Brown Birds At Potholes & Prairie Bird Festival.

This past Sunday was just about as perfect as a day can get for me. It started at 4:15am when Kate and I woke up to load up our van for the ride home at the end of the festival. At 5am, we met up with good friends Kim Risen and Bill of the Birds to have some time to just sit and enjoy some Sprague's pipits and Baird's sparrows. It was rounded out with some fun driving time with my buddy Kate and then finished with a spicy Thai meal and some quality time with Non Birding Bill.

One of the first birds we saw in the wee hours of the dawn--a short-eared owl! And check it out, it's tiny, barely there tufties were erect. Not only did we see the owl...we got to see what it's named for. Take that, historic ornithologists who gave birds names for obscure parts barely seen in the field!

We stopped on some private ranch property (that allows birders to enjoy the sparrows) and headed out. You could hear the cows in the distance and one of our first birds was--

A chestnut-collared longspur just chillin' on the fence. There are brown birds, and then there are Brown Birds. Chestnut-collards take brown to a whole new beautiful level and they still have that bobolink thing going with their black chest. BNA describes them as prairie specialists: "Typical breeding habitat is arid, short to mixed grass prairie that has been recently grazed or mowed...this species avoids nesting in areas protected from grazing, instead preferring pastures and mowed areas such as airstrips, as well as grazed native prairie habitats."

The next bird we heard was a grasshopper sparrow (that's the hunch backed looking bird in the above photo). It's buzzy call was mixed with western meadowlark and about that time we heard Sprague's pipits overhead. I've linked to the songs, but if you have birdJam or any bird cds and are not familiar with these songs--look them up.

It wasn't long after that before we heard the sweet sound of the Baird's sparrow. And I had a video earlier, but here the lovely song of the Baird's sparrow yet again:



You can hear Canada geese and western meadowlarks singing in the background of that video.

There was also a pair of savannah sparrows nearby--above is one of them. The two would chase each other and periodically, the Baird's would get caught up in the chase as well. I don't think Baird's feel that threatened by savannah sparrows, but I have a feeling that their fighting was taking place a little too close to its nest.

The Baird's sparrow kept getting closer and close. Kim suggested that we all get as low to the ground as we could and see how close the Baird's would get to us. It came within ten feet. Here are the photos, it was almost too close to fit into the field of view of my scope.

There we were listening to one of the sweetest bird songs in North America, and even more sweet songs overhead and surrounding us--it seemed amost unreal to hear the Sprague's pipit's descending song right after the Baird's. The prairie was chilly, but gradually warming in the glow of sunrise, giving the wet ground a sweet and musky smell. You could barely hear traffic. Sharing the moment with people who truly appreciate the moment and prairie in the same way is what really made the morning, this is what birding is truly all about for me. As we were enjoying moment on the prairie with the Baird's we heard two vans pull up way back by the roadside where we parked. A quick scan in the scopes revealed the vans were full of people with floppy hats and khaki hats: birders. They unloaded.

Kim Risen and I recognized one of the people as fellow Minnesota birder and Victor Emanuel tour leader Kim Eckert. I always get a kick out of the random meetings that can happen in another state. He was leading two vans for VENT and like us was there for the Baird's and the Sprague's pipits. We went over to say hello.

And as much as I would have liked to have sunk into the ground and just enjoy the sounds and smells for the rest of the day (despite the ticks) we had to head home. So, once again, after a cold, crappy, rainy, windy reception to the state, all is once again forgiven with a North Dakota dawn.

Friends And Bloggers At Potholes And Prairie Bird Festival

Ah, marbled godwits in the sun! Since the first two days of the festival were windy and rainy and generally not all that fun to bird in, I was worried people would go away with a wet feeling about the festival.

Prairie birding really is something everyone should experience at least once, but when it's windy and rainy, it's not so much fun. But on the sunny days, it's magical. Fortunately, the sun came out Friday, late afternoon, all day Saturday, and Sunday so people got to experience the gloriousness of North Dakota.

This was one of the many orchard orioles we saw in North Dakota. I carpooled to the Potholes and Prairie Bird Festival with my friend Kate Fitzmeier who works for Eagle Optics. I've said it before and I'll say it again: when you work bird festivals, you see the same vendors again and again, and it becomes this kind of strange nomadic birding family. I went to the festival working a Swarovski table so it worked out well to share expenses with Kate. One of the things I love about Kate besides her sense of humor is that she works hard, she birds hard...

...and when she sees a giant coot sculpture on the side of the road, she knows it's a perfect photo opportunity! There were so many friends at this festival and so many bird bloggers: Rondeau Ric, Somewhere in NJ, Nature Knitter, Bill of the Birds, Julie Zickefoose, and Birding Couple!

This was one of the many American avocets we saw on the prairie. I was excited to meet Birding Couple, it's one of the many blogs I enjoy reading when I have the time. I talked to them for a few minutes at one of the mixers and said that I would love to have dinner with them the next night...but stupidly did not exchange phone numbers. When Kate and I had a free couple of hours the next day, we heard a report of three whooping cranes nearby and set out to find them, completely missing the dinner hour. I worried about missing a meet up with the Birding Couple but figured one: they are birders, they would understand the need to chase a whooping crane report and 2. I still had another day of festival in which to hang out with them. We didn't get the whooping cranes and then it turned out that the Birding Couple ended up leaving early the following morning. I sent them a quick email that I was sorry to have missed them...although leaving out that I ditched them for whooping cranes. They sent an email back also expressing regret saying that they weren't around that afternoon because...they went looking for whooping cranes! Ah birders!

These are some sharp-tailed grouse that were lekking on the prairie. Behind the grouse, the coteau (or high point) almost looks like a tiny mountain range, but that's how cool a hill can look on the prairie. Speaking of lekking and arguing birds, I found myself the middle man between Zickefoose and Non Birding Bill. My husband wanted me to tell Julie that he loves her posts on saving "Mother Earth" but demanded a Chet Baker post. Julie told me to tell NBB that she would as soon as she got a carbon copy of his letter to his congressman regarding his outrage over mountaintop removal mining. NBB then sent back a witty quip about "who still uses carbon copies" and well, it just went downhill from there. Fortunately, Julie has finally posted a Baker post and my husband's addiction to the cutest and smartest Boston Terrier this side of the Internet is appeased...for the moment.

The Rainy Part of the Potholes and Prairie Bird Festival

First off: I have spent the morning updating my appearances on my Google Calendar page (all the way into March 2009) and have even included the next Birds and Beers on June 19 at Merlin's Rest. Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders of all abilities to connect and share birding stories and info. If you are remotely interested in birds, you're invited.

I love, love, love birding in North Dakota and love the Potholes and Prairie Bird Festival. But, every year there is always a day of cold rain and harsh winds that make even the most fervent bird enthusiast wonder, "What the heck am I doing with my life?"

But then you get the clear, crisp mornings at dawn on the prairie and all is forgiven and you realize that as a birder, this is what you live for. I'll blog that later, now it's time for the crap weather birding. One morning, I woke up at 4:15 am to the sound of heavy rain. I had to get ready for my 5am bus to Chase Lake NWR, so piled on the layers and rain coat and headed to the hotel lobby. It was silent, but when I turned the corner, I found this:

Field trip participants gathered round a muted tv desperately watching the weather channel and hoping against hope that the 90% chance of all day rain and strong winds predicted the night before was really going to stop at 5:05am. I laughed at the silence and intensity of the scene. Mental Note: Don't laugh at birders before 5am and before they have had a serious cup of coffee.

Alas, it rained for most of the day. At some points it was an "honest rain" as someone referred to it, others it was accompanied by unforgiving winds. And yet, at other times, it would stop while we were on the bus, and suddenly begin a light drizzle as soon as people started getting off the bus. Doh! I traveled to Potholes and Prairies with my friend Kate from Eagle Optics and we chose to sit in the back of the bus to not only help point out birds for people in back, but to try and provide some comic relief. I was so glad to not be an official field trip leader for this trip since that would mean getting off the bus at every stop to find the target. Bless poor, wet guides Kim Risen and Stacey Adolf-Whipp for doing that hard task. The big upside for Kate and I was that we got to hang with Rondeau Ric (although sans stache, but apparently it was not the source of his comic power, so he was still funny).

One morning, Kate and I had a couple of hours and we checked out Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge on our own. We were excited to see the bison on the refuge. I love the above sign warning about what you should do around the bison that can roam on the road. Helpful things like "Do No Disturb or Chase" or "Tails Up! A Raised Tail is a Warning Sign to Stay Away!" You may think the sign is overkill, but after the dork wad I encountered at Antelope Island a couple of years ago in Utah, I'm not so sure.

We found the small herd on a hillside far enough away that we could safely digiscope them.

The baby bison were a trip. Some were frolicking, some were nursing. We saw no "tails up" unless you count the bison that were...evacuating their backside. However, our buddy, the Zeiss Rep, Steve Ingraham had a much closer encounter with the bison than we did--they completely blocked the road once he drove into their paddock. He made it out okay without any headbutting dents to his his rental, but I'm glad it was him and not us.

Speaking of Zeiss, I have to give them some props for their freebie at their booth--gummy binoculars--genius! Not quite as genius as the bag 'o gin from Bird Uganda Tours given away in Texas, but a mighty close second. They did taste really good. Especially the red ones.

One of the coolest things Kate and I found at Arrowwood was a large flock of cliff swallows swarming around a bridge. I'm sure they were nesting beneath it. This flock was already swirling over our heads. Then, for some reason, I bent down on the side of the bridge to see if I could see any of the nests and they skies doubled with more birds fleeing the nests on the bridge. It was pretty cool! We left soon after that in case any of the birds needed to get back to incubating or brooding chicks on this cool day. I did get a video to try and capture the experience: