Spring still life with sleet storm

Cottonwood, Kiplinger Road

On a whim, we left at 5:30 a.m. to chase sage grouse on the high plains. Note: if your whims routinely drag you out at that hour on a Saturday, you either have very peculiar whims, or else have stumbled into the world of birding. Those are not necessarily contradictory. We are at the edge of Greater Sage Grouse territory and have to travel a bit to see this spring display up on the higher plains where there is...wait for it...sage.

Sage grouse are normally seem as specks in the distance, and this year was no exception. What was exceptional was the closeness of the lekking we saw last year. Rather than post a picture of an animated speck, I'll refer you to this post. We were close enough to see and here the male go through the booming and strutting motions, but not nearly as close this year.

We think it's spring, but the appearance of a storm with rain, snow and sleet mid-day has us questioning that. The birds seem to have no questions.

Paired geese

Barbed wire still life

Sign, Kiplinger Road

Post office historical marker. We found three of these today. 

First sign of the storm

A tiny monument north of Belle Fourche. It was worth going 15 miles out of the way to see. 

Just in case you had any doubts. 

Bear Butte as the clouds begin to form

Minuteman missile silo still life

Permission to trespass? 

Truck memories

Sign, Orman Dam

Poser

Schoolhouse

Bear Butte as the storm builds

Storm front on the plains

Immature bald eagle, trying hard for the white head

The point at which the trip was effectively over

Bear Butte eternal

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.

 

 

 

Bright light and deep shadows

  

Two-track leading to formation. Eventually. Not in a straight line.

  

Vintage survivor facing the sunrise.

  

Low formation

  

Curve of the frozen river

  

Timelessness

  

Truck, Interior, SD

  

Smiling playground...thing....Interior, SD

  

One-legged cowboy

  

The zombie apocalypse will at least have semi-live entertainment in Interior

  

I am still not sure what is going on with this formation 

Bicycle wheel

  

Mule deer on the move

 

Major ears on these things

 

Silent tracks

 

Bighorn being cool

 

Deep mud cracks and ice. It has been a fiercely dry year.

 

House, Interior

 

Jail, Interior 

It is just like us to oversleep and miss the coyote calling contest by a week. That was no doubt a highlight of the social season.

 

Dad 

Junior. Seems late in the year for one this small....

 

Patriarch at the side of the road

 

Wary watchfulness

 

Sweep of the river. We saw a short-eared owl flying across this in its own sweeps, but it never got close enough for a good picture.

Conata Road in gold light

 

Cabin

 

Sunset behind the Black Hills

Here's hoping everyone found time during the holidays to tap into that same deep peace and silence.

Equinox

 Leaving September

If I have once forgotten on this field
The long light of the dusk, or far away

The sheep on tawny grass, how stones will yield
Small bitter puffballs, or a cricket stay

To wring wry tunes from emptiness and dearth,
Let me remember; let me hold them now

Close to the heart--while I upon the earth
Am the stone field and pain the heavy plow.

Not in wide measures is the harvest culled;
Not by disaster nor by cutting hail

 

 

Is the loss seen, the grief is somewhat dulled--

Being done at last. Ours is a different scale--
Leaving September stars and a little smoke
And memory tight as a lichen to an oak.
--Loren Eiseley