Threads and traces: wildlife

Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts

30 March 2013

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

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.

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.

31 May 2012

Nebraska in (almost) black and white

Tipi at Agate Fossil Beds, framing the Bone Cabin

For the first time since I moved back to the prairies, I was able to co-lead one of our field camps. This one focused on the geology and paleontology of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, an under-appreciated gem in the Nebraska Panhandle. I had grand plans of posting something from there every night.

Let me tell you about internet and cell phone connectivity out there. They use the finest cotton string money can buy. But the light and the quietness were more than enough. Two weeks was nowhere near enough.

Now we are on our way back East for another couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll be connected, but I'll miss the deep peace.

For some reason, everything looked more real in black and white, except the eclipse.