Oklahoma

From St. Louis we continued west into Oklahoma and spent the night near Oklahoma City. The next morning we headed to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. This is a really neat area. The mountains just seem to come up out of nowhere. Once we entered the refuge we saw our first bison of the trip and also longhorns. We stopped at a small lake and took some pictures and as soon as we were out of the car I heard a bird singing in a small shrub near the edge of the hill. It turned out to be a Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a new bird for the year. I also found Spotted Towhee and Canyon Wren in this area.
We drove around checking out the terrain and spotted a prairie dog town near Holy City ( a church in the middle of the refuge made entirely out of stones...pretty cool).
We watched the little guy dive into their holes every time a car passed and run around when they felt safe enough. The are fascinating to watch. After a little while I noticed some small birds in the dirt and grass behind the dogs. Seven in total worked the area, sometimes flying around and settling down again not far from there they started. Their flight calls and motions were enough to tip me off but the single male, in very near full breeding plumage, was the clincher. Chestnut-collared Longspurs. I tried like hell to get digiscoped photos, but between the wind barreling across the plains and bad angle of the sun I ended up with just one passable photo. Oklahoma added just four birds, but I was pretty happy with that since we only spent about an hour looking.