Typical Kansas Weather

On Saturday morning I awoke to find five inches of snow on the ground. I was to bed late and up early, so it must have fallen pretty quickly. Yesterday was into the 60's, and today could hit upper 70's!

The woodcock flight has reached NE Kansas, as the dogs and I managed to put up six in a very short period on Sunday morning. We don't have much experience with woodcock, but they seemed very jumpy in the snow. The dogs as usual were running the edges looking for quail, but the woodcock seemed more dug in and would flush wild as the dogs ran, or I walked, past. I did come across one guy hunting with a yellow lab. We didn't speak, only waved at a distance, but I have to assume he was hunting rabbits. He probably wondered what I was doing walking around with dogs and no gun. As usual we didn't find any quail. Except for one covey we found while bikejoring last week, I haven't seen any wild quail close to home in almost three years.

Other than that I thought I'd share some pictures my father sent to me. He's purchased some fancy pants DSLR and telephoto lenses and has been getting some pretty amazing pictures. This spring I hope to get a blind on a chicken lek to get some pictures of their mating rituals.

If you click on the pictures you can see full-size versions. The look on the pilot's face is enough to give me a chuckle, I wonder what he was thinking.