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.

Rain on the Prairie

Traveling for the month of June builds up a powerful backlog of photos. I was mildly surprised to see that I had taken 1,000 images in Utah alone. My computer gagged, but accepted them. I now shoot on Medium resolution, as I have admitted to myself that my photos are merely snapshots whose highest purpose is to appear on this blog. There is no need to have a dozen images of the same butterfly at 10.1 megapixels each. Nor does Chet Baker's slightest glance need to be documented at that resolution. I know there are those who might argue...but when you're talking that kind of volume, you have to economize somewhere.

So. Maine, North Dakota, or Utah? Shall I handle them in the order in which they occurred? Do I dare to eat a peach?

All right, then. It will be North Dakota first. To the prairie we go.

The last three years we've visited the Potholes and Prairies festival in Carrington, ND, we've had a fair dose of rain. "Embrace the Weather" is a field trip leader's only choice. Work a little harder to see the extra beauty in a rainy prairiescape. An American wigeon takes flight over young corn.A ring-necked pheasant walks the rows.

It takes a bit of extra work to find birds in these conditions, too. My co-leader, Bruce, disappeared for a bit, and started walking resolutely out in a huge loop over the waving grass. As I watched, it occurred to me what he was up to. My hunch was proven good when five sharp-tailed grouse came rocketing by us. Bruce had been our bird-dog. It took him a good 45 minutes to complete the loop, but everyone got wonderful looks at these big tan birds. What a nice man, what a nice thing to do. I was impressed at how beautifuly he orchestrated the flyby. Sharp-tailed grouse are native, unlike ring-necked pheasants (imported from China and naturalized). Gray, or Hungarian partridges were also imported for hunting, and are much sought-after by birdwatchers looking to enlarge their life lists.
You tend to find them in newly planted fields with lots of exposed soil. Perhaps that's just where they're more visible. This little male momentarily lost track of his companions and is calling to them.

Pale-morph red-tailed hawks like this Krider's are frequently seen on the northern Plains. Note the white head and tail.
Please pardon these photos; it was pouring (as it is now, as I write--POURING.)Inundated marshes everywhere in North Dakota ring with the klonk and whirr of yellow-headed blackbirds. He's singin' in the rain.

An eastern kingbird is sufficiently disheveled to reveal its hidden crown patch of yellow-orange--kinglet like, and previously unknown to many birders on our trip.
Speaking of previously unknown, birding with natives invariably teaches us things we never knew. Ann Haffert exclaimed, "Oh, look! Green goslings!" And sure enough, the newly-hatched Canada geese did have a distinctly green tinge, which fades to yellow within a day or two.
Then, it goes to brown.
Whether it cleared up or not, there would be beauty at every turn on this rainswept prairie.