Quivira National Wildlife Refuge

Our municipal park stay is $8 which includes water and electric. It’s a sweet small place to hang our hats for the night. It’s complete with a large pond protected by three pairs of nesting geese. Gee, a lot like home.

After fueling up at $1.49 a gallon we head south the 25 miles to the National Wildlife Refuge. There are two sets of protected wetlands in the area, Cheyenne Bottoms Refuge to the north and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge to the south. Both are good birding spots but the interesting thing is they can attract different birds. Cheyenne Bottoms is a freshwater wetlands area while Quivira is saltwater wetlands. We’ve birded both places in the past but today we decide to spend our time with the saltwater wetlands. Here we are in the middle of Kansas within over twenty thousand acres of refuge including 7,000 acres of saltwater marsh.

We drive the several miles of refuge wildlife drives and see American Avocets, Blacknecked Stilts, Blue Wing Teals, Northern Shovelers, a Loggerhead Shrike, White Pelicans, Cattle Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Meadow Larks, Greater Yellow Legs, Lessor Yellow Legs, American Coots, a Falcon ( not sure if it is a Prairie Falcon or a Peregrine Falcon but will id later via photograph), and more.

A storm and associated cold front will be here tomorrow so by midday we are headed south to avoid snow and temperatures in the low twenties. Our trailer is okay down to the mid-twenties but we neither want to winterize the trailer now nor risk damage to the water systems due to freezing.’

At the end of the day we pull into a RV campground in the southeastern corner of Kansas.