Prairie Plants

Back after a break with more prairie pictures from June's "Potholes and Prairies" birding festival, in Carrington, ND.

I didn't get to do as much botanizing as I would have like to on this trip. For one thing, I spent so much time looking out across the wide open spaces of the prairie that I sort of forgot about looking down, to see all the little wildflowers hidden in the thick grasses. For another, most of the time, I was weighed down with heavy rain gear and carrying binoculars and spotting scope. I didn't have enough hands to manage a camera, too. Still, I got a few precious shots to share with you.

Ball Cactus

This was my biggest surprise, cactus plants on the prairie.

Blanket Flower, Gaillardia

Prairie Rose

Prairie Smoke

I think the Prairie Smoke was my favorite.

I had to pull out all the stops and e-mail pics to the Science Chimp in order to get an ID on this one when I got back home. Trust Julie; even though she had not seen it before, she came up with a name for me:

Tufted Loosestrife

Milkvetch

The group consensus on this one was "some kind of vetch"

And finally, an unknown. Can anybody ID this little prairie flower from these two, admittedly poor quality, photos?

Wordless Wednesday: The most photographed barn in North Dakota

Get off the bus

or "Herding cattle, North Dakota style"

One day, during my "big bus" tour of North Dakota's "Potholes and Prairies," we stopped for lunch at a semi-abandoned homestead. The house was unoccupied, but the barn, paddocks, and outbuildings were still in use. We stopped there nearly every day, both as a birding spot to see nesting Cliff Swallows and Say's Phoebes, and also because the Quonset hut at the back of the property provided nice cover for an outdoor potty, complete with a singing Warbling Vireo.

That day, we were supplied with a sack lunch instead of dining at a local cafe. When the bus stopped and people began to get out, a cranky woman said, "Are we going to eat OUTSIDE?" as if it were a nuclear waste dump. I replied, "I'm sure you can eat on the bus if you like, but I'm going to go out." "There's no place to sit," she grumbled, to which I replied, "I'm going to sit on the ground." "That doesn't look very comfortable," she snapped. Thinking that no place on earth could be more comfortable than the lap of God, I pushed passed her, vowing never to get old and grumpy.

I had spied a dry, grassy bank with a view of the open fields across the dirt road that to my eyes appeared better than any banquette at a 5 star restaurant. By then, I would have eaten outdoors if it had been pouring rain, just to make my point, but it was in fact, quite pleasant.

It was while I was eating and casually birding and communing with nature and just enjoying the sensation of being off the bus that I spied a white sedan in the ditch behind us. At first, I thought the driver might have had an accident, but then I noticed he was moving, slowly and deliberately, up and down the grassy embankment.Fascinated, I stood up and walked back toward the action, to see what was going on.

Out of the bushes popped a half a dozen Angus cattle, followed by the white car. The driver was rounding up loose cattle and herding them like a 21st century cowboy.
He apparently recruited the driver of the blue pick-up truck, an employee of the DNR who was tailing us that day, taking publicity photos, to assist, and the two vehicles pushed the cattle down the road and in through a gate in the fence back to their pasture.
When it was all over, the rancher got back in his car and drove off, with a minimum of fuss, as if this were an every day occurrence. By then, I had called several others over to watch the process, had taken about 50 or 60 photos, and had begun planning this blog post. And all because I got off the bus.

Birds from Potholes and Prairies

Swainson's Hawk - taken through a fogged-up bus window, this photo does not do him justice.
Ferruginous Hawk - nearly as big as an eagle, and even more impressive when seen perched by the side of the road, on the right-of-way post, and showing all his field marks.
White Pelican. Not a life bird for me, but I still gasped every time I saw these guys. Big white birds impress southern Ohio birders - we don't see too many in our local patches.
Western Grebe - Lifer! Later, I also saw the Clark's Grebe, which looks very similar. My 1980 4th edition of Peterson's Field Guide, eastern version, shows the Clark's as a pale morph of the Western. By the time my third edition of Peterson's Western Birds was published, in 1990, the Western Grebe was split and Clark's Grebe was named as a separate species.
Say's Phoebe - another Lifer.

Common (formerly Wilson's) Snipe was not a life species, but this behavior was quite new for me. I'm used to snipes staying low on the ground, not T-ed up on fence posts. This must be a prairie thing, as we saw many birds doing this.Bobolinks. Lovely to see and to listen to, trouble to photograph. Here are my best efforts.
One of the fun things about North Dakota is how East meets West. This was really driven home to me by the overlap of two tyrant flycatcher species - the Eastern Kingbird, which lives and nests in my back yardand the very different Western Kingbird, a new species for me.
The Western Meadowlark looks nearly identical to the more familiar eastern species, but his song was quite different.
The ubiquitous Red-winged Blackbird was joined by the beautiful, but much less musical, Yellow-headed Blackbird, a very shy guy when it comes to having his picture taken.
All in all, I got 107 species of birds in four days, including the following 25 Life Birds:

Sharp-tailed Grouse
Red-necked Grebe
Western Grebe
Clark's Grebe
Swainson's Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk
Yellow Rail (heard only)
Piping Plover
American Avocet
Willet
Upland Sandpiper
Marbled Godwit
White-rumped Sandpiper
Wilson's Phalarope
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Loggerhead Shrike
Spague's Pipit
Clay-colored Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Baird's Sparrow
LeConte's Sparrow
Nelson's (Sharp-tailed) Sparrow
Chestnut-collared Longspur
Western Meadowlark

In addition, I saw my first USA Grey Partridge (my Lifer was in Scotland in 1999) and a Krider's hawk (not a separate species, but a pale morph of Red-tailed Hawk.)

I definitely recommend the Potholes and Prairies birding festival of North Dakota for both eastern and western birders. Look in your favorite field guide. This is where the range maps overlap, and everybody has a chance of seeing some life birds.

Prairie Animals and their Homes

As well as 25 species of Life Birds, I also picked up four Life Mammals in North Dakota. The first was on our drive from the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport to Carrington, ND., when we stopped for a late lunch and a rest break at a Subway in West Fargo. (Not to be confused with that movie by a similar name.)

In a suburban yard, we saw this odd looking rabbit, and three weary travelers and eager naturalists in training whipped out their cameras for a photo op.
Later, on the prairie, we saw many of these White-tailed jackrabbits running across the fields or down the road, but I will never forget my first sight of one.

A Meadow Vole scurried out from under my feet in a field one day, too quick for a picture. Lifer!

My life Richardson's ground squirrels were too far away for a photo, but this Thirteen-lined ground squirrel obligingly posed for his portrait.While he wasn't a Life Mammal, this handsome 2 year old male black Lab was one of the friendliest dogs of the trip, and made me miss my two girls.For Susan, a Dead Mammal, this road-kill raccoon which marked the spot where I saw my first ever Loggerhead Shrike. You can't believe the grief I took from the other people on the bus when I took this picture. Only for you, Susan.

One mammal that got away was the badger, although I saw plenty of their burrows. These holes were big, but hidden in the grass. Stepping in one could severely twist your ankle, if not break it altogether.
Other animal homes were occupied, like this Swainson's Hawk on her nest.I also saw a Ferruginous Hawk nest, complete with two eaglets. Unfortunately, while they were visible in my scope, they were too far away for a photo.

These holes in the bank are the home of Bank Swallows.What do Cliff Swallows do without a cliff to nest on? Why, they build their jug-like nests of mud under the eaves of an old farmhouse, that's what.
Look at that detail. How can birds build something so fine with only their bills?

As well as keeping a Life List of all the birds I have seen, I also keep a Nest List - those birds I have seen on, or building, their nests. With the addition of both hawks, Red-necked Grebe, and American Coot, I have boosted my Nest List to 51 species.

Coming up: Birds of the prairie