North Dakota Critters

 Every spring I try to do at least one post highlighting all the critters in the area. And when I say "all", I usually just mean the waterfowl and upland birds in the area with the occasional deer and moose smattered in there. The pictures in this post are all pictures I took in the last couple days. 

So far this year, I have only seen a handful of deer and no moose at all so I do not know if this year's post will include any of either. What it will include is birds, lots of birds. Ty was asking me about a particular waterfowl the other day that had a black head and chest, white sides and a grey back. I told him that it sounded like a male scaup. 

Scaup

In total Cliff Clavin fashion, I went on to tell him that it is also called a bluebill because it, well, has a blue bill. He said they were really beautiful. Continuing on, I explained to him that the male species of many animals is much more beautiful or colorful this time of year than the females of that species as the males need to look their best to attract females for mating. He looked at me in wonderment of my vast knowledge of all things duck. I told him that this phenomenon is just not limited to ducks, that it also carried over to the human species. "I mean look at you and me", I told him, "It is spring, and even though I am 60 something and you are 20 something, we are so much more beautiful than the female gender as we stand here in our spring plumage". The look of wonderment was quickly replaced by one of confusion as he went about his business muttering something about a senile old man. 

Canvasback

Mallard

Pintail

Okay, while that may be true for many bird species, it is certainly not true for humans. The male humans never were, nor ever will be as attractive as females. It got me to thinking what species of animals or birds it is difficult or near impossible to tell the difference between the sexes of them by just looking at them. Most, you can certainly tell the difference between a male and female. 

Blue wing teal

North American Shoveler aka Spoonbill

Redheads

While these birds are beautiful the most beautiful one to me is the ringneck pheasant. The translucent nature and colors of this bird is just incredible. If you ever seen one, you know what I mean, if you have ever held one in your hand, you really know what I mean. 

Their colorfulness is a sharp contrast compared to the female of this species and the mottled coloring designed only to camouflage them while they nest. I bet you did not even see the hen in the upper right-hand corner of the first pheasant picture above. I was taking pictures of a rooster in a field when I noticed three hens standing in the stubble just a few feet from me, you would never know they were there they blended in so well. 

The only ones that I hunt that it near impossible to tell the difference in gender that came to mind is geese, ruffed grouse and doves. I can tell the difference in grouse once in hand, but it is almost impossible to tell on the fly. You have to spread their tail feathers and look at the two in the middle to tell for sure. I do not know if there is a way to tell on dove or geese once in hand. What other species can you think of where it is difficult or near impossible to tell the difference between genders?

How about bees? That is actually an easy one. All the bees but one in the hive are males. All working to please one queen. Story of my life...

Another one that is hard to tell when not in hand is the Hungarian Partridge. Also hard to photograph as they are hard to see and very nervous birds. I did manage to get a decent shot of these two as they flew away as I was getting ready to take pictures of them on the ground. 

Maybe gull? I have never really studied gulls enough to know if there is a difference. I am guessing there is. Speaking of gulls, they sure love following behind the air seeder. Constantly circling Chris as he goes down the field then landing and cobbling up whatever morsels he uncovers. 

This of course makes everything a mess as they use the air seeder as bombing practice as they fly over. I asked my friend Merlin what kind of gulls were there and this is what he told me....

We have moved on from wheat here at the farm having gotten all that in the ground. We even started and finished peas with only three fields planted in this legume. That was another word that I did not know prior to helping out up here. Legume or a leguminous plant is part of the pea family. Farmer Bob actually serves on the boards of the North Dakota Dry Pea & Lentil Council as well as the state and national USA Pulse boards. Suffice to say Farmer Bob knows his Legumes. 

Peas, of course means rolling, probably my favorite job of the springtime work. I do not know if it is the actual act of rolling, or the fact that I am just sitting in a tractor for hours and not walking a field picking up sticks or rolling up fences. Both rather physical endeavors. 

I think it is a little bit of both. I just love sitting in a tractor going across the field at about 12mph, lost in my own thoughts while watching the world go by pushing all those nasty rocks just below the surface so they are not in the way for harvesting. 

After peas, it was on to durum. Durum is a variety of wheat used primarily for pasta. Only one field of that, 100 acres or so. 

So, that is where we stand right now, maybe a little over halfway done with planting, just two crops left: canola and chickpeas. We really need the soil temps to increase a bit before we get those in the ground. It is supposed to be 70, or near 70 the next day or two so we are hoping they increase quickly so we do not have any down days. 

In addition to the usual duties of loading the seeder we carried on with numerous other tasks. And yes, there was more fence to be rolled up this week. Whenever we find ourselves in a lull with a free hour or two that is our "go to" duty. 

Bob S and I even spent an hour or so cleaning and sweeping the quonset whose concrete probably has not seen the light of day in over a decade. 

Ty and I spent an hour cleaning up spilled grain from all the filling going on in the yard. 

Notice in both of those pictures I am in the skidsteer and they are shoveling. While I did do some shoveling, my back can only take so much. What I can take is removing stumps. Remember those trees I took down last week? Now it was time to get rid of the stumps. Between the payloader and the skidsteer, I managed to get rid of them. 

By far, the funniest part of the week was Bob S and I helping Farmer burn a couple of sloughs. And when I say sloughs, I mean big sloughs, probably 20 acres or so. Why, you ask? To try and recover some of the farm ground that has been overtaken by the wetland in the past few years. There is a cycle to the dry and wet years up here, right now we are in a dry cycle which means many of the sloughs are either dry or much lower than previous years so they try to recover some of this ground for seeding. The first step is burning off all the cattails. Well, the first step is actually plowing a fire break around the sloughs then burning them but Farmer Bob had already done that part. Now, it was time to light the fire!

We start on the downwind side to create a back burn so there is less chance that the fire jumps the firebreak and gets into the field. Then Bob S went around the slough with the Ranger lighting the cattails along the way. 

You better hope that you did everything right as once this thing starts there is no stopping it!

There was only one intense moment where the fire tried to sneak into an area where it was not supposed to go, but we had rakes and water extinguishers ready and got it back on track relatively quickly. 

Overall, it went great and was over in about 3 hours recovering probably 20 acres of ground from the cattails. 

That was my week in a nutshell. Overall a very good week, I am fully recovered from last week's illness, but the virus claimed on more victim when Bob S's wife, Sue came up for a few days. Yup, three days later she came down with "the sickness". 

Meanwhile, back in South Dakota, all the snow is gone again and Barb has been busy working on one thing or another. Her big project of the week was building a rolling table for her workshop. She sent me progress pictures throughout the week. 

7 days left, it doesn't look good for us to get done before my departure, but we are certainly going to try!