North Dakota Trip-Day 1 & 2

This post is coming to you from the City Library in Carrington, North Dakota. Only 15 free minutes of internet time here and the rest of I have to pay for, so this post will be heavy on pictures and light on words (since a picture is worth 1000 words, right?)

My drive up to North Dakota was uneventful, except that being a small town biker woman, I'm not used to driving in much traffic and I have to say the traffic around the Twin Cities was INSANE! I'm definitely going to be taking a different route home. With that said, let's get to some highlights of my drive. The nice thing about driving yourself that you can pull over to the side of the road whenever you want--especially when you see a little pond containing White Pelicans and a Double-Crested Cormorant!

I stopped for a bite to eat at McDonalds in Fergus Falls, MN and while sitting in the parking lot eating my lunch, I was amazed to see a pair of Purple Martins flying around and picking up insects (?) from the edge of the parking lot. Just goes to show you can see interesting birds just about anywhere and when you least expect them!
I finally made a stop for gas in West Fargo. The little Toyota Corolla rental car I'm driving got about 38 MPG for this trip. I liked that alot. I also liked the price of gas in West Fargo.
While driving down I-94 in North Dakota, I came upon this FedEx truck. Amazing only to me because I've never seen a triple trailer before. I took this picture especially for Mr. Johnson just so he can feel fortunate that a FedEx truck like this never pulls up to the loading dock he manages.

Yeah, I took this picture while I was driving, but I wasn't speeding!

My birding adventures started at 7 AM this morning with Julie Zickefoose's "Birds & Blooms" tour. Here's a few of the members of our group shown below:

Some of you might recognize Laura H (Happy Birthday Laura!) at the far left and next to her in the blue jacket is Jay Davis (the BirdJam guru), and of course, that's Julie in the purple windbreaker. It was so windy out here and pretty chilly too. We were all prepared for rain, but didn't expect it to be as chilly as it was, but we made the best of it though and got to see a lot of cool birds, including.....

Mr. & Mrs. Yellow Headed Blackbird

American Avocet

But the highlight of my day was not bird-related at all.....it was these two tiny little fawns in the roadside ditch that one of the other members of our group spotted from the van window.The mother deer ran over the hill as our van slowed down, but these little ones just stayed hunkered down in the ditch while we snapped a few quick pictures. I don't think they were much more than a day old. I was really amazed at the number of white-tailed deer we saw in the area--the habitat is so different from our deer habitat in SE Minnesota, but the deer seem to be thriving here.

So that's the wrap-up of my first day from the Potholes and Prairie Birding Festival. Tomorrow we're headed out to the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Stay tuned........