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........

Saturday Morning Nature Hike-Part 1

Since warblers are still migrating and gas went up to $3.69 last week, I decided to try birding within walking distance of my home (no danger of speeding tickets either!) My neighbor Jack (who lives up at the end of our subdivision) still owns at least 40 acres of property--a lot of which is wooded. I called him on the phone last night to get permission to cross his fence and do some birding, and of course, he graciously said yes. When Mr. Johnson was out for his morning walk, he met up with Jack and they talked a little bit out Jack's wooded acres and a few things Jack wanted Mr. Johnson to tell me to keep an eye open for: a pair of red-headed woodpeckers, a pair of pileated woodpeckers and possibly a wolf! Wow, is that possible? Apparently the DNR has documented the presence of a couple of wolves in that area. On my morning hike today, I saw only 1 pileated woodpecker and no evidence of anything that looked like wolf tracks, but that will be something to keep my eyes open for next time.

So anyway, I didn't get started until about 8:45 and my first destination was the little pond I've shown you in a couple of earlier posts. The developer has resumed road construction activities that will eventually turn this wooded area into another housing subdivision, so the dynamics of this natural area will be changing over the next couple years, but for now, it's still fairly wild--especially down at the end adjoining Jack's wooded acreage.

This little pond is for stormwater runoff. I didn't see any wildlife as I approached the pond, but there were frogs singing and jumping into the water as I approached.

Once I got close to the water, I could see there were millions of tadpoles swimming around in there. See all the black stuff in the water on this picture? Those are tadpoles! I've never seen so many in my life!

Unlike the frogs, the tadpoles weren't bothered by my presence and I managed to capture this little video of them.

We had a little rain shower late last night, so the dirt around the pond edge was still nice and soft and I could see lots of footprints from previous visitors. Here's a perfect little raccoon "handprint."

I also saw this very tiny deer hoofprint. I asked Mr. Johnson if baby deer were being born yet and he didn't think so, he said this tiny hoofprint was probably from one of last year's does (a yearling who was still pretty small).

A couple of cautious frogs allowed me to snap a picture of them.

While I was walking around the pond, I saw lots of little birds flying around the edge of the woods and in the tall weed stems around the pond. These birds included House Wren, Yellow Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, American Goldfinch, American Redstart, Eastern Phoebe and Indigo Bunting.

I finally moved on from the pond and over to the gate that would let me into the woods. Tune in next time as I take you down this wooded trail for Part 2 of the Saturday Morning Nature Hike.

Staying Closer to Home

Here's a shocking sight we saw on our way home from work today:

I can already tell that other than a trip to St. Paul in May and a trip to North Dakota in June, most of my birding adventures will take place much closer to home this summer.

Fortunately we have fairly diverse bird and wildlife habitats within 20 miles of my home, so seeing a variety of birds shouldn't be too difficult. Why, just this afternoon after stopping to top off the fuel tank, I spotted a Bufflehead (my first ever!) swimming on a storm sewer retention pond near a major shopping center. Mr. Johnson was kind enough to pull over so I could get out of the car for a better look at this striking black and white duck.

Plus, there's no shortage of good birdwatching opportunities right outside my window. This bright yellow goldfinch caught my eye right away on this gloomy, rainy afternoon.

And look at how popular this little safflower feeder is:

So how about the rest of you: do you think your summer plans will change minimally or drastically based on the fuel prices?