Cattle Egret at Squaw Creek
On Sunday morning I made my first trip to Squaw Creek NWR since the great flood of 2011. The refuge closed in June when the Missouri river left its banks and submerged portions of the refuge, thousands of acres of farm land, homes, businesses, and several miles of I-29. The waters have mostly receded. The Refuge re-opened on August 26 and I-29 re-opened last week.
Each autumn, Squaw Creek is a major resting and feeding ground for migrating snow geese. It also attracts hundreds of bald eagles each year as they follow the geese south for the winter. It will be interesting to see if the migration will be affected in anyway by the flood. There are still submerged fields visible from the Interstate and I imagine the migrating birds will have feeding and resting locations that did not exist prior to the flood.
Of course the snow geese have yet to arrive this year and the Refuge was pretty quite this morning. Even on quiet days however, Squaw Creek usually has something to offer. This morning the most interesting find was this cattle egret. I know cattle egrets are fairly common in much of the U.S. but this is the first I have seen at Squaw Creek. I shot this guy about 30 minutes after sunrise from my car with a Pentax K-5 and Pentax DA*300 (hand held) 1/3200s at f/4.0 -1.3 EV ISO400.
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Cattle Egret
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Date: October 23, 2011
Categories: Wildlife