Serene Scenery Sunday

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie!  Today, Cam and I have quite the collection of serene photos for you.  They're from a couple weeks ago, when we made our most recent trip down to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.  We saw lots of birdies and other beautiful things, so we wanted to share.  Ready to take a look?

On the way down, I tried to convince Cam I saw a bunch of deer.

"No, really Cam!  Look!  Deers!"

Unfortunately, she knew it was a John Deere place in one of the towns we went through.

Before we even got to the refuge, Mom took this shot:

Western Kingbird, Barbed Wire, and Sunflowers

It was pretty much everything she could want in a shot.  And then ...

❤❤ SNOWY PLOVER!!! ❤❤

Yep.  The very next bird we saw was one of her faves - the Snowy Plover.  And not just any Snowy Plover, but a baby one.  You should have heard the squeals (after she got back into the vehicle, so she wouldn't scare the birdies).

Mom and Dad were very surprised to see this next bird out in the open in broad daylight:

Great Horned Owl

Sadly, that dead tree is usually sitting in water; our drought is really taking a toll!

These guys needed an air traffic controller:

American White Pelicans

There were lots of members of the heron family around!

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egrets

We also saw lots of long-legged birdies:

Black-Necked Stilt

White-Faced Ibises

Even some Avocets having a feeding frenzy!

American Avocets

They sweep their bills back and forth, stirring up the water to fish out the bugs!  It's very similar to what I do when my mom puts water on my kibble. Oddly enough, she doesn't stand there and say, "Oh, how cool!" when I do it.  OR take my picture.  OR shoot video.  Such a double standard.

Moving right along ...

There were also several different species of Sandpipers there - these guys are among our Fall migrants:

Stilt Sandpipers

One of the biggest surprises, other than the Great Horned Owl, was seeing this unlikely fishing duo:

Raccoon and a Great Egret

Mom couldn't quite make out what the raccoon was at first and was really excited once she was able to get closer and see him!  AND ... the raccoon eventually went over to another raccoon, before they left the scene.  Very cool!

We didn't get to stop in Ellinwood like we did last time - they closed a road, so we ended up taking the scenic way home.

A field of Sunflowers

We were on a tiny road with no shoulder, but Dad stopped for a couple minutes for Mom to shoot the flowers, since there wasn't any traffic.

We did find another rest stop where we could get out and have a nice break, then we loaded back in and headed home!

"Not as nice as stopping in Ellinwood!"
"No, but we did what we needed to do!"

For the complete album from our trip, please visit this link; it's a three-page bird-a-palooza!

Thanks for coming with us!  We hope we made your day a little bit more serene!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher