Blog #11 – Manitoba!

     Marbled Godwit flying over the prairie landscape of Manitoba

It’s only a 20-minute drive from Lake Metigoshe State Park (in North Dakota) 

to the Canadian border crossing. My early morning transit goes without incident, 

happily, and I am now in Manitoba—another first for me.

     Marbled Godwit  out in its breeding habitat

As I pass north of the Turtle Mountains (which stretch east-west along the international border) I find more farm country with minimal relief—much like North Dakota. Lots of lonely straight two-lane roads and big agricultural fields without hedgerows.

     Upland Sandpipers have been surprisingly uncommon in the prairies

After crossing the border I drive mucky gravel roads to Whitewater Lake wildlife management area, where Hudsonian Godwits have been reported earlier in the week. No luck on that front but I find 6 Marbled Godwits, which here are on their breeding territory. Here I have my first experience with the profusion of Fish Flies that swarm up out of the grass when I walk. Billions of them in the air. From the order Ephemeroptera, they are known as Mayflies in the US. Happily, they do not bite.

     If there is a prairie lake around (like Whitewater) then there will be American White Pelicans)

I then make my way to Spruce Woods Provincial Park, 5,000 hectares of hilly sandy outwash country transected by the Assinboine River. This area was formerly submerged in Lake Agassiz (a Pleistocene lake), which left the vast sand deposits. 

     Wilson's Snipe are busy doing their aerial displays this season (I hear them every morning)

This park is famous for its stands of White Spruce and its sand dunes, which top 100 feet In places. In fact, the park is mainly a mix of open country, wetlands, and aspen groves, with small rather stands of spruce. It is very pretty, and the facilities are excellent for the camper.

     Spruce Woods Provincial Park is home to a friendly population of Red Squirrels

Just to the south is the town of Glenboro, home of Lorelie Mitchell, retired field biologist. I am introduced to Lorelei by a helpful park staffer. On a terrible cold and rainy day, Lorelie, very knowledgeable of her birds, shows me the local birding hotspots of Glenboro. The highlight is Glenboro Marsh, just south of town.

     If I get too close, the Marbled Godwit will complain loudly before flying off

I visit this marsh over four consecutive mornings, and it is very productive at this peak season of spring.

     Glenboro Marsh hosted hundreds of singing Marsh Wrens at this time

Just north of the marsh is a traditional “booming ground” (or lek) of the Sharp-tailed Grouse, set on a patch of remnant prairie. Males are attending the lek, and from my car I can see males scooting about on the ground with their tails held high and their wings spread wide, like non-airborne fighter planes taxiing for take-off. They are doing their courtship displays in anticipation of the arrival of females wishing to mate.

     Two male Sharp-tailed Grouse in a low level display on their booming ground

The males also do a short display flight, presumably to attract the attention of females in the area. The phenomenon is not terribly unlike what I have seen with some of the birds of paradise.

     A pre-dawn display flight by one of the grouse on the booming ground

The marsh itself is mostly cattails and is very large, and filled with noisome birdsong, especially of Marsh Wrens, Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds, Soras, and Virginia Rails. The sound is cacophonous about half an hour after sunrise… The sprightly little wrens are calling from every direction.

     The first morning I visited the booming ground, I found the grass encrusted with a thick frost...

Around the fields there are vocal Western Meadowlarks, who are the local heralds of this landscape.

Of course, godwits are here (Marbled Godwits), foraging in the early morning in small wetland patches, and later in the day out in the lush grasslands. No, they are not Hudsonian’s, but still…

The Marbled, a bit larger than the Hudsonian, and paler colored, likes to pose and be photographed.

I searched several sites in the area for Hudsonians, but to no avail. Southern Manitoba, as with North Dakota, refused to provide me with sightings of this species first hand…

     See in a later section a discussion of Delta Beach marsh....

I am told that Riding Mountain National Park, 90 minutes to the north, is a beautiful green space, so I drove up there late one morning. The park gateway town of Wasagaming, situated beautifully on Clear Lake, is lovely, with an old fashioned, rustic, and welcoming. This indeed would be a happy location for an idyllic summer vacation, with the park’s natural delights in every direction. Poor Medora, in North Dakota, cannot hold a candle to Wasagaming. I have a delicious lunch of spicy pork tacos at the Lake House Inn—no doubt the top meal of my travels.  

     I found this Blue-headed Vireo in a spruce at Lake Katherine, in Riding Mountain National Park

After lunch, I drive the rough gravel Route 19 east across the park to take a look at the boreal conifer forest and perhaps see some birds (this offers a 20 mile transect through habitat).

     Route 19 cut across the park's interior and gave access to fine stands of White Spruce

My timing is poor and the bluebird weather adds to the quietude of the landscape. But I found a singing Common Loon on Lake Katherine (reminiscent of the Adirondacks) and a Boreal Chickadee that foraged around me in a patch of White Spruce for more than 10 minutes. It was entirely confiding and atypical of the species, which usually comes to take a peek and then disappears.

     This handsome male Purple Martin was attending a nest box at Oak Hammock reserve

Toward the end of my driving transect I come across a yearling Black Bear sitting on the graveled road. As I approach, he modestly withdraws behind a curtain of brush.

     A yearling Black Bear watches me from the safety of a thicket

After packing up my camp at Spruce Woods Provincial Park, I head north and east to Delta Beach marsh, on the southern terminus of giant Lake Manitoba. Of course, I am hunting for more Hudsonian Godwits…

     Here is a Sanderling in its unfamiliar right rusty breeding plumage

I also visited Delta Beach itself, a small resort town. Its beach environs are swarming with Fish Flies as well as flocks of Ruddy Turnstones and other shorebirds (but no Hudsonians).

     How often do you see Ruddy Turnstones foraging on a mowed lawn of somebody's back yard? (at Delta Beach)

From there I drive to Oak Hammock Wildlife Management Area, which features a substantial interpretive center that serves as the national office for Ducks Unlimited Canada. Here I found some lovely marsh trails and boardwalks and in my late afternoon ramble I encounter a single Marbled Godwit, a single Red-necked Phalarope, and a single American Golden-Plover, as well as a number of more common wetland species.

     A lone American Golden Plover at Oak Hammock reserve. It stayed away from the group of similar Black-bellied Plovers

From Oak Hammock I retreated south to Winnipeg city to spend the night in anticipation of my early morning flight the next day to Churchill, Manitoba, on the edge of the tundra two hours by plane to the north. I am headed to Churchill because this is one of the breeding habitats of Hudsonian Godwits…

     Loafing Caspian Terns on the shore of Lake Manitoba at Delta Beach (with the red bills)