July 14, 2007
For this installment of our summer travelogue series, I visited northwest Missouri to see if they still have pelicans.
Yes, you read that correctly, pelicans!
This, of course, would lead one to the next obvious question that comes to mind. Where exactly in Missouri would one find pelicans and don’t they need an ocean?
The American White Pelican, you may be surprised to learn, does not require an ocean at least part of the year. Pelicans are perfectly content to arrive in huge numbers in the spring and fall at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Holt County near Mound City and Forest City in northwest Missouri. Last I checked there was no ocean there!
The pelicans are a surprising sight to behold anywhere they lite, ocean or not.
In August and September, white pelicans may be found in open pools at the refuge or on their very own Pelican Pool as designated on the auto tour route, open to tourists from sunup to sunset.
Since it is early summer now, there are only isolated pelicans in the refuge’s wetlands and are not as readily seen. One can always hope for a sighting though as I do each time I return to where I grew up just across the road from the refuge.
The refuge, by the way, is designated by wildlife experts as one of Missouri’s Watchable Wildlife sites and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
On this visit, I went to northwest Missouri for a mini class reunion and to attend Mound City’s Sesquicentennial celebration, but each time I return to my childhood home I try to take a peek at the pelicans.
From the vantage point of our front porch as a youth, I had the opportunity of seeing an abundance of wildlife in addition to the pelicans. The area is a mecca for hunters and bird watchers alike including a long list of sports stars who are hunting enthusiasts.
Sometimes in those years, my siblings and I saw very odd things from our front porch besides the celebrities who frequented the refuge.
Occasionally, tourists would screech their car to a halt and try to pick up a giant snapping turtle that was slowly crossing the road. I guess they wanted to take it home to the kiddies. Often, they regretted that decision. We kids could have warned them but usually just enjoyed watching their folly.
Hunters who took more than their limit of ducks and geese would deposit their excess fowl on our back door step as they tried to outrun the game agents. We never lacked for goose for Thanksgiving dinner.
An injured goose literally dropped from the sky into our yard. It happened more than once, and we enjoyed telling folks it “rains ducks and geese” in these parts not cats and dogs as the saying traditionally goes.
In the late 50’s, someone declared they saw one of 30 remaining and endangered Whooping Cranes on the refuge. Indeed they had. Reporters and photographers and a bevy of bird watchers came from all over the world to see for themselves.
My mother, an avid bird watcher and geography and history teacher, could not miss such a rare event. So along with we kids and some of her students, she crawled through the rattlesnake-infested fields and marshes of the refuge to get as close as possible to the visiting Whooping Crane and its traveling companions, three Sandhill Cranes. For a time, my mother wore Whooping Crane earrings, and she had photos of the cranes all over the house and in her classroom.
Well, you had to be there.
4-H bird walks were commonplace on the refuge, usually at 4 a.m. because a true bird watcher knows one has to be up early to count the species. The 4 a.m. part was not much fun in my way of thinking. Well, I take that back. Crawling through the marshes was not exactly a picnic either.
Fishing and hiking were popular at the refuge in those days and remain so today.
However, the rattlesnakes that made walking through tall grass a challenge are mostly gone. The state-endangered Eastern Massasauga rattler can still be found on the refuge but rarely seen. Many of my generation who grew up in northwest Missouri remember stepping over the snakes while we cut weeds out of soybeans and detassled corn in our a summer jobs. Rattlers were commonplace then, and no one got too excited about them one way or another.
Nowadays in October and November, one can see snow geese, upwards of 400,000, so many in number that when they fly the sky is literally white.
The American Bald Eagle is also a common sight at Squaw Creek all year long, although less common in the summer.
Consider a day trip to Squaw Creek, always worth the drive. Who knows? Perhaps you, too, will see a Missouri pelican!
Travelers note--Squaw Creek was established in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a refuge and wetland breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife. It comprises 7,350 acres along the eastern edge of the Missouri River floodplain and is located in northwest Missouri, 30 miles northwest of St. Joseph, and 100 miles north of Kansas City.
