Named for Native Americans that once inhabited the region, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge covers almost 22,000 acres in the Arkansas Valley of south-central Kansas. Its vast and varied wetlands attract huge flocks of waterfowl, cranes, pelicans and other water birds during the spring and fall migrations. The refuge lies southeast of Great Bend, midway between U.S. 281 and Kansas Highway 14.
Mild, sunny weather made my visit especially pleasant yesterday morning. Dozens of white-tailed deer browsed on the meadows and ring-necked pheasants foraged along the dirt-gravel roadways. Heading for the Big Salt Marsh area, I saw several red-tailed hawks perched in the cottonwoods and watched flocks of Franklin's gulls cavort above the fields. Blue-winged teal, coot and northern shovelers gathered in the sloughs and pools while a variety of shorebirds, including greater and lesser yellowlegs, American avocets, black-necked stilts, semipalmated sandpipers, snowy plovers and long-billed dowitchers patrolled the shallows and mudflats.
Several large flocks of American white pelicans rested along the lakes where cormorants, ruddy ducks, eared grebes and pied-billed grebes fed on the open waters. By mid morning, other pelicans passed overhead, moving north in large, wavering V's; their movement enticed the resting flocks into the air and I was treated to an awe-inspiring spectacle of a thousand or more of these majestic birds in flight. Black-crowned night herons, white-faced ibis, great blue herons and a lone American bittern rounded out a memorable morning at this fabulous refuge.
Visitors arriving later in the spring have the opportunity to see many other birds that breed at Quivira. Among the notables are Mississippi kites, least bitterns, black rails, upland sandpipers, least and black terns, burrowing owls, scissor-tailed flycatchers, bobolinks and blue grosbeaks.
