By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
When the house is 41,000 acres, there's no telling who or what might stop in. Over Labor Day weekend, a new species of bird was documented at Cheyenne Bottoms. Kansas Wetlands Education Center Director Curtis Wolf said two birdwatchers even took a photo of the limpkin.
"They're a tropical wetland bird," he said. "They're native to Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, and down into South America. However, for some reason, in the last year, they've been venturing north and showing up all throughout the Midwest United States and several of the Great Plains states."
Limpkins look similar to great blue herons or sandhill cranes but are typically brown with white spotting on the back and sides. They weigh between two and three pounds and have a wingspan of approximately 40 inches. The birds began showing up in eastern Kansas in June 2022, and Wolf believes two were spotted in and around the Bottoms.
"In this day and age, the word goes out," he said. "We get on Facebook, the Kansas Birding page, and put some notes out about that and it really takes off. It's exciting."
The birds were last spotted at the Bottoms on Tuesday, Sept. 5. Adding limpkins to the list, there have now been 357 documented species observed at the Bottoms.