Well, I've done it again, it's been way too long since I've last updated my blog so with apologies out of the way, I will brief you on what's been happening since you've last read. I have been wet, I have been hot, I have been wind blown, and I have experienced mother ducks wishing I was a little bit smaller so that they could enact a wrath on me fitting to come from a wild animal.
One could describe the weather in North Dakota as mildly unpredictable, and if they did I would laugh at them until my belly started to ache! Jordan and I were sitting in the truck this morning, waiting for a thunderstorm to literally blow over, when a local rancher pulls beside us wanting to talk. With lightening streaking across the open prairies and thunder bellowing in the background, Jordan hesitantly rolled down the window to see what this fellow wanted. As I looked through the driver-side window I had flashbacks of being back in the South. This man was wearing a camo cap, had a shotgun and a rifle hanging on his back glass, and he was accompanied by a black lab riding in the passenger's seat. The man leaned out his window and laughed as he told us we had picked a good day to try to check nests. We didn't really agree with him but decided it would be a poor decision to disagree with a man carrying guns. Jordan and I looked at each other for a second and then I took my cue. (Justin calls me the "speaker" of the group. If we meet new people somewhere the guys all look at me to give whoever the unfortunate person is background information on who we are and where we are from.) After a quick second I could only come up with a simple question, "What's the deal with the weather?" A wide grin spread across this local man's scruffy face as he replied," If you don't like North Dakota's weather, wait 5 minutes." As the man drove off I began thinking about how peculiar but true his last statement was. I thought back to earlier in the week to how drastically the weather had changed throughout the day and how I was beginning to bring an assortment of clothing in the truck no matter what the Weather Channel said.
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| A picture from this morning before "Thunderstruck" |
Monday, Jordan and I were sitting on our four-wheelers enjoying our Clif Bars and re hydrating for a bit when he looks over at me and says, "Wouldn't it have been awesome to have lived back in the day?" I said,"You mean with indians running wild and large carnivores roaming untamed America?" He said," Yea, but I would have been friends with the indians and would have got them to teach me all of their survival tricks. I think it would have been incredible to have traveled through wilderness that no other eyes had seen yet. Being in a place as remarkable as this makes me think about those sort of things." I said,"That would be great and I'd be down as long as I still got to tote white boy fire power. No use in shooting at something with a stick and string when you can hit it at 300 yards with a lead bullet!" Jordan chuckled and just shook his head.
While the hens sit on their nests for the majority of the day, the drakes enjoy a cool swim, all of the aquatic plants and invertebrates they can eat, and the warm sun shine.
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| Northern pintail drakes and mallard drakes. |
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In a place where there aren't many trees there are plenty of deer.
The tall grasses offer all of the cover these white-tails need. |
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| Northern pintail hen sitting on her nest in the winter wheat. |
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| Dedication to a nest is not always the best when it comes to predators. |
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| Jack rabbit |
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| Pheasant |
Thanks for reading!
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