Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge & Great Salt Plains State Park

The Salt Plains is a speculator location for birding and wildlife viewing. In fact the Salt Plains are so important to shorebirds that this year's t-shirt design includes the threatened Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) which breeds on the salt flats on the refuge. The saline habitat and surrounding wetlands should be an excellent place for biologists to inventory a wide variety of species. Come join other volunteers in our inventory of the biodiversity of one of Oklahoma's unusual habitats. Scientists, educators, volunteers, and dedicated enthusiasts from all across Oklahoma and the surrounding states will be identifying and counting as many species as possible in 24 hours.

About the area: The refuge and state park provide habitat for approximately 312 species of birds and 30 species of mammals. The area is divided into almost equal parts of salt flats, open water, and vegetated land (marsh, woods, grasslands, and cropland).

Farming, grazing, prescribed burning, and wetland draining/flooding are management tools used to enhance the habitat for wildlife. Many ponds and marshes have been built to encourage the growth of wild millet, alkali bulrush, smartweed, and other moist soil plants that waterfowl use for food.

Moist-soil management on the marshes allows plants to grow and seed at optimum levels for waterfowl use. This kind of management requires calculated flooding and draining of the wetlands throughout the year. This imitates the natural rain cycle in a wetland to dry out while important seeds establish and then to fill for waterfowl habitat use.

Salt Plains, like many refuges, was created to be a rest-stop for migrating birds. Peak waterfowl populations at Salt Plains NWR during migration is 100,000 geese and 70,000 ducks. American White Pelicans migrate in mid-September with numbers ranging up around 40,000.

The refuge is also a stop-over point for Sandhill Cranes, the endangered Whooping Cranes and Bald Eagles. The peak population of Bald Eagles during migrations is 25-30 eagles. Other avian migrants using the Salt Plains NWR include gulls, raptors, herons, egrets and ibis.

Online registration now available

Registration Form

Details & Tentative Schedule

Links to videos about the area:

Refuge video

State park video