Late Autumn At Quivera Part 1

A few minutes before sunrise, the clouds are putting on a show.

As the dawn approaches the Little Salt Marsh reflects the beauty of sunrise.

I made a trip to Quivera National Wildlife Refuge in Stafford County, Kansas a few days ago. Being the end of autumn I really did not expect to see a huge variety of creatures compared to the summer population. There are a lot of critters out there even so, and many of what are there now are winter residents. I took about 400 pictures during the day, and will share a few in several posts here.

Standing on the Observation Deck at the Little Salt Marsh looking away from the sunrise you can see a lot of snow geese resting.

As with all mornings the colors and light change moment by moment, creating one beautiful scene after another.

I met a friend at the Refuge Headquarters a little before dawn. A calm and partly cloudy morning treated us to a magnificent sunrise over the Little Salt Marsh. There were a large number of snow geese spending the night, but not many other birds in sight at that location and time. Whenever there is a large number of geese like that you will probably see a whole bunch of them take flight at once. That is always and amazing thing to see and hear.

With sunrise close the crescendo of color reaches its peak.

Welcome to a beautiful day.

A few birds make their way across the sky with the golden glow of morning.

After enjoying the sunrise at the Little Salt Marsh we headed northward to see if we could locate any owls. Never did get a picture of one but there was a great horned owl vacated the area when we arrived. There are quite a few eagles to be seen as well as a variety of hawks.

An adult bald eagle surveys the breakfast menu.

A pair of juvenile bald eagles looking for a meal.

Heading toward the Wildlife Drive at the north end of the refuge, we saw a flock of gulls swarming over a pond. We parked and walked up the dike to see what was drawing them and go to see a breakfast buffet of fresh fish being eaten. There was good fishing go on there! The same pond held a number of ducks as well.

A gull flies off with a fish in its beak.

I was surprised they stayed put when we appeared in their sight.

The gulls were repeatedly hitting the water and coming up with fish. Everybody ate well that morning.

A nice size fish, how delish!

The pool across the road from where the gulls were feeding was completely dry. The bottom had many of these little mounds out in the middle. Something is keeping busy out there.

My experience with raptors is the moment you point a camera at them they head out. This one was very patient with us and posed nicely.

This is a dark morphed rough legged hawk.

It was still in almost the same location when we passed through later. Rough-legged hawk.

Another nice in flight shot of the rough-legged hawk.