Kansas, US 10 to 23 April 2011 - part 1

This was not primarily a birding visit, but one to see our son at Kansas University in Lawrence. We did spend a few days birding, but Kansas in mid April is not an ideal location for a birding trip, mainly as most of the more interesting winter visitors have gone or are scarce, and the summer visitors do not arrive until the first two weeks of May. Spring comes late in Douglas County, Kansas . There was a reasonable passage of waders whilst we were there which made up for the dire lack of passerines. There is a distinct difference between Eastern Kansas that has an eastern US bird influence, but as you travel west the prairies become a more dominant feature and by the time you are in Western Kansas it is pretty flat, arid and was the great dust ball of the 1930s. Western Kansas has a few Western passerine species beginning to creep in, to add a bit of a variety, but with a journey akin from London to North Scotland involved, albeit on relatively empty roads at an almost constant speed with the freeway limits being 70mph and the other roads outside cities being 65 (everywhere is known as a city since they seem to use the terms town and city interchangably!). Both Eastern and Western Meadowlarks are found in Kansas, emphasising the East/West mixing. There are some excellent wetlands in mid Kansas at Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Passerine spring passage was a mere trickle as shown by the fact that we only saw four species of American Warblers and one Vireo, and further demonstrated because most of the birds we saw were to be found at the wetlands with 64 of the 155 species seen associated with wetlands with 24 of them being waders. One of the memorable things was the large flocks of migrating Franklin's Gulls and the large number of Red-tailed and Swainson's Hawks seen. We managed to see 21 new bird species during the trip. Sadly the mammal sightings were low with the only good list of mammals seen being our road side kill list, which accounted for the vast majority of the species we saw and even included species as large as White-tailed Deer. Rather than go through a complete list of what we did see, we have just set out the more interesting highlights and what we saw that was new for us.


11 April - 26 species for the trip.
Lawrence - Kansas River front, species seen included Pilated Woodpecker, Cliff Swallow, Chipping, Field and Lark Sparrows and Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler.

American Robin

River Kansas below the Bowerstock Dam, Lawrence

During the more cold parts of the winter the area below the dam is one of the few areas of the river not to freeze over and becomes an attraction for the winter Bald Eagles that gather below the dam and can build up to 30 birds or more.

12 April - 12 species for the trip.
Great Bend - Yellow-headed Blackbird was new species for us, feeding in a mixed flock of Red-winged Blackbirds and Grackles around the grain silos.

Camp Aldrich - near Cheyenne Bottoms, a county school camp in rolling sand dunes, which was very quiet during our visit although it did produce Swainson's Hawk and Harris' Sparrow, both new species for us, Eastern Phoebe and Yellow-rumped (Audubon's) Warbler.

Butterflies seen were Monarch, Olympia Marble, Grey Hairstreak and Common Checkered-skipper.

Monarch

Common Checkered-skipper

April 13 - 47 species for the trip.

Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife area (http://wetlandscenter.fhsu.edu/) - large wetland habitat in the middle of grasslands. We spent a fair chunk of the day in here. New species seen included Hooded Merganser, White-faced Ibis, Hudsonian Godwit, Wilson's Snipe and Large-tailed Grackle. Also of interest were American Black-necked and Slavonian Grebes, American White Pelican, White-fronted Goose, Snow Goose, Bufflehead, American Avocet, Marbled Godwit, Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, Pectoral, Baird's, Least and Western Sandpipers, Whimbrel, Wilson's Phalarope, Long-billed Dowitcher and Kentish Plover, Great Horned Owl, and Savannah, Lincoln's, White-crowned and Song Sparrows.

Long-billed Dowitchers

 Great Horned Owl flushed from the path and landed in a small patch of reeds.

 Yellow-headed Blackbirds

One bird that did go over, whilst quiet, caused everything on the marsh to up! This was a first. We've never been buzzed by a stealth fighter before. It made three passes and then was gone. Butterflies seen were Monarch, Black Swallowtail and Clouded Sulphur.

Black Swallowtail

April 14 - 15 species for the trip.

We drove from Big Bend taking a few field side roads on the way to Quirvra and which produced new for us Brewer's Blackbird and Western Kingbird, we also had Shore Lark (I prefer thei name of Horned Lark), American Buff-bellied Pipit, Eastern Bluebird, Loggerhead Shrike and Vesper Sparrow.

Quvira National Wildlife refuge (http://www.fws.gov/quivira/Index.htm) produced pretty much the same sort of birds at Cheyenne Bottoms but the wind was beginning to pick up as the day went on. Waders here included Piping Plover, American Golden Plover, Willet and Semi-palmated Plover.

White-tailed Deer