Threads and traces: Badlands

28 April 2013

Curlew season

Pelican in flight, Quinn Dam

At the end of March, we were looking at the beginning of spring, buds on the trees, no need for snow boots, etc.

At the end of April, we have dug out from a cumulative 40 inches of snow. The buds are just now beginning to re-show. The migratory birds, slowed by the repeated storm, are starting to come through at last. So we headed east to Wall and Badlands to check out the spring action. Enjoy.

Pelican gliding

Meadowlark, Quinn

Meadowlark posing, Quinn

Grain elevator, Quinn

Cottonwood and snow wisps

I-90 concretia

Loggerhead shrike seeking next victim

Tree swallow pretending to be a bluebird

Prairie dogs. I have no explanation for the one at the back right.

Spring. Finally.

None shall pass.

Bison bull looking good after the winter

I said, none shall pass.

Two bison above Sage Creek

Timelessness

Only in South Dakota. I am kind of sorry I missed this.

Curlew in the grass, looking for..

...the other curlew in the grass. Their calls are hauntingly beautiful.

Feeding

Resplendent curlew

The plumage patterns showed up better in black and white

Curlews in spring

Curlews in barbed-wire frame

Looking at us

Preening and resting after a long migration

Railroad trestle, Wasta

Ghost cottonwoods, Wasta

What part of "none shall pass" do you not understand?

House, Base Line Road

Pronghorn in sunlight

Buildings, Owanka

Grain elevator, Owanka

Town greeter, Owanka

Truck, Owanka

House, Base Line Road

Great blue heron

Downfall

House, Wasta

27 December 2012

Solstice count

Early morning light on the formations

So it's been a few weeks. This semester (I will spend my life dividing the year into semesters, which, when you think about it, is Not Normal) was the most hectic yet since we loaded up the covered wagon and moved to this prairie outpost. Sometimes it's difficult to know where, if anywhere, the fixed points of our orbits are.

The constancy of change is nowhere clearer than in the drylands and flatscapes of the prairies. We have shifted our annual Christmas Bird Count focus to Badlands National Park and surrounding areas, and this is a lovely and somber region indeed at the winter solstice. The light slants low; it blazes up and dies down quickly, like a small fire on bone-dry wood.

It was a day for deep, peaceful silences, cracking ice, a light so brilliant that everything seemed illuminated from within. It was not a day for flocks of birds. This is South Dakota. In winter. Birds aren't stupid. Most of them headed out over a month ago, late this year. Everything that could hide or hibernate did so, leaving us to the colors of winter grasses, tall formations, and ice. The bighorn sheep joined us all day, moving down to marginally warmer grazing.

In short, it was prairie magic.