A Trip to Squaw Creek

Yesterday, I was privileged to go with a friend to the Squaw Creek 

National Wildlife Preserve, in NW Missouri, about 100 miles north of 

Kansas City, Missouri. 

What a wonderful place! 

A series of marshes and pools (which can be controlled partly by floodgates) 

plays hosts to hundreds of thousands of migrating birds in the spring and fall, as well as 

deer, coyotes, Massasauga rattlesnakes (!) and many other large and small creatures all year. 

I'll let the pictures tell the stories: 

A cormorant! 

Turkey Vultures

A bald eagle, high in a tree... and next to it... 

It's nest, and if you look closely, it's mate is on the nest, and on 

eaglets, which it had been feeding. 

Two weeks ago, there were still 80 some eagles at the reserve, but most have 

gone for the summer. 

Yes, those are PELICANS!  In Missouri!  I have never seen one in the wild until yesterday. 

Double-click this picture to see them close up and personally. 

These little coots were everywhere. 

There were turtles sunning themselves everywhere on fallen logs. 

There were geese sunning themselves on muskrat dens. 

I learned the muskrat is very necessary to the marsh, as he 

keeps the cattails under control. 

And there was heron, 

after heron, 

after heron! 

The marshes stretched as far as the eye could see... 

the reserve encompasses 7,415 acres.  

I enjoyed my day out at the marshes so very much... and hope you enjoyed my pictures of them.  I encourage anyone here in this area to take a day to go.  My travel companion said it 

is best to go in the fall during the northern migration, or at the peak of the spring, to see all the eagles, and literally hundreds of thousands of snow and Canada geese, so many that you have to yell to be heard when out of the car!  I hope to see that one day.