20090616 – J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge and Bottineau

20090616 – J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge and Bottineau

We were awakened by a pair of Baltimore Orioles singing this morning—two males trying to outdo the other apparently. We had our, by now standard, breakfast of coffee, granola and yogurt supplemented by orange juice and a banana before leaving Minot. A 45 minute drive took us to the J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge to the NorthEast. This is a large refuge running from the Canadian border south for about 45 miles. It contains the Souris River, grasslands, marshes, woodlands and sandhills – and birds of all those types of habitats. We had a very educational talk with one of the refuge managers who described the activities they are doing to retain and restore the native grasslands. We also observed a seminar for staff from other area refuges—they were learning plant identification and 'transect' survey methods so they can assess the status of the native plants in the areas they are responsible for and can measure the results of their management efforts.

We had a very enjoyable drive for about 20 miles of the refuge roads, picking up the species listed below. One highlight of this was the large numbers of Black Crowned Night Herons that rose up as we passed them, mostly along the last third of the drive. We are both accustomed to seeing these singly and infrequently—but today we had an abundance of them (guessing ~50) with 7 visible in the air at one time.

Human noise intrusions were rare on the refuge today and I want to note that I may return there for some sound recording sometime in the future. The area between 'pool 320' and 'end of the woods crossing' were especially attractive for that being quiet except for a large quantity and variety of birdsounds.

We emerged from the refuge about 5:30 and drove to Botineau. After some difficulty we located one of the RV parks listed—this owned and operated by the city, and next to the ball diamonds and sports complex. The highlight of this area was the very large ('damn big' as we heard it from the girl at the Cenex station who gave us directions to the site) statue of Tommy the Turtle riding a snowmobile. Reasonable rate of $12 per night. Dinner was across the street at the Norwegian House restaurant where they serve very good walleye which qualified as part of my vegan diet since it is soulfood.

We found very few woodticks today, after yesterday's abundance.

No Internet available again tonight—these blog postings are piling up....

Birds: Baltimore Oriole, Mourning Dove, Franklin's Gull, American Coot, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Red-winged Blackbird, Barn Swallow, Black Tern, Savanna Sparrow, Clay Colored Sparrow, Baird's Sparrow, Northern Pintail, Common Yellowthroat, Double-crested Cormorant, American Coot, Redhead Duck, Marsh Wren, Common Tern, Lesser Scaup, Eared Grebe, Black-crowned Night Heron, Song Sparrow, Red-eyed Vireo, Western Wood Pewee, Bald Eagle, Bobolink, Great Blue Heron, Eastern Kingbird, Lark Sparrow, Kreider's Red-tailed Hawk, American Robin, House Sparrow, Northern Rough-wing Swallow, Northern Shoveler, Gadwall.