Nebraska's Wildlife Management and Production areas. A tour!

     The title sounds a bit mundane , but actually there was a lot of bird life in those hidden, out of the way WMA's and WPA's. I had secured a map of some 37 of them from the internet, but that only told where they were in 1 mile grid lines, and main highways, with no names on the side roads. So we had to approximate the miles down a road and hope we had the right one. I think our percentage was about 85% "on the money." Two of them we missed entirely, as by the time we found our mistake it was much too far back to return.
     The entire trip is called a 'day outo tour' and covers some 135 miles. It was 40 miles distant from our motel so that added 90 miles to the journey. The names of these WMA's include names like Sandpiper, Green Wing, Green Acres, Morphy,  Kirkpatrick, Kissinger, which are named after the birds and people that had helped to set these up. They are used both for wildlife and bird management, as well as hunting and fishing where there are lakes or ponds on the land.
     One of the best birding sites was called Moger as there were many types of waterfowl that we observed. Let me tell you about some of the roads. Most of them were improved gravel and traveled easily, even if we had to use caution where the sand had created some ridges. But look out for the ones that had a sign saying,  "Use caution and give way to farm vehicles". Those roads were esentially one lane, rough, and filled with old dried,  mud rutted, tire tracks. They are NOT used in the winter. Caution was the key word there.  As we entered one particularly difficut and narrow road a rancher/farmer came out  on the road and we flagged him down to ask about the WMA nearby. He was familiar with them and told us what we might find. He was right 'on the money' except we saw all that he mentioned, but never did see any Wood Ducks.  Ruth was disappointed as that is her favorite duck.
     This trip covered four counties in Central Nebraska namely, Hamilton, Clay, Fillmore, and York. All of these are south of I-80 and east of Grand Island.
     Of course this day was no different than any others in that we took our own lunch and looked for a cemetery to have our midday meal. We settled for a high rise overlooking Massie WPA which has a trail for boaters to lug a canoe or non motorized craft to the lake about 500 yards from the parking lot.  Some of the sites did have pullouts and others did not and were tucked along side a corn field or at the edge of a plot of tilled soil. I think we crossed the same Railroad  some 15 times. None of the crossings were "improved".
     The birding was good and today I will post the birds we saw. Ruth tells me that we now have reached 61 different species identified. Today we saw 35 bird species. They were;
Starling, Killdeer, Rock Dove, Mallard, Mourning Dove, Eurasian Collared Dove,  Robin, Turkey Vulture (in a field eating), Red Winged Blackbird (many) , Common Grackle, Boat Tailed Grackle, Grasshopper Sparrow, Ring Neck Pheasant, Red Tailed Hawk (3), Northern Flicker, Slate Colored Junco, Purple Finch, Kestrel, Snow Goose, Canada Goose, Common Merganser, Coot, Blue Winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Tree Swallow (they just arrived today), American Widgeon, Ruddy Duck,  Pintail, Ring Billed Gull, Bufflehead , Song Sparrow, Brown Headed Cowbird, Redhead Duck and Broad Winged Hawk.
     Seeing the Snow Geese was aparticularly high point, as we did not see any Crane today. We believe they have not left for Canada and Alaska. But, the snow Geese often leave with them or about the same time. So, even though they were a long ways from us, we did, with the aide of the telescope, identify them in their flock of 100 or so on a pond. What a thrill.
     Yes we have been very fortunate  in that two nights ago we did see thousands of  Cranes come in at sunset to roost, and today they are gone.  It was like "death warmed over" to go by every corn field and see no Cranes where just yesterday every field had some. They are amazing. So I will include some of the sites that we saw today and a few surprises in the pictures,.
     Tomorrow we will attend church and also watch the horses run at Fonner Park,  Grand Islands 67 year old racing track. It is just a few blocks from our room.  Catch you tomorrow.

 As far as the eye can see there is cropland getting ready to plant again. Corn mainly.

This is the view of Massie WPA.

 Little or no water in most ponds as they (NE) received just 5" of snow all winter.
This is where we ate lunch.

 The ubiquitous signs spreading information to the visitors and hunters and fisherman.

 This was the best birding site we found today (Moger WPA) where we had help from
a local rancher,

 This was the two mile road that led in and out of the WPA.
It was much rougher going up the hill.

 One of the small ponds where the ducks were found. We flushed them
when we drove by.

The "Hot air Balloon" at York (water tower)     Lest we forget the Cranes, They are in Canada now.