rain continued.

Western Kansas

May 7, 2007

When I got up and ready to move I found that the road was flooded just a little way beyond the campground. I watched a truck taller then mine wade through, and decided against trying it. There had been some good birds reported on the north side so I went around that way, hoping I might find a way into the tour loop. I tried the most likely road shown on the GPS, and it had a tree down across it. Tried another one, and didn't get in there either but found a Prairie Dog town, with a Burrowing Owl and a Black-bellied Plover. What made it really interesting, and now a photo missed regret, was the ducks swimming between the flooded burrows. Everybody was sitting on the high spots around the entrances, looking wet and bedraggled. And as I was backing out of a different road, I saw some kind of shorebird in the rear-view, stopped and opened the door to use the binocs, and finally got my Upland Sandpiper, and a nice close view to boot. There was another road with a parking area for a Nature Conservancy site, where something I didn't find was reported, maybe Mountain Plover, it was one of those bare dirt spots, and down past that there was a tree windbreak that had some good passerines. I never did get to the central part of the Bottoms, but found three new species anyhow.

I made an exploratory stop at Cedar Bluffs Reservoir since the description in the Birdfinder sounded enticing. It was a place worth spending a day and camping sometime. The best parts seemed to be on the western end, good Cottonwood bottoms, and a fair variety of habitat and little campgrounds that it looked like only hunters would use. My favorites when there's no hunting. What struck me about it was the transitional nature of the ecology. It's almost exactly the 100th meridian, John Wesley Powell's divider of the arid lands from the moister east, and it was the kind of place where there were both Baltimore and Bullock's Orioles, and probably other overlapping species of sparrows, towhees and such. The country definitely got dryer to the west.

I finally admitted defeat and headed further west. I had often wanted to see the Monument Rocks, and was finally close enough to give it a try. One neat thing that happened on a fairly boring drive punctuated repeatedly by Horned Larks in the road, was a road bird, not a HOLA, that I got a really clear look at the tail pattern as it flew up. A McCown's Longspur, and the first of its kind that I made the ID on just using the tail pattern, tho I had tried that quite a few times. There was a state park near the Rocks that looked like it could be very good, Scott State Park, and I have it noted for a nature trail. There was a fair amount of water in a dry area, so it would most likely be a magnet during migration, but I didn't go in. I got back into the Monument Rocks, north of the park, and it was much more interesting than I'd been expecting. The only pictures I'd seen were of the focal rock formations, so I was unprepared for a whole landscape of bluffs and canyons that seemed more like Utah than Kansas. Driving in from the south I also went past a ranch site, not lived in it appeared, but with a beautiful stone house and big stone barn, lots of water and trees, lots of cattle, it must have been a primo operation and neat place to live (except for winter), not to mention place to bird if one could figure out how to get permission. So I got to the rock formations, they were twenty to thirty feet stone towers maybe fifteen or so individual units, set in a bone dry clay pan. I was hoping to find a Rock Wren, and finally spotted a bird atop one of the towers. Checked it out, color was wrong, bill was wrong etc, and I finally figured out that it was something else. I'm not totally stubborn. Looked it over well, and when I got back in the truck with a reference it was clearly a Canyon Towhee. I went to check it off on the field list and it wasn't there, but it was on the more extensive list. Later I sent an email to Pete Janzen, asking if that meant it was a big deal, and a few days later was informed that it was the first state record outside Morton County, home of the mother-lode of western birds in Kansas.

I looked around in Garden City, where I should have looked up Terry Manell, but didn't, feeling time pressed. Thirty miles west was Lakin, where I checked out a couple of places that I'd noted on the GPS mapping. South of there I found a nice little county park built around some sand pits, inexpensive and clean, so I camped there with enough time before sunset to catch up on records in the computer, work through an email pileup, write in my journal, and backup data.

Morton County Bonanza

May 8, 2007

I got out of there pretty early since Morton County awaited. Maybe a hundred yards over the county line I found my first Kansas Lark Bunting. That was the beginning of a great day. Basic grassland highway birding down to the Cimarron National Grasslands, then west along the north side of the river, which was mostly dried up, to the pit ponds. The birding was good there and at Middle Spring too. Somewhere along there I got the Cassin's Sparrows singing, and got looks using the tape to call them closer. A Chihuahua Raven flew over. At Point of Rocks, I poked along the edge of the bluffs, finding Rock Wren and Green-tailed Towhee. Climbed down into the floodplain below the point and found more Rock Wrens and then a Say's Phoebe as I climbed back up. I followed the dirt on west to a fence-line at the Colorado border, see if I could get a Colorado tic looking over the fence, but that didn't work. Went across the river just a a little east of there, and followed dirt roads back to the pavement and then to the Highway, and south into Elkhart. Had lunch at El Rancho, a birder rendezvous in that part of the country, and then searched for a store and a mirror to buy so I could shave. My tendency is to get crusty on these trips, since I'm traveling alone and don't feel much pressure from the opinions of strangers. I have noticed that folks are a little friendlier if I'm newly groomed.

The main point of being in Elkhart is to get to the sewage ponds, which are magnificent for such a small town, and they have a shelterbelt tree planting that has produced numerous zooties. There were some lingering ducks, the inevitable Night-Herons, a Black Tern that was new for the state, and caught me by surprise resting on the concrete bank of one of the lagoons. The shelterbelt was really birdy, and I managed, should say lucked into seeing a Black-headed Grosbeak as it flew into the trees. They have an orange triangle on their upper back that I saw well. Poked around hoping to flush it again, but no luck.

Then I went back north to the Grasslands, east from the highway this time, to the camping area and fishing ponds. Punched some data into the computer, shaved with my new mirror, a classic, two sided, round plastic case with a dual purpose hook that could hang or act as a stand, with one side magnifying, made in China. I'm so proud. Then spent a couple of hours poking around in the big trees in the area, studying the Bullock's Orioles. There are more of them there than anywhere I've ever been, and I had a quest. The previous year while running a Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) route, in northwest Arkansas, I'd found an oriole that I decided was a Bullock's, based on that being the closest thing in the books, though I couldn't find a perfect match. The look was close and long, and the bird was singing, so I felt pretty sure. More on that later. Now I was hoping to find another individual that matched the one I'd seen. The time of year was almost a perfect match, maybe a month earlier, but I was in a warmer place. I must have looked at thirty or forty individuals in that area and elsewhere on the trip, but I never did see another like my suspect. I started thinking then that maybe I'd seen some kind of hybrid.

I had planned on camping there, but was getting bored and edgy. For some reason, I recalled a description in Patti and Zimmerman about a good place to find Common Poorwills being along bare rocky ledges. Like Point of Rocks. Maybe. So it seemed like a good idea to watch the sunset and maybe wait around to listen for night critters. It was a gorgeous sunset, and I had the presence of mind to take some pictures. Now I can't find them. Anyway, so I'm walking along the bluff edges, relocated the Green-tailed Towhee, perched on a rock looking at the sunset. Then I found yet another pair of Rock Wrens, and these were singing at the sunset, or so it seemed. And then behind me a Sage Thrasher started singing, facing the sunset. I have to say that was unforgettable. I hung out waiting for dark, watching a pair of Common Nighthawks doing what was presumably courtship, one would do the whirring dive every minute or so, and then fly back near the other. I was in love, and hope she was too. Didn't hear the Poorwill, and finally went to sleep after playing some recordings of night birds, hoping for a response from the woods below along the river. In the middle of the night, I drove back from where I was sleeping to check again. Bingo, Poorwill calling. I had nine new tics for the day.

Into Colorado, Cottonwood Canyon, brief New Mexico jaunt

May 9, 2007

Sweet cool morning on the point with lots of bird action and song. No new tics but it hardly mattered after how good the day before had been. After awhile I headed to town, another El Rancho breakfast, laundry, fill gas, groceries, quick pass at the sewage ponds. Then west into the long wide 50mph dirt roads of Baca County Colorado. I got to the Carrizo Canyon Picnic Area around 1:30pm. There was a lot of damage from some kind of flood event, but it was possible to get down along the creek for birding. And found a Barn Owl, monkey face, what a great surprise, coupled with a Burrowing Owl earlier in the day at a likely looking Prairie Dog town. After that I took my time and the backest way to Cottonwood Canyon.

I had first visited there years ago on my first trip to the dry grasslands, took forever to find, just a map in the ABA Colorado bird-finder, no GPS in those days. I was blown away. It's a private land undeveloped camping ground, open and free, just don't make a mess, on a flood plain near what seems to be a year-round creek. I've never seen it dry in four trips. That first trip I found a Lewis's Woodpecker hanging out near camp. This time it was a Ladderback. The first time had Mississippi Kites doing screaming landings in the tree overhead, this time Canyon Wrens and a Swainson's Hawk, and several Long-billed Curlews landing in some crop on the way in. I had eight new Colorado tics by days end, but was feeling the elevation and the wear of the trip. Took a couple of hour nap in the afternoon. Hoped for some more owls in the night, since this was where I heard my first bouncing ball Western Screech-Owl, but it was pretty quiet.

May 10, 2007

I birded around Cottonwood in the morning, but wasn't having the kind of luck I wanted. The very northeast corner of New Mexico wasn't too far, at least that's the way those big western states look in a road atlas, so I thought I'd try a quick venture there, specifically a drive to Capulin Volcano National Monument, which I had visited briefly many years ago. It took longer than expected of course, and I had to wait for a little store in Kim to open for a snack. Got a Eurasian Collared Dove watching the wires. I saw my first one in Florida in maybe '92 or '93, soon after they first arrived in the US. Now I've got them checked off in eleven states, and I'm surprised it's not more. The drive into New Mexico was really nice, over a good elevation pass, enough that it got considerably greener for a while. Found a pond with ducks even. The GPS showed a neat little loop I could explore, and I tried that. At the Volcano, I had good luck at the Visitor's Center with feeders, and walked several trails in that area. Then drove the road to the top, where it was not birdy since there was about a thirty mph wind. Good view though, especially of the other volcanoes in the area. Managed eleven new tics for New Mexico

From there it was south to Clayton, and then into Oklahoma, and back into Colorado without stopping. I wanted to check out Two Buttes Reservoir, thinking that would be a different habitat with more species possibilities. A long hot drive with lots of road construction, but I met a guy while buying gas in Campo that said he had lesser Prairie Chickens he was flushing up while cutting hay. I got pretty good directions, and headed on for the water. Well, there wasn't any. I drove over the dam to nowhere and looked down on a weedy grassy meadow. Not even a wet spot. Pretty decent waste of time and money, but "one cannot win if one does not play" Nevertheless, rats! Then back down long dirt roads and through the construction the other way. Have I mentioned that other than the drainages, Baca County is the flattest place I've ever seen. Kansas is a wonder of topography compared to it. Campo means field or plain, and it's at least fifty miles across.

When I got back there, Campo, I started looking for the haying operation. I think I found the right road, I may have found the right house, but if someone was haying on that place, it was way the hell back off the road. That's another dip (opposite of tic). I was getting pretty frustrated, but I took some back roads into Black Mesa SP in Kansas, and luck returned. Found Bank Swallows on the way down, and a Cinnamon Teal at the Lake there. Three OK tics made fourteen for the day. Not so bad.

Black Mesa State Park and environs

May 11, 2007

I got up real early, did a full head service (hair washed, shaved, teeth cleaned) and then watched the sunup on the far side of Lake Etling, an area I hadn't ever paid much attention to. Turns out it's very good for sparrows. I hadn't been thinking about them much since at home all the sparrows except chippers and fields are gone. But now I was far enough west that the story had changed. I was able to find Cassin's, Brewer's, Field and Lark Sparrows and unexpected White-crowns. That inspired me to look for sparrows in New Mexico later. I went into Kenton to the Mercantile, which had recently changed hands, and found a good breakfast and Wifi care of Wes, the new store-keeper, city refugee and friend of the new owners. Nice to catch up on email, and find out that there were no nuclear wars going on. Kenton not only has no cell phone service, but if you switch on the radio, and scan for stations, the numbers just climb and cycle endlessly without stopping. Somewhat remote. That made the Wifi a wonder, but turns out there's a phone company switch center in a nondescript building across the street, so DSL works great.

The New Mexico line is about a mile west of Kenton, and it's on mountain time since that makes more sense than keeping time with the rest of Oklahoma, which might as well be in another state. I poked around over there along the Cimmaron River, and then took small two lane blacktops down to Clayton. In Clayton, I stopped in the Grasslands Office, and got some pointers on likely places. Also found a small wetland there. Found Cassin's, Clay-colored, Lark and Grasshopper Sparrows. Also a Burrowing Owl sitting on a fence post. There was a Black Tern at the State Park north of Clayton, some shorebirds and both Black-headed and Blue Grosbeaks along the way. Spotted Towhee. Pretty good birding. I worked my way back to Black Mesa SP by an alternate version of the outbound route. Birding around the park got a Cassin's Finch, which I had no idea was possible. I met an Oklahoma birder named Terri, who was anticipating several friends for the weekend, and they were planning on going into a private ranch which the owner (reluctantly) allowed. She was said to be somewhat paranoid about strangers, having had some bad experience with pot hunters. I guess I invited myself, since I'd met some of those folks before, and had been to the ranch before with John Sterling, master OK birder, on a CBC a couple of years earlier.

As it was getting dusk I was wandering around thinking I might run across a Western Screech-Owl that was in the area. What I found was a group of students and three profs from a Christian U in OKC. Good conversation, Alton was a biologist, and George an anthropologist. The kids were preparing some sort of presentation/defense. Slowly the talk got around to evolution at one point and I simply asked them how they approached the subject. They were believers in Darwin and deep time, but hinted that there was some conflict in that milieu, but no outright suppression. They were willing to speak their minds at any rate. Really interesting conversation, and they confirmed that the owl was hanging out in the tree overhead.

May 12, 2007

I stayed in a different campsite that night was up early for another breakfast and Wifi at the Merc. Then back for park birding with Jimmy Woodard and the other OKC folks. Lazuli Bunting, Black-headed Grosbeak, and Rock Wrens. About mid-morning we headed over to the ranch and mostly worked up an area called Sutton's Canyon, for George Sutton, famous Oklahoma Ornithologist who had done a lot of research there. Got one of my best birds, a pair of MacGillivray's Warblers, and also the long sought Juniper Titmouse. I needed to get home, and left those folks to carry on while I headed for the Boise City sewage ponds. That was a knockout, especially the Black Tern. It was swarming with waterfowl and shorebirds as well. Jimmy had given me directions to Mountain Plovers about three miles off the highway, and I drove slowly and scanned repeatedly back and forth for a mile beside a barren crusted dead weedy patch of played out ag field. No luck. It sure beats me why any bird would have such a place for preferred habitat, maybe the lack of competition. A little further in a small town in a feeder type back-yard is the reliable Curve-billed Thrasher spot, and it showed up in a couple of minutes after I finally figured out which house to try. for the two days I added twelve Oklahoma tics.

Finale in Kansas

May 12, 2007

I was back in Kansas at Elkhart, making the obligatory sewage pond stop as I drove through. Then around Liberty by back roads, and on eastward. One of those long flat punctuated by Horned Lark drives, until I got close to Greensburg. Started seeing flashing lights down the road, and at the intersection, lots of cops and cars pulled over. Then I got directed north to go around the town. It was a week after the tornado, and the highway was still not open. There was some damage in sight, mostly stuff blown around by wind, and I never saw the heart of the destruction. But thirty miles north when I finally picked up another eastbound paved road, I crossed an area of damage there. It was the same storm that had hit Great Bend and flooded the Cheyenne Bottoms. I was headed for Cheney Reservoir from the west, and on a previous trip I'd made map notes of good habitat areas along the south shore at the intake end of the lake. It was getting on toward dark, and when I found my noted places, they had no camping signs. I kept wandering along there, and finally came to a little lakeside fisherman parking area, and stopped since it was dark. Fiddled around on the computer, making map notes, and checking off lists, and when I went to start again to go on to the state park, the battery was dead. I think I was sold an undersized battery, or there's something weak in the alternator. Usually there's no problem, but I'm learning not to draw down much power with the engine off. Given no choice, I crashed there. The next day was Sunday, and I figured some fisher folk would be showing up and I could get a jump.

May 13, 2007

Turns out the battery had regrouped its forces overnight, and there was enough juice to get me started. I hadn't spent any time in Wichita, and had a list of places to check out. First stop was the boardwalk at the state Park, really nice place to bird, not that many on the boardwalk itself, but the grassy areas along the trail leading there were good. Next stop was the Heron Rookery and that was good for a missing list tic, Little Blue Heron. Next stop was Sim Park, where I did a lot of walking. The birds were good, and lots of neat trails through some varied habitat, and finally a Mississippi Kite as I was leaving. I had been looking for it along the whole drive yesterday, and Greensburg was supposed to be the gimme place, but I think the trees there were not so habitable after the storm. Imagine Kites on nests in the night. On to Oak Park where I figured out where the good warbler woods was, and met Paul Griffith who was hanging out with a camera and a hummingbird feeder. Seems like there was another person too, and I can't recall the name. My apologies. Final stop was the Great Plains Nature Center. I found the advertised Bell's Vireos in the bush by the parking lot, but it took some work as they were in skulking mode. Enjoyed walking the trails around the ponds and wetlands, sorta crowded because of Sunday folk, and for some reason, the place, the Visitor Center anyhow, was closed on presumably the busiest day of the week. I guess it's a government employment thing, but how mis-guided.

Then the ride home, with a stop by Schermerhorn Park, overrun by Sunday folk and kids with loud music, but even then it's a good place if you get back in the woods up on the ridge. Their VC was closed too. Late afternoon, hot, stopped at a corner store over the Arkansas line for soda and a sandwich and was home just before dark. A little unloading and my favorite job of putting pins in the wall map coded for the kinds of stops I'd made.