Blog #9. North Dakota!

    Marbled Godwit passes overhead, giving me the eye

Traveling cross-country from South Dakota, in south-central North Dakota I encounter a single Marbled Godwit in a wet grassy field beside the road. Get some good photographs of this singleton. It calls repeatedly…

    A lone bull Bison giving me the eye in Roosevelt National Park

I subsequently arrive at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota. The Park is situated near TDR’s cattle ranch, called Elkhorn. Medora is tiny and something of a made-up tourist town associated with the park entrance. Much of it is closed because the spring season (Memorial Day) has not yet arrived. The Park is famous for its Little Missouri River and the badlands with colorful banded strata...

    Black-tailed Prairie-Dog at its burrow...

The drive in to the Park campground passes by a Black-tailed Prairie-dog colony atop the butte. As I am photographing the little doggies a Golden Eagle comes up over the rim of the butte and races low across the colony, sending the critters fleeing for their lives and calling their alarm calls. It passes again a few minutes later…without success.

    An adult Golden Eagle swoops low over the prairie-dog town in search of a snack

Over the next couple of days I search the gravel back roads south of Medora for Long-billed Curlews but find only blackbirds and Western Meadowlarks. I search for curlews for 3 days. Nada.

    Lark Sparrow looking handsome in the park lot of the convenience storm in downtown Medora, ND

I photograph a party of Lark Sparrows in downtown Medora in the late afternoon.

    Black-billed Magpie foraging in the prairie-dog town

I visit the several prairie-dog towns in the Park as these are places of biotic activity. Black-billed 

Magpies like to traipse around the towns. Western Kingbirds sit on burrows and chases insects. Gloriously sky-blue Mountain Bluebirds forage in parties at edge of towns

    The Coyote is patrolling the verges of the prairie-dog town. Seems to be yawning, perhaps it is bored...

I see two Coyotes creeping around the verges of one of the towns.

    These cottontails were nuzzling along a trail in the Cottonwood Campground in the Park

I spend a lot of time in the short grass prairie in search of curlews and other local specialities...

    North Dakota is the place to see Baird's Sparrows, but its not easy...

I track down a Baird’s Sparrow, a restricted-range short-grass prairie specialist, finally.

    Painted Canyon, in TDR National Park, shows the many layers of Tertiary and Cretaceous sediments that attract fossil           hunters from all around...

The classic site for the K-T Boundary (Cretaceous-Tertiary) and the Hell Creek Formation lies just a bit south of the Park. This is big-time country for hunting for T. rex and Triceratops, among other behemoths. A call to an outfit that takes greenhorns out on fossil digs comes to naught because of the persistent rains. The Gumbo produced by the Hell Creek clays makes the roads and the landscape a morass of goo. Not good for travel cross country… While in western ND I experience strong winds, rain, and cold....there were drifts of snow atop the buttes when I arrived here...

    The Bakken Shale and fracking has produced a huge booming industry in western North Dakota. And has destroyed the          peace and quiet of a lovely prairie landscape. Huge trucks coming and going on every road...

On the 23^rd of May I drive north and east to Lake Metigoshe State Park in the Turtle Mountains of north-central North Dakota. The mountains are wooded in oak, aspen, and cottonwood, quite distinct from the vast prairie and oil shale of the Bakken Shale that I passed through today—literally hundreds of wells with attendant gas flares, and the roads choked with heavy trucks supporting the petroleum business of the Bakken. Horrible! Nice to get to the peace of the Turtle Mountains…

    This male Black-headed Grosbeak is foraging for seeds in the roadside grass of Cottonwood Campground, TDR Park

I do visit Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge, a wonderful prairie pothole environment. Just south of there I stop for lunch and encounter 4 Marbled Godwits, two pairs, which must be nesting nearby. 

    This Marbled Godwit came a perched on the road near my car to see what I was up to...

They are noisy and move about are wonderful to watch… Also in another pond I find a pair of Red-necked Phalaropes…

    A country chapel near Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge in northwest North Dakota

Surprise of Lake Metigoshe is nesting Red-necked Grebes. One has an egg on a nest quite near my campsite…

    A female Red-necked Grebe on her nest in Lake Metigoshe State Park, ND 

The next blog will come in a few days and feature some more images from North Dakota (no text, just captions).

    Black-tailed Prairie-Dog doing its thing, making an alarm cry from next to its burrow

That will be followed by a blog from southern Manitoba…Canada!