McCook Fall Field Days

The 2010 NOU Fall Field Days were held in McCook on September 24–26, and 57 members and friends were in attendance. Field trip destinations included Medicine Creek Reservoir and points east, led by William Flack; Red Willow State Recreation Area and other Frontier County locations, led by T. J. Walker; and Swanson Reservoir State Recreation Area and the Benkelman sewage lagoons, led by Robin Harding and Lanny Randolph. A final tally of 131 species was recorded. Gerhard Assenmacher, wildlife photographer and conservationist, spoke on Saturday night about his Medicine Creek Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is composed of more than 550 acres of native prairie and rich bottomland in Frontier County. It surrounds Medicine Creek, a principal tributary of the Republican River, and is one of the few protected properties in the Mixed Grass Prairie Ecoregion, which has been designated as a Natural Legacy Area by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission