Great Migration Rally

 Pelicans at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge

There is a real gem 30 minutes away from our new place in Kansas.  I bet you've never heard of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, but it turns out that 50% of all birds that migrate across North America pass over or stop right here in our backyard.  In fact, they get over 300 types of birds at the refuge, including the very rare Whooping Cranes who come through in the fall (check out Nathan's blog from last November).

Our first Saturday in Kansas, we participated in The Great Migration Rally, a scenic car tour starting at Quivira and finishing at Cheyenne Bottoms, a state-run rehabilitated marshy recreation area, and the Kansas Wetlands Education Center.  This was an excellent way to get to know the area as there were five stops along the way at scenic overlooks and a local winery.

I don't quite know how to explain how awesome Quivira is, except that I was not into birding before and now I kind of am.  The wetlands are beautiful without the wildlife, but getting to watch Nathan, an experienced birder, check bird after bird off his life list, was thrilling.  I started a list of my own (see below)!  If only the Theodore Roosevelt National Park Christmas Bird count could be this good.

A couple photos of the refuge:

 Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

 Although I can't drink any wine now, my second-favorite stop on the auto tour was the Dozier Winery, a super-cute farm open six days a week for agro-tourism.

Pond at the Winery

Quivira Birding Checklist:

• Snow Goose
• Canada Goose
• Blue-winged Teal
• Northern Shoveler
• Green-Winged Teal
• Ruddy Duck
• Ring-necked Pheasant
• Eared Grebe
• American White Pelican
• Double-crested Cormorant
• Great Blue Heron
• Great Egret
• Osprey
• American Coot
• Killdeer
• Black-necked Stilt - Really cool-looking birds
• American Avocet - We got to see a crazy mating dance
• Wilson's Phalarope - These little guys swim in circles by the hundreds, trying to dredge up food from the bottom
• Red-headed Woodpecker
• Western Kingbird
• Eastern Kingbird
• Cliff Swallow
• Barn Swallow
• European Starling
• Blue Grosbeak
• Read-winged Blackbird
• Yellow-headed Blackbird
• Baltimore Oriole

A Medora Christmas

I have to admit, I was a little bummed to find out that I had to spend my Christmas in Medora, ND this year - no one around, not a whole lot to do. However, there are some fantastic things that happen in Medora around Christmas time - here are just two:

Cowboy Christmas
Back on December 5th & 6th, we got to experience our very first "Cowboy Christmas". It's a two-day celebration that includes everything from Christmas Dinners & Dances to a Fowl Fling (I never did find out what that was...). Starting Friday night, there are a whole series of events and we went to just a couple of them.

Chowder @ the Cowboy Cafe - None of the restaurants in Medora are open, so when we found out that the Cowboy Cafe - literally 20 feet behind our apartment - was going to have an Oyster Chowder night, we were there. It's always pretty comical to walk into a room of native Medorans. No one really knows who you are and this room seemed to have an unspoken rule that if you didn't have gray hair, you weren't allow. Of course that not true - everyone is really friendly and the dinner of chowder, a sandwich, and tiny cheesecake bite was pretty good! We opted not to go to the Cowboy Christmas Jamboree, which took place both Friday and Saturday nights.

Eats on the Streets - The next day was the main event and we started off by participating in Eats on the Streets. The whole town opens up for three hours and everyone serves homemade food & treats. On the menu was pulled pork sandwiches and cookies at the Schaeffer Heritage Center, Bison Chili at Woolly Boys Saloon, and some BBQ sausages & corn on the cob at the Cowboy Hall of Fame. We had to quit early since Nathan had to go back to work - but never fear, the Visitor's Center was participating as well with cheese, crackers, and olives. If you're thinking of coming to Medora in the winter, I would recommend timing it to coincide with Eats on the Streets.

Fireworks - Saturday night there was another dinner, a mass, a jamboree, some other events, and finally everything was topped off by some fireworks. Not just any fireworks, though - fireworks shot off the bluff right next to our apartment! Just when the show was about to start, it began to snow. It was beautiful - snow fireworks against the bluffs with a couple of misfires lighting tiny fires in the backyard. You can't beat that!



Audubon's Annual Christmas Bird Count
On Sunday we did something really stupid - we braved the -40 degree wind chills, hopped in the a Durango, and headed to the closed loop road to count birds. The Audubon Christmas Bird Count is over 100 years old, making it the longest-running Citizen's Science project in the world (I'm not kidding, check out the full press release here)!

Nathan has been excited for this for weeks, so a little cold weather wasn't going to hold him back! However, it did hold back the birds. Along an entire stretch of the 36-mile loop road we saw 16 birds - that's it!! The most exciting of which were a Golden Eagle and a Falcon-thing we didn't fully identify. We, however, did see a lot more mammals than birds - bison, deer, very close elk, and a group of around 60 pronghorns (which I've never actually seen in the park), made the trip totally worth the frost bite and finger amputations.