North Dakota at its Best

A marsh wren winds out his clattery wooden song. Could his tail be cocked any higher?

An American bittern hauls his neck and legs around the prairie.

Hi guys! I'm finally taking a little time to prep some posts from North Dakota. She showed very well this spring, exchanging bright sunshine and shirtsleeve weather for the horizontal blowing snow she hammered us with last June. Those of you who read this blog know to expect some NoDak posts every year, since Bill and I have been headlining the Potholes and Prairies festival for what? Seven years now? We speak, we sing, we lead trips, we show a lot of people a lot of cool life birds. It's (part of) a living, and loads of fun.

I didn't take many photos this year--we were just too busy getting festivalgoers on birds to do much photography. Just for nice, Bill set me up with the sweetest carbon-fiber tripod for my Swarovski compact scope, so I was totin' that and digging getting people killer looks at life birds. So my photos are kind of a grab-bag which I will more or less successfully attempt to weave into a narrative. Heh. Less successfully, for sure.

We really focused on bringing some North Dakota hospitality and food to the festival goers this spring, in addition to fabulous checkoffs for their life lists (Baird's sparrow, Sprague's pipit, American bittern, yellow rail, black tern, marbled godwit, gray partridge, ferruginous hawk and the like). After searching all day long--Bill's Big Day-- for gray partridge, we found a little covey walking around in a used equipment lot right in Carrington as we packed it in for the day! Gray partridge, like ring-necked pheasant, is a naturalized exotic species in North Dakota, but the birding powers that be hath decreed it a countable species.

Back to cultcha-- one of my trips was called Pipits and Pies. We hit the diners, boy, and I will never forget the rhubarb coffee cake lightly dusted with powdered sugar that we enjoyed in Woodworth. Oh my goodness. It was gone before I could get a picture.

Bill and I have been working on festival organizers for years to abandon the boxed lunches and treat the participants to real North Dakota hospitality. This year, it happened. We ate in the cafe's. No ham sandwiches, no apple, no Otis Spunkmeyer cookie. Real food. After a long morning of birding, there is nothing like a noontime Smorgasbord (referred to simply as a Smorg).

Knoephla soup, roast pork, masheds, salad, and a fluffy grandma-ey concoction of mandarin oranges, coconut, Miracle Whip and Cool Whip. At least that's how I sussed it out. It was more than delicious.

The thing I love about getting in the small-town cafes is that we get to talk to local people, and impress on them that we're all here gobbling up their smorg because they have such fantastic birds and wildlife. They are usually amazed that anyone would travel to their lonely part of the planet to see sparrows. I enjoy soaking in the stares as we troop in, and then announcing loudly, "Look out! The birdwatchers are here! Hide your knoephlas!" After an introduction like that, we wind up talking to them, and explaining what we're all about. Kind of a grassroots eco-tourism approach.

And the food is out of this world.

The Robinson cafe, groaning under the weight of happy birders.

Main Street, Robinson, North Dakota, looking north.

And Main Street, Robinson, looking south, a view that never fails to put a lump in my throat.

These little towns hang on on the wide and heedless prairie.

Malicious Melodies

Wherever there are cattails, you’ll hear the windup-toy song of the marsh wren. It’s much more melodious than the dry, ticking song of the sedge wren. Like some other wren species, (think house wren), marsh wren males build several “dummy nests,” perhaps to show the female their nest-building and territory-holding prowess. They sing and posture next to the nests, and eventually a female will select one to line and lay her eggs in.
Marsh wrens share a bad habit with house wrens, piercing and throwing out eggs in other birds’ nests.

I wouldn’t do that.Yes you would.

Whether they’re trying to eliminate competition for food on their territories, or just being narsty, marsh wrens will go into red-winged and yellow-headed blackbird nests and throw the eggs out. Hmmph. Carolina wrens are much better neighbors. They build one nest and stick to it, and they don't bother anyone else's eggs.

Boy, are marsh wrens cute, though, straddling the stalks and winding up their song, a feast for the eye and ear. Springy little things. Wrens are pure bird spirit.
These were photographed along Pipestem Creek near Pingree, North Dakota, on a pellucid June day, in good company.

Chet Baker was a perfect gentleman today, in case you're wondering. He had one more episode of uppitiness yesterday and I rolled him on his back and pinned him down and Darthed him good. Tonight, he waited in the car while we were at a restaurant and, courtesy of Liam, there was a bag with a cheeseburger in it on the back seat, wide open, and he didn't even touch it. Didn't even need to warn him not to mess with it. Now that's a good boy.