Travelling ~ Minot, SD to Glasgow, MT

June 5

I woke to a lovely morning and got on the road early. One drives up out of the Souris (Mouse) River valley where Minot is located onto the high prairie. The sun lit it all up and the world seemed just fine. I love this topography with gentle rolling hills of immense scope and the huge skies overhead. An hour west, at Stanley, I turned north for 25 miles to Lostwood NWR. I went there a few years ago but the auto route was closed due to nesting piping plovers so I was hopeful, and the web site didn't indicate a closure.

The mornng was exquisite with just warm-enough sun and few mosquitoes (surprisingly). I got there at 8 in the morning and several women were just arriving for work, all wearing the khaki uniform of the (of the what??? I guess I don't even know what agency administers the refuges, but I think it might be Fish and Wildlife???).

The route was open. It basically runs generally south for 7.5 miles and I saw no one else except for one female employee in a white pickup who warned me about "water across the road at mile 3" and two male employees who pulled up and climbed the fire tower where I was parked. I should have asked them if they did that everyday. The land was greening with grasslands to the distant horizons and lakes and smaller ponds and the occasional very small grove of trees. It was another place Maria would have loved, aswould most of my siblings.

So, what birds did I see? Well......I heard buzzing sparrows constantly but never did identify a Baird's or grasshopper sparrow, nor the Sprague's pipit, all of which I should have and would have if I had been with more accomplished birders, like the Magee Marsh guys. But, I started to really learn about grassland species and will know more how to find them (patience a requisite for sure) in the future.

There were many least flycatchers and waterfowl in the distance, and other singing birds in the few trees and bushes. (The immediate area around the Refuge Center does have many small trees and shrubs and I wish I had lingered there longer. I didn't realize the auto route was not a loop so I never went back that way.) I often had the scope out but can't say it helped. Sparrows, when they perch on grasses and weeds, only perch long enough for me to find them and get them NEARLY in focus before they fly off. A plover far off was out of range of my scope. Killdeer, common yellowthroat, clay-colored sparrrows with their 3 to 5 buzzy calls, cliff swallows, lots of ducks, an agitated red-tailed hawk whose nest was visible and who wanted me outta there, kingbirds...all was good. I spent about 4 hours driving 7.5 miles. I wish I could convey the feeling of being in these refuges...often with no one or only a few folks around. It's a clean, peaceful, hopeful, calming feeling.

Next, I negotiated Williston and the general dirty, dusty, truck-filled, oil-boom western ND area. It's ucky. The reality of what is happening here is interesting to think about: how greed, lust, money, hard work, frustration, crime and regrets all play out. There is new construction all over and thousands of men driving white pickups and thousands more driving heavy equipment. There are man-cave housing settlements out on the open land, basically two-story bleak, rectangles with a tiny porch, if that. Although I did notice a few young trees near some doorways. Cars are parked in one gigantic lot so the workers have to walk to their castles. Large motels in various stages of construction also...

Williston is very near Montana's eastern border, so on I went. In Brockton, traffic was slowed to 15 mph because a dozen Native Americans on horses were moving along the road. The lead guy was holding a 5-foot pole with feathers. I got a speeding ticket in this "town" a few years ago, so I definitely obey speed limits now all across Montana.

I found out I could work for the next several days, so stopped in Glasgow, Montana at a motel I've stayed in before. I got them to change my room to one facing west and worked until after sundown.