Prairie Ramble

Locoweed. 

Sometimes you have to get down on your knees to really appreciate the prairie, see it from a bug's eye view.

Up in the rare air where our heads are, you miss things.

Like chestnut-collared longspur nests

with long-haired pink babes.

Or prairie smoke in bud

and bursting into fumes of flower.

So you walk, looking down

or better yet, sit

but you must look up frequently, like a duck does

so as not to miss the resplendent prairie eagle they call the Ferruginous Hawk

as it wheels overhead, looking down at you

sometimes giving you a glimpse of its ferruginousness (that would be the iron-rust red on its shoulders)

and its see-through tail

and if you are lucky you may see a dark-phase one

so be sure to look up.

It was here, in North Dakota, that Bill wrote his song, "Is Anybody Out There." Listen to it, as The Rain Crows performed it at the Midwest Birding Symposium,  here.

And think about joining us at the 10th Annual Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival June 15-18, 2012.