Blue Goose ~ Day 14

June 14, 2014 ~ Devil’s Lake, North Dakota to Carrington, North Dakota

I did laundry in the motel, had their breakfast and worked a couple of hours before leaving late morning, driving west and then south to Carrington. But first I thought I would try one more time to get to Lake Alice, this time from the south. At the tiny town of Penn, I turned north off US 2 and almost drove over a Wilson’s Snipe sitting in the road. Added that bird to my trip list. They are plump birds with very long bills. Lake Alice was seven miles to the north, but I soon was stopped again by water over the road. I parked by the barricade and walked a little bit into habitat just because I could. I saw the common prairie birds and waterfowl that I’ve been seeing for the last 24 hours, and realized how much of a refuge this is for them, as humans even cannot easily enter.

Last attempt to get into Lake Alice

Right before the road closure was a little swampy area with fantastically twisted, age-silvered, dead old trees and I settled in for an hour. Two Red-tailed Hawks screeched for most of the time I was parked there, circling overhead. They must have had a nest and knew I was an alien even though I only got out of the car briefly or they were angry about the van on their home ground. A House Wren and Western Kingbird were new trip birds, and I had an epiphany when I paged though Sibley’s tree guide and realized how few trees are native to North Dakota, like about 20, which makes identification easier, although there are always the non-native species to make things more difficult. The hour went by and I started south. 

The skies got ominously dark and the rain began, but I was hoping it was cleaning my car and dissolving and diluting the thick packed mud underneath the car and in the tire wells. It was pretty country, all very green this time of year, with long rolling hills and farms stretching to the horizons alternating with the pothole scene. 

Along US 281 between Devil's Lake and Carrington, ND

Originally, I had planned to go the Prairie and Pothole Birding Festival which was held this weekend. Carrington was the headquarters. As things progressed, I had decided not to do this, but somehow, serendipitously, I ended up there (Carrington, North Dakota) anyway, so I was curious about what was happening. Thanks to Google, I knew the base of operations was the Chieftain Motel which was easy to find as Carrington is about the size of Zeeland. While I was figuring out where to sleep, I pulled into a city park and read and napped for a couple of hours. And then decided to check out the birding deal, thinking I could still sign up for a Sunday morning trip by the experts. I ended up staying in the motel parking lot with no problem, ate dinner at the attached restaurant (surprisingly delicious food) choosing a table near a group who looked like birders, but it turned out they were an extended local family out for Saturday night dinner. I was stalking the bird festival. And, while I heard the featured speaker as I walked past a conference room and could have stood in the hall and listened, I didn’t. I had checked out the schedules and figured I could do the birding on my own, perhaps not seeing everything, but then a group of people on a bus with time constraints can’t linger either. North Dakota has several “birding drives” in this area, which take several hours as they are 50-100 miles. 

I did a little work on the computer and fell asleep lulled by the rain. I am totally fine with van camping at this point. Other than not having quick and easy access to a bathroom, it is an easy, inexpensive way to travel, although it definitely would be more complicated for two people.