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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edward" data-source="post: 1283642" data-attributes="member: 822">Saturday 31 MayWe awoke before dawn again and made the 15 minute drive to the Rothsay Prairie but were dismayed to find the whole area shrouded in dense fog. At the Greater Prairie-Chicken lek, visibility was reduced to a few yards and although we could clearly hear the birds in the distance, there was no chance of seeing them with the fog like this. A Le Conte's Sparrow was seen again but after an hour, it was clear that the sun wasn't going to break through and we left the area, thinking our chance of the prairie-chicken had gone. But just by the Western Prairie we slowed for a flock of Ring-necked Pheasants (very common in the area) in the road, and then noticed that one of them wasn't a pheasant but was in fact a female Greater Prairie-Chicken! While it would have been far better to see lekking males, it was still a lift to see this female after we thought we'd lost our chance. We stopped at Barnesville for our first breakfast of the trip (!) before heading north to the prairies around Felton (p. 73 in Eckert), where it was warm and sunny. This was a great area, with our first Horned Larks and Western Kingbirds, a colony of Richardson's Ground Squirrels, Western Meadowlarks galore, an immature Bald Eagle, Brewer's Blackbirds and a very large colony of Bank Swallows. We made our way along the road marked A3 in Eckert seeing three Orchard Orioles in a small copse. Eventually we reached an area reputed to be good for longspurs (A5 - Longspur pasture in Eckert), and after a bit of search we eventually saw several Chestnut-collared Longspurs sitting on the fence and displaying above the extensive grasslands. What a superb looking bird. Also at this site were 18 very animated Marbled Godwits, three Uplands Sandpipers, many Horned Larks, three Red-tailed Hawks and some Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels. We then embarked on a long drive west, filling up in Fargo and then taking the Interstate 94 through North Dakota. The drive across the state is not very exciting at all, but you gradually get an impression of what's to come. The fields seem bigger than in Minnesota, the skies more extensive, the towns fewer and farther between, with more areas of seemingly uncultivated grasslands. We made a brief detour towards Horsehead Lake, mainly to give us a break from driving. On the way we came across another pair of Orchard Orioles, Western Kingbirds were very common and in a small slough we enjoyed good views of three Northern Harriers, Gadwall, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Yellow-headed Blackbird and a Wilson's Phalarope. We turned back before Horsehead Lake as we still had a long way to go, picked up fuel and food at Bismarck and headed north through Minot and ended up at Kenmare in the early evening, a long way from where we had begun the day. Kenmare is referred to as the 'birthplace of North Dakota birding' in The Birding Guide for north-western North Dakota  and it was a very pleasant town indeed and enjoys a pretty location by a lake which forms part of the Des Lacs NWR. After finding accommodation for the night, we headed to the lake, stopping by the town square to watch the multitudes of Purple Martins next to the Chinese restaurant. While Simmi was photographing the martins I also saw a male Northern Flicker in the town square and a fly-by House Finch. Down at the lake, the air was thick with Cliff Swallows and there was plenty of life on the lake, including our first Western Grebes, lots of Eared Grebes, Ruddy Ducks and the more common duck species. We then made our way to the northern end of the lake and the last hour of daylight there at the marsh either side of the river turned out to be one of those perfect moments in birding, when nothing can appear to go wrong. The light was glorious, the sun was still warm, Kenmare looked very pretty on the hillside, and the marsh was absolutely seething with birds: American Coots and Canada Geese were abundant, Redheads and Canvasbacks were both common, many Pied-billed Grebes, Yellow-headed Blackbirds everywhere, Franklin's Gulls and Black Terns flying over the whole time, American Avocets and Western Willets came and went, an unseen American Bittern pumperlunked from the reeds and two Marsh Wrens sang and were very photogenic in the fading sun. Simmi and I both agreed that this marsh was the trip highlight so far. Once the daylight had gone we had dinner in Kenmare's Chinese restaurant, where we spent most of the meal trying to convince the proprietor that geese and ducks do indeed have the power of flight. Overnight at San Way Ve Motel, Kenmare.More of Simmi's photos1. Marsh Wren at Kenmare, ND2. Cliff Swallows collecting mud on Rothsay Prairie3. Western Grebe4. Greater Prairie-Chicken disappearing into the fog5. Wilson's Phalarope</blockquote>

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