Conclusion of North Dakota Trip

Saturday, June 7th was my final day at the Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival. It was a windy, sunny day, but warm and perfect for the "Birdwatching for Beginners" tour I was signed up for. Our leaders for this trip were Bill Thompson, III, Katie Fitzmier (from Eagle Optics) and Sharon Stiteler (the Birdchick). (That's me with Sharon and Katie in the photo below--you can tell by our smiles that we had a great day of birdwatching!)

I got several life birds on this tour including Black-Crowned Night Heron, Virginia Rail, Marbled Godwit, and Chestnut-Collared Longspur. We missed seeing Whooping Cranes by one day (they had been spotted out on the prairie the day before.)

Marbled Godwit

Chestnut-Collared Longspur

When our bus arrived back at the festival headquarters (The Chieftain Conference Center), a bunch of us got to do the "Lifebird Wiggle" out in front of the giant Chieftain statue. I kind of got hidden in the back row, but the arrow should help you locate my head and left arm.
Before the evening's banquet, I prevailed upon Julie for a photo. She and Bill worked non-stop during this entire festival, which definitely helped make it such a wonderful experience for me and the other birders. Having "met" them through blogging, it was really neat to meet them in person and also their kids, Phoebe and Liam. Me, Julie Z, and Susie O'Quinn (who knew both of us through our blogs!)

(Photo taken by Phoebe L. Thompson)

Oh yeah, and one more thing, remember the shawl I knitted and donated for the silent auction at this festival? The last I saw it was draped around the shoulders of young Miss Phoebe Thompson as her dad Bill got the winning bid. It was nice for me to know this shawl was going to a good home!

I departed for home early Sunday morning and got to enjoy some fabulous sunrise views of birds and wildlife on the North Dakota prairie. For reasons unknown to me, the railroad tracks were very attractive to many of these early morning birds.

Railroad Rooster

Railroad Turkey

There were lots of deer out and about early this morning also.

And I was lucky enough to catch one more view of a lovely white-tail doe with her tiny little fawn trying to follow its mom through the tall grass.


I also got one more life bird for this trip: Short-Eared Owl hunting the roadside ditch. I was able to stop the car and get out for a closer look, but the owl preferred not to be photographed!

A few hundred miles later, I pulled into my driveway shortly before 4 PM, exhausted, but thankful for the amazing sights, sounds, and birding fellowship I had experienced for the last 4 days on the North Dakota prairie.

Oh yeah, and did I also mention that I got 30 life birds on this trip? As I keep saying over and over, it was an amazing trip.....

Sullys Hill National Game Preserve (Part 2)

Boy, it's tough getting everything done after being away for 5 days! 75 new e-mails in my mailbox at work, so things were busy there and then I had to take advantage of the sunny afternoon to get my lawn mowed after work today before more rain moves back into the region. I'm running late again tonight, but I want to try and get one more installment of my North Dakota trip posted. Before I get back to North Dakota though, I want to show you something exciting I found while mowing today. I usually check my bird houses as I'm mowing and I was quite surprised to find this bluebird nest with 5 eggs today! I've heard the male bluebird singing occasionally, but very seldom see him and I've never seen the female in the backyard, but apparently they've been busy, doing what bluebirds do best. This is the closest they've nested to the house in many years. I'll have to keep a close eye out to make sure the wren and sparrows don't bother this nest box.

OK, now back to Sullys Hill National Game Preserve. Just beyond the prairie dog town, was the winter feeding area where they provide hay as supplemental feeding for the resident bison, deer and elk. I was lucky to see a large bull elk nearby in this field. They are beautiful animals and he was growing a nice set of antlers, still covered with velvet. He wasn't real thrilled about me standing near the fence to take some pictures, but I tried to be still and he eventually seemed to ignore me.

Here's a little video of him walking through the pasture and enjoying some nice tender grass.

Also in this pasture were two turkeys--a tom and a hen. This is the closest I've been to a tom turkey this spring. This guy was pretty quiet and not gobbling or displaying for the hen at all. He was a nice big bird, but it looks as though he may have some sort of an injury to his wing (or maybe his feathers are just molting).

I made a stop at the visitor's center to see if they had a bird checklist for the park (yes!) and to purchase a souvenir sweatshirt. They had quite a few birdfeeders set up outside the center and I was surprised to see that they had several clay-colored sparrows and pine siskins at their feeders. They also had a couple of nectar feeders with hummingbirds visiting.

After leaving the center, I found this very large buffalo wallow. Because of the recent rains, it was almost full of water, but you could see plenty of animal footprints around the muddy edges. In this picture, you can also see the wildlife trail (white arrow pointing to it) that comes down from the woods directly to this wallow/watering hole.

I continued following the road which wound around through the beautiful oak/ash forest. There were so many birds singing in these trees and I was able to stop periodically and roll down the window to watch and listen. In one spot, I heard a thrush singing (WOW!) I knew it wasn't a wood thrush and the birding checklist I picked up earlier showed the park had 3: Swainson's, Gray-Cheeked, and Hermit. I took this little movie and if you listen really closely (right around the 3 second mark) you should be able to hear the thrush singing.

Later in the evening at our wine tasting reception, I replayed this movie for Sharon (the Birdchick) and she positively identified the thrush as Swainson's. Thanks Sharon!

My last stop before leaving the park was the Devil's Lake Vista. Again, this must be a fantastic view on a sunny day, but still quite a nice sight even on a rainy day. Even from up here, you could see all the whitecaps on the lake from the strong wind that was blowing.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so I decided after leaving the park to run up to the city of Devil's Lake and find a little lunch. The road to town runs right along this lake. I almost changed my mind about proceeding down the highway when I saw this sign:

Fortunately, there was no water on the road and I had an uneventful drive into and back out of the city of Devil's Lake.

I got back to Carrington just in time to attend a seminar called, "The Ten Most Important Things You Can Do for Birds and Bird Conservation." It was a good talk presented by Paul Baicich. I learned that some of the things I'm already doing, but also a few new things that will be easy for me to start doing.

Later that evening we walked over to the wine tasting and appetizers event at the Historic Putnam House near downtown Carrington. It's a beautifully restored home that was built in the early 1900's. We were also treated to music by Bill Thompson, Julie Zickefoose and some of their equally talented friends (who just happened to also be attending this festival). As we say here in Minnesota, "A good time was had by all!"

I hope to post the final installment of my North Dakota trip tomorrow night. I hope you've enjoyed these stories and pictures enough that you will think about maybe trying to attend this festival next year (or another year in the future). It was a well organized festival and the groups were small. Everyone was very friendly and some of us had the added benefit of already knowing people when we got there (through blogging). As you know, it's so nice to go someplace where you already know people.....

North Dakota Trip-Day 3 (Part 1)

Friday was Day 3 of the Potholes & Prairies Birding Festival. I was scheduled to be on the 5 AM birder's bus going to Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Friday's weather forecast was calling for lots of wind (20-30 mph) and rain (up to 1") so when my alarm went off at 4 AM and I peeked out my motel window, that's exactly what I saw. Since I've already admitted I'm NOT a hardcore birder and I knew even wearing my rainsuit wouldn't make the trip any more comfortable, I decided to skip the tour and went back to bed till 6:30.

The wind and rain finally let up a little bit and I decided to head up to Devil's Lake (about 54 miles) to see what that area had to offer. Fortunately for me, I found Sullys Hill National Game Preserve right along the south east shore of Devil's Lake. Because there was so much to see there and I took a whole bunch of pictures, this is going to be a 2-part post because it's getting late and I just can't get everything organized tonight.

The cost for getting into Sullys Hill was $2 per car and that was definitely a bargain for a bird & nature lover like me plus I pretty much had the whole park to myself because the weather was so crappy and not too many other people were out and about.

Because of the diverse habitat in this refuge, there were lots of different birds--I got a total of 39 and 1 lifer--Swainson's Thrush.

My first stop after entering the preserve was the Woodland Wetland. Because it was still raining, the birds were a little hard to see as they weren't flying around much (and if I looked up with the binoculars, they would get covered with raindrops). However, here's a little video clip of all the birds singing around me at the wetland overlook (the faint "ticking" sound you hear is raindrops falling on my jacket)

I continued on my drive and came upon this little flock of eastern wild turkeys just crossing the road. I managed to get a couple quick photos as they scurried up the hill. I was continually amazed to see wild turkeys in this part of North Dakota--I thought it would be too cold for them, but the local folks told me turkeys (and white-tailed deer) were thriving.

My next stop was Sullys Hill Vista. As I was driving over there, I spotted this small buffalo herd just hanging out at the edge of the woods. There were several little ones staying pretty close to their moms. That mama seems to be giving me the hairy eyeball--I suppose because I had stopped my car to take these photos. I'm pretty sure she's way bigger than the Toyota Corolla I was sitting in!

Here's a big ol' bull that didn't seem to be bothered by the weather at all. When I first saw him, I thought it was a huge, mossy boulder till I looked a little closer and noticed the horns!

Here's the "Stairway to (birder's) Heaven!"

In case you're wondering, I did not make it to the top without stopping, but only because there were lots of birds to look at on the way, so it was necessary for me to stop often.

Here's the view from the top--WOW! Too bad it wasn't a sunny day. This viewing platform was actually above the tree canopy, and from here I got to see the Scarlet Tanager and Eastern Towhee--two birds I haven't seen for many years.

Sullys Hill also has a Prairie Dog Town. I stopped by there thinking I might get to see a Burrowing Owl, but there were only prairie dogs present this day. They are such cute little buggers. Several of them were out trying to tidy up the top edges of their holes, but because of all the rain, they were mostly just getting dirty feet and faces.
While I was standing there watching, a prairie dog right by the viewing stand stuck his head up from the hole, spotted me and immediately sounded the "alarm" for all the others. I was lucky he was so close so I could shoot this little video so you can hear him.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Sullys Hill National Game Preserve featuring more large mammals, birds and nature scenes from this beautiful spot in North Dakota.

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........

Monday Miscellanea

I started packing my bag today for the Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival--my rainsuit went in first after I checked the forecast for Carrington, ND. It's going to be similar to what's in store for here the rest of the week with chances for rain every day. I will be happy as long as we don't experience any severe weather.

I'm not sure what kind of internet access I'm going to find there, and since I don't have a laptop computer, I will probably be absent from the blogosphere for several days while I'm at the festival. I'm hoping they have a public library with a computer and internet access.

So tonight is going to be a smorgasbord, for lack of anything more imaginative as I'm getting ready to leave for North Dakota.

Here are some updates on my gardens. My recent raised bed disaster is actually looking pretty good.

If it ever stops raining long enough to dry out a little bit, I can get in and work with this dirt a little bit more, but for now it seems to be loosening up and the chunks don't seem quite as large. (There is also a banana pepper and 1 more tomato planted in here, but not visible).

In my other raised bed, most of the seeds have begun sprouting. These peas are doing the best (almost tall enough to reach the trellis now).

And the lettuce is finally recognizable too.

The onions (bottom) and beans (top) are also coming along slowly but surely.

I also have swiss chard, beets, cucumbers, and carrots just beginning to sprout (but still too small to show in a picture). If we could just get a few sunny days in a row, I think the soil would warm up nicely and all of these plants would really take off!

Here's a picture of the completed shawl repair.

I swear that this is where the hole was and if you compare this section to one of the others on either side, you might see a little bit of difference, but I'm very happy with how this repair turned out because I even had a bit of a hard time finding it again.

Brother Phil in California had a check-up a couple weeks ago at Travis AFB hospital. When he came out of his appointment, he spotted this burrowing owl (with a 'bonus' yellow-billed magpie) out on the front lawn of the hospital.

How lucky for him (and me) that he happened to have his new camera along and he finally e-mailed me this picture today. He also told me that they've been seeing a male Western Tanager in full breeding plumage hanging around their yard (but the bird won't sit still long enough for a photo op).

I've gotta say, I'm loving this spring weather we're finally having. As I'm sitting here composing this post, there's still a robin sitting right outside and singing his head off (at 9:07 PM-almost dark!) I'm really looking forward to spending the next few days outside enjoying birds and nature.

No Birds--Just Knitting

Back in February, I showed you the new shawl project I had just started knitting with some beautiful silk and alpaca yarn, and I've finally finished it. This afternoon I gave it a little bath and pinned it out on the bed to dry.

As soon as I laid it out, I immediately noticed something was wrong....can you see it? Towards the upper left edge? Here's a closer look at the huge freakin' hole!

Curses! I must have dropped a stitch in one of the last rows before I started knitting on the lace edging. I'll have to wait for it to finish drying and see if I can get this straightened out, because this is the shawl I'm planning to donate to the Potholes and Prairie Birding Festival next week for their silent auction.

I've also been working on some hats. Here are a couple of the completed ones for Kristy's Hat Quest.

In the picture below, the striped one on the right is going for Kristy's Hat Quest too. For the light green one with cables (left), I'm using a fabulous yarn that is 70% baby alpaca and 30% cashmere. I just love knitting with this yarn! I keep having to stop and fondle the hat or hold it up against my face because it's just so soft. I hope the special friend I'm knitting this for isn't allergic to these fibers......

I bought this alpaca/cashmere yarn on a clearance sale and only purchased 4 balls. I wish now I had gotten bunches of it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep the last 3 balls all for myself!

Birding & Hiking with my Sissy

Last week my Sissy invited me to come down to her place early on Saturday morning for birding and hiking. Even though she lives in town, she gets great birds in her yard.

Here's a little bird feasting on the grape jelly in her oriole feeder. Sissy says she's had these little ones coming for a couple of weeks, but the numbers have started to decline this week as migration continues.
She was calling them Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and that's kind of what I thought also, just because they were so tiny. But as I was posting these pictures to my blog tonight, and looking a little bit closer at this photo--
I don't think it's a kinglet at all--especially because of that white eyebrow, darker eye stripe and lack of any wingbars. So what is it? Anybody have any thoughts? I'm leaning towards Tennessee Warbler. I think the size and color are about right.

After enjoying the backyard birds for a while, Sissy and I headed off to the walking trails of nearby Bear Cave Park. As we were crossing the footbridge, I spotted this little bird fly over to a rock in the middle of the river. I'm even worse at shorebird ID than I am at warblers, but based on size, actions of the bird, and description from my Kaufmann Field Guide, I'm going with Spotted Sandpiper on this one.
Of course, the picture was taken into the sun and the bird was a distance away, so good field marks can't be seen, but I was still excited to see this bird--we just don't get many shorebirds in this area. If anyone else has any thoughts on this bird also, I'd appreciate your input.

Our walk through the woods didn't reveal as many warblers and other birds as we thought we'd see, but the scenery was quite beautiful.
We did hear and see the Red-Eyed Vireo and Cedar Waxwings, along with the usual wrens, robins, and crows.

As we followed the trail out of the woods, we came to an area that has been restored to native prairie. Sissy and I marveled at this as we didn't even know this area existed! We headed over to the viewing platform in the middle of this prairie and were treated to the sights of Tree Swallows, Eastern Bluebirds, and Indigo Buntings. In the farm fields beyond this prairie area, we heard and saw Eastern Wild Turkeys and the Ring-Necked Pheasant.

Soon it was time to head for home as Sissy had to get ready for work. But what a fun trip. I know Sissy and I will definitely bird these areas again since gas prices are keeping us all closer to home this summer.

I'll leave you with this picture of Mrs. Red-Bellied Woodpecker enjoying a suet treat from the log hanging in my Sissy's backyard.

Purple Martins

I was sitting on the couch tonight watching the 6:00 news and knitting on a hat. The windows were open and all of a sudden I heard it--a purple martin chirping outside! Now here's where I'm going to give a true confession: no matter where I am or what I'm doing, part of my concentration will be on listening for birds--whether it's on TV, or I'm near an open window or especially when I'm outside. This tends to drive people crazy -- especially people who spend any time with me outdoors (right Sissy?) because they might be in the middle of a story and I'll just stop them and say something like, "Did you hear that Indigo Bunting over there?" It's not that I'm deliberately trying to be rude, I'm just obsessed with birds.

OK, where was I? Oh yeah, back to the purple martins.....I jumped up and dashed to the patio door to look outside and sure enough, there they were! One was sitting on top of the pole while the other one was inside one of the gourds looking out. I grabbed my binocs and camera and headed out to the yard. The nice thing about martins is that they aren't fearful of humans, so I was able to get really close for this little video where you can hear him chirping.

It was so coincidental because I had just let the gourd rack down earlier this afternoon to take out some of the doorstops (put in earlier this spring to keep sparrows, starlings and tree swallows out till the martins arrived). I just had kind of a feeling that martins might be arriving soon, but I expected it would be the sub-adult martins. The pair that visited tonight were adults (the male was completely dark purple).

Adult Male Purple Martin

(when you see a real martin, you wonder how they could possibly be fooled by my decoy attached to this perch!)

I'm not sure where this pair came from, but I hope they come back (they departed shortly after I took these pictures).

Rural Birding & More!

This post is going backwards in time a few days to last Friday evening when Mr. Johnson offered to take me out for a birding drive after supper. We ended up driving around the area where we turkey and deer hunt, so I know this trip wasn't just for my benefit!

It's actually been pretty dry here for the last week, so many of the farmers have gotten their crops in the field and some of the corn and oats are already coming up. Here's what it looks like around here--lots of flat fields and and the clumps of trees you see are either farmsteads or sinkholes. The arrow is pointing to a tractor--but you can only see the cloud of dust from the planter or whatever he's pulling behind. The majority of these fields are probably planted in corn, so by the middle of summer it will be a "sea of green."

Here's what hungry deer can do to an arbor vitae hedge during a long snowy winter. I think it's a funny picture, but I'm sure the homeowner who lives here doesn't!
As we were trying to figure out what was planted in the field near our deer hunting area, I noticed a large dark shape in the middle of the field. Binocular review showed me that it was a juvenile bald eagle.
The crows weren't happy about this eagle sitting in their field......
.....and after a few fly-bys, the eagle finally got tired of the harassment and flew away.
Our drive continued up the road and as we came over a rise we saw all the huge, dark birds in a field ahead. "Look at all those turkeys!" said Mr. Johnson. I grabbed the binocs again for a better look.
"Drive closer," I said, "those aren't turkeys, they're turkey vultures!"
I have never seen this many vultures together and on the ground--there wasn't even anything dead there! Here's a close-up for my friend Lynne.
They're not the prettiest bird in the world, but you have to admit they're magnificent in flight.
Continuing on our journey, we turned down another back road that used to be a good "parking" road for us back in the 70's (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). The road has been redone, so there aren't any isolated spots anymore, plus there are many more people who live out this way. One of the farms there had these magnificent animals in their field. Holy cow indeed!

I have never seen horns like these. I don't know my bovine species very well, does anyone else have any idea what kind of cattle these are? Those horns were massive.

UPDATE: After googling "texas longhorn cattle," I sent an e-mail to Mike Crawford at Red Peak Ranch in Mills County, TX asking if he could ID these cattle, since my pictures didn't look like the Texas Longhorns on Mike's website. I got a note back from Mike today and here's what he said, "It looks like they are a cross between a Watusi and Texas Longhorn. When their horns are thick and twist up they are Watusi which it appears 2 of the cows horns in your photos do this. The younger one where her horns are more lateral has some longhorn blood."
I'd heard of Watusi cattle (native to Africa), so I googled "watusi cattle" also. If you're interested, learn more about Watusi cattle at this Wikipedia link.

It was starting to get closer to dark, so Mr. Johnson drove me past the old trout farm where he had seen an eagle nest earlier in the year. The eagle nest was obscured by leaves now, but we did see one of the adult eagles sitting nearby. There were lots of geese on the trout farm ponds and I spotted Mom & Pop Goose with some fuzzy young 'uns.

I asked Mr. Johnson to take one more detour on our way home to see if the Western Meadowlark I have seen previous years was still in the same area. We finally spotted this meadowlark in a small tree, but it never sang, so I can't confirm whether it was Eastern or Western. Any guesses from this picture?