Audubon Society guides bird tours monthly

So far, so good for the Wichita Audubon Society’s monthly guided birding trips at Chisholm Creek Park.

“We always have at least a dozen,” said Pete Janzen, tour organizer. “One time we had between 30 and 40 and we had to break up into groups.”

Janzen said they keep the events on a schedule to make them easier for the public to remember.

They are held at 8 a.m. the second Saturday of each month and meet in the parking lot of the Great Plains Nature Center, 6232 E. 29th Street North. The tours last about 90 minutes, though participants can stay longer. Expert birders from the club are along to offer assistance in identifying birds by sight and sound. Janzen said all levels and ages are welcome. The tours are free and membership in Wichita Audubon is encouraged but not required.

Chisholm Creek Park, near Woodlawn and K-96, is 250 acres with several miles of paved walking trails. More than 150 species of birds have been documented at the park. The park is a great location for the birding tours because it offers several types of habitats.

Janzen said it offers patches of tallgrass prairie, riparian areas, wetlands, streams and ponds. Those who regularly attend the tours will get to see when different species of birds pass through on migrations. He predicted next weekend’s tour could find increases in populations of brown thrashers, tiny blue-gray gnatcatchers, a variety of sparrows and some early migrating species of warblers.

For more information go to wichitaaudubon.org.

Online walleye hoax – A widely-circulated online photo of a young man holding a huge walleye, supposedly a Kansas record caught at Cheney Reservoir, is a hoax. Reports with the photo said the fish weighed 16 or 17 pounds.

“It was caught in Nebraska, last year,” said Jessica Mounts, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism fisheries biologist for Cheney. “It weighed 15.4 pounds according to the person who caught it.”

If accurate, that wouldn’t beat the Nebraska record of 16.2 pounds caught in 1971. The Kansas record walleye is 13.2 pounds, caught at Wilson Reservoir in 1996.

“I guess the good news is the next state record is out there,” she said, “and it might be at Cheney.”

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 5:28 PM with the headline "Audubon Society guides bird tours monthly."