Birding At The Bottoms

Hello, everyone!  It's me, Cammie!  Maggie and I are going to start showing you a selection of the birds we saw on our recent birding trip.  Today, we'll cover some of the birds we saw at Cheyenne Bottoms.

Before we ventured into the wildlife area, we stopped at the Kansas Wetlands Education Center.  We saw a "lifer" for Mom there - a bird she had never seen before! Here he is, up on one of the lights:

Great-Tailed Grackle

Pretty awesome tail, don't you think?

Once we got into Cheyenne Bottoms, we saw a lot of these birds:

Stilt Sandpiper

Apparently, it's OK for them to trudge through the mud, but not us.  Go figure!

We also saw small sandpipers, like this one:

White-Rumped Sandpiper

We saw lots of Avocets hanging out with those sandpipers:

American Avocet, doing a Flamingo imitation 

American Avocet fly-by

Here's another fly-by:

Double-Crested Cormorant

He was taking a branch to help shore up their nesting area!

There were quite a few Pelicans at the Bottoms - here comes one now!

American White Pelican

As far as the birds at Cheyenne Bottoms went, Mom gave her "Most Cooperative Bird Award" to this colorful guy:

Yellow-Headed Blackbird

He struck many a pose for her, and seemed to like his photo being taken!  Contrast that to this guy:

Great Blue Heron

The second Mom spotted him, he took off.  Not nice, Mr. Heron!

We also saw this cool bird:

White-Faced Ibis

Isn't that a great bill?!!?

We'll eventually have an album up - Mom is still working on the photos from Quivira!

"Are you ready to head to Quivira?"
"Hang on, Dad.  She might be getting crackers out of the back of the vehicle."
"Yeah, Dad.  CRACKERS!"

I mean, we could stand a little snack on the way over - right?

Stay tuned - more birdies in a day or two!

Cammie!