Big Lake State Park, Mound City, MO - Part 2

We had a great Memorial Day weekend here at Big Lake State Park and today (Monday) we had a great 36th wedding anniversary. Yesterday we went across the road to the Big Lake Baptist Church. We could have just walked across the highway, but we were too lazy. The church suffered a lot of flood damage like everything else around here, but they've completely refurbished it and it is back to its original condition. The service was very laid back - folks in shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops, etc (lake crowd). We just had on casual clothes, but felt almost over dressed. Don't want to be judgmental, but they were not very friendly. The preacher was the only one that even spoke to us.

This area of Missouri is big farm counrty. Most of the land is flat and the fields are huge. The corn is up about 4-5 inches by now.

 

The main attraction in this area (for us) is the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, which is about 8 miles back east toward I-29. In fact, it is the main reason we came here.

They have a Visitor's Center (with gift shop) and an auto-tour around a 10-mile loop through the refuge. It's a little late in the year for the thousands and thousands of Snow Geese and ducks, plus the huge flocks of other water birds. However, there are still some around. Since we got here Friday we've made 3 trips through the refuge.

Sign Says 25mph, but nobody's going that fast. 5-10mph is more like it.

 

On the back side of the refuge the auto-tour goes through a tree-covered lane about a mile and a half long. Lots of small birds through here - warblers, flycatches, robins, buntings, etc.

There are a couple of resident Bald Eagle pairs that nest here every year. We happened to catch one of them resting in a tree!

There are still a few Snow Geese and White Pelicans here.

 

There are a lot of Canada Geese and their goslings have hatched. We saw several broods of different sizes.

 

We were also lucky to spot a female Wood Duck with her little ones.

I happened to get this unique picture -- see the Snow Goose, the White Pelican, and the Canada Goose all lined up!

One of the most common birds we've seen is the Red-Winged Blackbird - not only here, but everywhere else we've been where there's water. They are ubiquitous!

Another sort of rare bird for us is the Whimbrel -- we saw this small flock of them.

They have built houses for the Tree Swallows and have given each one of them an address. All the residents were home!

 

It's not just birds in the refuge, there are also raccoons and deer. We caught this raccoon looking at us from the side of a tree and the other one was trying to catch crawdads.

 

Tomorrow is traveling day again, so until next time -----------