I was driving along Wildlife Drive at Quivira NWR during the mid-afternoon when I noticed this Great Blue Heron snagging a fairly large fish. I was initially disappointed that I missed the photography opportunity, however little did I know that it would follow that up with no less than 10 more fish! I snuck up on the heron slowly and sat near the water edge and shot away for probably the next 25 minutes or so. Here are my favorite four images of this particular heron shoot:
On our morning birding trip, Jeff Calhoun and I came across several Wild Turkey at the campground at Arkalon Park. Not bashful whatsoever, these turkey were more curious of us and whether we had any food than anything else. Jeff found an apple just lying around and we tried coaxing them to feed. Sure enough one of them did approach Jeff, and the following is a sequence of images I shot of a Wild Turkey feeding on an apple -- by hand! Bizarre to say the least.
After I got off work this morning, I decided to photograph waterfowl and anything else on the water I could find. I picked out a favorable location along the east shore and set up shop before twilight. I spent a little under two hours at this spot, concealed fairly well.. at least enough such that teal and coot would float by at less than 10 yards without any pause. The highlight of the shoot was an immature Sora that popped out of thick, partially submerged brush near the shore. This was quite a treat after hearing it vocalize for awhile. I also heard at least a couple others vocalizing at more of a distance. Below is a 5-image series of the Sora emerging out of the brush and floating out in open view briefly.
I birded Arkalon Park with Jeff Calhoun on the 12th. Photography opportunities were limited, but I did manage to get a few pretty good images... including Eastern Bluebird, Belted Kingfisher, and a Bewick's Wren. Below is a write-up from Jeff:
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Mike Umscheid and I went down to Arkalon Park near Liberal today to enjoy it on the last weekend it is open to the public. We listed 52 species there including Osprey, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 1 Cooper's Hawk, the 2 resident Bald Eagles, Prairie Falcon, Bewick's Wren, Townsend's Solitaire, and a flyover Siskin. A few other migrants were around but not as many sparrows as expected. An unusual moment was feeding the Wild Turkeys an apple core by hand – obviously they’ve done that before. The most notable thing there was the fact that we voice recorded a singing Marsh Wren that I think matches, by song, the western sub-species of Marsh Wren. I’m not sure how many records of this subspecies there are in KS, but it was a first for me.
We went on over to Meade Lake but it was pretty quiet. A few Scissor-tails still hanging around was a surprise and it was nice to hear the Sandhill Cranes flying over. There were a lot of ducks on the playa on Yucca Rd in Ford Co, mostly Pintail. At the DC Lagoons were 9 LB Dowitchers and 20ish American Pipits. Full lists at links below.
I went birding this past Saturday at Arkalon
Park northeast of Liberal (southwest Kansas) with my birding
friend Jeff Calhoun. We came up with a pretty good number of
species, but little did we know that one of the species was doing
a little bit of humaning at the park campground. Some Not-So-Wild
Turkeys were an enjoyable distraction for a little bit. I had too
much lens on me for these guys, so I focused on portraits. Some
times you just never know what you come across on the birding
trail!
Prior to tracking down and photographing the Great Kiskadee (which was the whole purpose of the trip to McPherson Lake), I got some decent images of a Northern Cardinal and Nashville Warbler:
