Hunting the Kansas Playa
Cheryl Unruh
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Dave and I recently found ourselves on a new Kansas adventure: playa hunting.
It was new to me, anyway. I’d never even heard of playas.
But apparently there are about 2,000 of them on the High Plains of Kansas.
North of Garden City on a windy May morning, Jim and Susie Aber introduced Dave and me to these wetlands.
The Abers understand geographic features; they are both geologists and teach at Emporia State University.
Jim explained that a playa is “a depression that has water on an ephemeral basis.”
Susie added that it’s an enclosed basin with no inlet or outlet — kind of like a natural pothole in the land.
“It’s a characteristic of semi-arid landscapes,” Jim said.
Western Kansas normally gets less than 20 inches of annual precipitation. So most years, maybe nine out of 10, the playas are dry. But this has been an unusually wet winter and spring out there; playas are full.
The Abers took advantage of this wet year. To document and study the playas, they photographed them from the air. With a kite.
Hang out with scientists and you’re likely to learn something. That day, not only did Dave and I learn about playas, but we also got to see kite aerial photography in action.
Using a 300-pound test line, the Abers launched a kite. They have ordinary digital cameras, “oodles of kites,” and a remote control device that allows them to snap aerial photos from the ground.
“This is high-tech stuff,” Susie joked. “We’re using dog leashes,” she laughed, pointing to the blue and pink leashes that tethered the kite reel to their truck. The wooden kite reel is a couple feet long and looks like something you might use for deep-sea fishing.
“It’s not fancy equipment,” Susie said, “but we’ve taken some fantastic pictures.”
One of their aerial photos of an Estonian bog won first place in a contest sponsored by the American Association for Advancement of Science.
“Except for the rig for the camera, everything is off-the-shelf,” Jim said.
That day, sustained winds blew at 19-22 mph, which is about the maximum speed that they’ll fly a camera. Optimal speeds are 7—10 mph.
“We fly a long tail to increase the stability of the kite,” Jim said. They send their kites up to 500 feet. Higher than that, they’d need to file a flight plan with an airport.
Jim looked through binoculars to see the antenna on the camera rig. From this he could determine the angle and direction of the camera lens.
The kite flew about 450 above the ground.
“Left. Take. Left. Take,” Jim said, directing Susie how to maneuver the camera using the remote control.
“You never know what you’re getting until the camera is back on the ground,” Susie said.
“The fun thing about the kite,” she said, “is that it’s up high enough up to see the big picture, but low enough to see the detail.”
The Abers have been sending cameras up kite strings since 1996. They’ve used kite aerial photography to study land patterns not only in the United States, but in Poland, Norway, Estonia, Denmark and Slovakia.
They keep returning to Cheyenne Bottoms in Barton County, one of their long-term projects.
“Cheyenne Bottoms is kind of a giant playa,” Jim said. “Last year it was mostly dry; this year it’s flooded.”
What’s important to them as earth scientists, Susie said, is “repeated imagery of the same site to show how it changes over time. The pulsing of the landscape is fascinating to watch.”
To view aerial photos taken by the Abers, check their website: www.geospectra.net.
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
• Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyovepeople.net.
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.