This article appeared in the Great Bend Tribune on Sunday, May 19 as part of the monthly KWEC column, The Wetland Explorer. Saturday, April 27 was one of the bigger days of events for the Kansas Wetlands Education Center with three very different scheduled events taking place. The morning had the first-ever Wild Goose Chase 5k and 1 mile Fun Run at Cheyenne Bottoms with 160 participants running or walking over the dike roads. For [...]
A cool, drizzly morning proved to be a great setting for the first ever Wild Goose Chase 5k/1Mi Fun Run through Cheyenne Bottoms. The Wild Goose Chase was hosted and sponsored by the Kansas Wetlands Education Center and Eagle Communications. Other sponsors of the event included: Best Western Angus Inn, City of Great Bend, Clara Barton Hospital and Clinic, Doonan Peterbilt and GMC, Great Bend Farm Equipment, Grove Chiropractic, Harper Camperland, Identifications Co. Awards and [...]
A few Wilson’s Phalaropes have been spotted at Cheyenne Bottoms and they are right on schedule. These shorebirds usually show up around April 12th during their spring migration from their wintering range in the southern areas of South America. As many as 87,000 have been estimated at one time in the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands. The Wilson’s Pharalope breeds in the northern Midwest states. Its breeding habitat has been reduced by up to 50% in some [...]
This article, by Pam Martin, KDWPT educator at KWEC, appeared in the March 24 edition of The Great Bend Tribune. The killdeer arrived last week, yarrow is starting to send out new leaves and the cranes, ducks and geese are flying north in great flocks – spring has arrived to our part of the world. Soon birds will be nesting, frogs and toads gathering at ponds and other wet areas, and baby animals venturing forth to [...]
Welcome to the first webpost of a new series from the Kansas Wetlands Education Center. The Spring Migrant Spotlight will provide interesting information about species arriving to Cheyenne Bottoms during spring migration. Visit the Bottoms to see these birds for yourself! The Long-billed Dowitcher spends its winters in the southern United States and Central America. As temperatures rise and days get longer in the late winter months, these shorebirds head north. Long-billed Dowitchers arrive at [...]
The first shorebirds of the spring migration have begun trickling in to Cheyenne Bottoms! Thanks to all the snow we received over the last few weeks, there’s even a little bit of water in the pools to welcome them. Cheyenne Bottoms hosts approximately 45% of all nesting shorebirds in North America as they make their way northward, up to 600,000 birds from at least 39 species! It’s still early in the migration season, but we’ve [...]
With the snow finally starting to melt, many of us are hitting the roads to break the cabin fever. However, we are not the only ones who notice the open highways these days, as many small songbirds are flocking by the hundreds to these open areas. Because of the heavy snows recently, much of the plant community is unavailable to be used as food for the songbirds. And with the only open patches now being the [...]
The recent winter storm brought large amounts of snow to Kansas and the Midwest. In the midst of a serious drought, this precipitation will provide much needed moisture to Cheyenne Bottoms. The actual amount of water that snow provides varies greatly, depending on the temperature of the air in which the snow is formed. Four inches of wet snow can be equal to one inch of rain. Dry, powdery snow can take 20 inches to [...]
