Look! A Giant Crane!

I have a special fondness for hand-painted backdrops, the kind with the face cut out. You scoot around behind and get your picture taken doing whatever the person in the backdrop happens to be doing: acting like a clown, being hanged, riding a bucking bronco... In this case, riding a tiny bison.

Liam wasn't that into it. I think he takes bison too seriously. More on that later.
Phoebe looks about six years old here.
I have always wanted to ride a bison. I figure riding a real bison would probably be the last thing I do before I die, because the bison would make sure I died.

Bill of the Birds showing his usual flair. I have no words.


Nobody knows why North Dakotans have such a special love for giant things. Perhaps giant things are everywhere, but they're visible for miles on the prairie, so it seems like there are more of them on the Great Plains. Steele, ND, boasts the world's largest sandhill crane. I really like this sculpture, clearly one of a kind.
Phoebe's doing her best crane colt imitation, sheltering under Mama's legs.
Like many things in North Dakota, this giant crane sculpture gets the job done. No nonsense. Just a giant steel crane, watching over Steele.

Maybe North Dakotans make giant things so the sky doesn't make them feel so small.

The Swinging Orangutangs are prepping for another performance at the Marietta Brewing Company on Front Street, Marietta, Ohio, this Friday night, Sept. 4, from 9:30-12:30 pm. We've rehearsed, worked up some new material we're excited about, and we're ready to rawk. After a year of real live formal voice coaching from band member Jessica Baldwin, I'm feeling the results and it feels real good. And then she opens out on Aretha Franklin's R.E.S.P.E.C.T and I know there's a long road ahead. poster by Andy Hall (our drummer)

Come see us if you're in the area, or if you get a wild hair for a road trip!

North Dakota Lilacs

Yesterday morning, I spent a happy hour or so propagating lilacs--my heirloom lilac I call Aunt Lolly. I collect root shoots on Easter Day, and coddle and nurture them all spring and summer. I made the mistake of putting a bunch of them in the same big pot, where they quietly intermingled roots in a fibrous, tangled mess all summer long. I managed to extricate and separate them and pot them up. I have a little lilac farm now, and I hope they'll be able to recover from the shock of being separated before winter. Cool weather promotes root growth. I have faith.

I always enjoy having two springs. When we go to North Dakota each June, we get to experience lilacs all over again. Ours have long finished up at home when we arrive to find them in full glory, growing in enormous hedges all over the place. You see, lilacs are native to Siberia, and North Dakota feels a lot like the Gulag to them. They thrive on those northern plains winters and brief, ecstatic summers.

It is my opinion that field trips need balance. So, if you've been out since before light in a fine misty rain and are freezing cold, there is a possibility that something other than birding wil appeal to you. It certainly appeals to me. As leader of our field trip, I took the liberty of announcing that we were making a lilac appreciation stop at this gorgeous little cemetery near Robinson. I did this, knowing full well that it might be outside the experience of many festival-goers. But it was necessary. I mean, look at these plants!

These are not just any lilacs. These are monsters.

And the air is perfumed.

We made side-by-side comparisons of the scent of lavender versus white lilacs. White lilacs have a rounder, more pungent scent that tends more heavily to musk than to the classic deep purple lilac aroma. I think of the classic lilac scent as having a floor, a low note that hits the back of the palate. White lilacs: Still divine, but lacking that floor.

The winds had whipped last year's chipping sparrow nest from the spruce boughs. We put it back.

On a sunny day, I made some more photos of these enormous lilacs.

This being a cemetery, I was drawn into thoughts of little Phyllis Jean, for whom someone still plants a flower. Her parents are doubtless gone now, but someone still remembers.

Big, Cold Sky Country

Ahh, North Dakota. Wide open, and this June, cold as steel. The land had greened up, but winter was still making itself known well into what should have been summer. The story was the same across much of the northern tier of the US. Not North Dakota's fault.

We always watch for the road sign to Gackle. It's when we know we're really in North Dakota. On our first ever trip to the Potholes and Prairies Festival seven years ago, we got a rental car that had an alarm buzzer or bell for everything. Seatbelts, open doors, key in ignition was just the start of it. When you had finally strapped yourself in (Chest belt, check. Lap strap, check. Crotch strap, check), you'd get underway and hit 10 mph and the doors would lock automatically with a loud, startling ziiiiiich! For birding in North Dakota, this is overkill. It was also highly annoying to be strapped and literally locked into your car when you're only going 20 mph on a deserted gravel road and a ferruginous hawk sails over. You're hauling on the door handle, cussing a blue streak. Now who the @$%$#% locked my door?

So we named the car Gackle, which helped. Lord, we hated that car. If I'd owned it, I'd have been yanking wires left and right. I'll decide when to lock my doors, thank you.

In the few hours of sunshine, the groves were alive with orioles, flycatchers and warblers.

This farmstead is chock full of good birds, including nesting Say's phoebes.

Cold weather or not, the shorebirds and ducks were in high breeding dudgeon.

A marbled godwit beats over, yelling.

A hen shoveler pulls her mate's tail. A lot of in-flight nipping and feather pulling goes on with shovelers.

A blue-winged teal matches the sky.


And a very agitated hen mallard gives her mate an aerial dressing down.


We stayed with the kids at Lakeview Meadows Estates outside Jamestown, in a lovely cabin called The Yorkshire.
It hearkened to Merrie Olde with its warm fireplace and dark wood paneling. It was terrific.

We'd need that fireplace, with daily field trips out on the prairie. The theme for this year's Potholes and Prairies Festival, at least for me, was creature comforts.

Western kingbird to tree: I know you were just planted, but willya leaf out, already? Brrr!