Leaving Columbia, Missouri, at dawn, I headed west and soon dipped through a dense ice-fog that filled the Missouri River Valley. Throughout western Missouri, frost-backed cattle grazed in icy fields while stoic red-tailed hawks patrolled the highway from barren trees and phone poles.
In eastern Kansas, an atmospheric inversion had put a lid on the Kansas River basin, producing hazy air and keeping the effluent of factories and power plants within a few hundred feet of the ground; the inversion broke down west of Junction City and bright sunshine lit my course for the rest of the trip. Throughout central Kansas, where snowbanks lined the highway, numerous flocks of crows, meadowlarks, longspurs and Canada geese moved about the farmlands; the highlight in this region was a large flock of snow geese that funneled down to a crop field, east of Hays.
Farther west, on the High Plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado, bright sunshine, dry air and a steady southwest wind warmed the temperature into the low fifties (F). Raptors were abundant across this flat landscape, including rough-legged hawks, prairie falcons, northern harriers, American kestrels and some red-tails. As I approached Denver, the Front Range was backlit by a spectacular sunset, producing a silhouette of mountains from the Pike's Peak massif to the Wyoming border and a scenic end to my December journey across the Great Plains.
In eastern Kansas, an atmospheric inversion had put a lid on the Kansas River basin, producing hazy air and keeping the effluent of factories and power plants within a few hundred feet of the ground; the inversion broke down west of Junction City and bright sunshine lit my course for the rest of the trip. Throughout central Kansas, where snowbanks lined the highway, numerous flocks of crows, meadowlarks, longspurs and Canada geese moved about the farmlands; the highlight in this region was a large flock of snow geese that funneled down to a crop field, east of Hays.
Farther west, on the High Plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado, bright sunshine, dry air and a steady southwest wind warmed the temperature into the low fifties (F). Raptors were abundant across this flat landscape, including rough-legged hawks, prairie falcons, northern harriers, American kestrels and some red-tails. As I approached Denver, the Front Range was backlit by a spectacular sunset, producing a silhouette of mountains from the Pike's Peak massif to the Wyoming border and a scenic end to my December journey across the Great Plains.
