Photo Finish Friday - The Birds!

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie.  Today, I thought I'd show you some of the photos Mom took on our adventure the other day!  Are you ready to go birding?!?

We headed out to Quivira NWR - about a 3 hour trip to get down there. Cam and I played license plate bingo on the way down to help kill time. 

The first birds we saw were both kinds of Yellowlegs. Here is a Lesser in flight:

Lesser Yellowlegs

And here is a Greater:

Greater Yellowlegs

Those guys were hanging out with Stilts!

Black-Necked Stilt

We still think calling them "Red-Legged Stilts" would be more fitting. They should run these things past us first, don't you think?

There were lots of Meadowlarks singing songs:

Eastern Meadowlark

And the Blackbirds were chiming in, too:

Red-Winged Blackbird

There were quite a few Coots out having a swim.  Here's a particularly cute Coot:

American Coot

Mom got excited about a lot of things out there. One was seeing her very favorite duck of all time:

❤️❤️ Northern Shovelers ❤️❤️

I have to admit, they are rather charismatic.  (Hearts insisted upon by my mom.)

Fine, Mom. One more.

"Are you still there, Camera Lady?"

Sorry, Mr. Shoveler.

Another duck that got Mom pumped up was the tiny Ruddy Duck:

Male Ruddy Duck

Isn't his bill cool?!? They are only blue during breeding season; Mom was really excited to see them.

Swimming out with some of the Ruddies and Coots was this surprise:

Eared Grebe

Check out those red eyes! Here's another look:

Eared Grebe

Crazy cool!

The biggest and coolest surprise was when Dad was inching the vehicle down Wildlife Drive. Mom did one of her many calls of "Wait! What's that!"  They thought it was a stick, stump, or log at first, but Mom wanted to check it out. She sure was glad she did! Look!

American Bittern

Bitterns are very elusive members of the Heron family; Mom couldn't believe she spotted him just 25 yards from the road! She used the vehicle as her "blind", not wanting to disturb the bird, and got more shots of him.

"I'm just a reed.  Honest.  Nothing to see here!"

What an amazing find!

We stopped in Ellinwood on our way home, for a nice leg stretcher.

"What an exciting day, Mags!"
"I'll say, Cam!"

We also had water and snacks!

"I think that's a wrap!  Until next time, Ellinwood!"

Thanks for coming birding with us!  If you would like to see our entire album from the trip, please click here!  Happy weekend, everyone!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher