![]() ![]() Afraid that if I pulled out my phone to try to photograph it I’d spend the best viewing moments squinting at a little screen, I didn’t even try. It was such an unexpected and delightful surprise to see the badger that we didn’t act quickly enough. There, lumbering quickly up the trail was a badger! So large, so flat and bulky, they look like fat, muscular cats when trotting away. We rounded a deep bend in the trail to a part of the prairie where the trail slopes up steeply ahead. We were finishing up for the day and our minds were pleasantly elsewhere, thinking about summer evening plans. I was driving down a trail in Sue Ames Prairie with two of the interns. With the harrier we were lucky enough to get a strong clue that set us on the trail of the nest, but sometimes a wildlife sighting will take you (and perhaps the animal) utterly by surprise. We took off with speed ourselves so as not to disturb them further. Approaching the area where she flew, we were treated to the sight of her nest, complete with two feisty chicks who glared up at us with open bills before dashing off the nest and into the prairie at surprising speed. Another unforgettable family moment was when, working with the interns, we flushed a female harrier. I stopped the vehicle and sat still to watch 10, 11, 12, 13 or more turkey chicks stumble across the trail, the last one dawdling well behind the others, until it looked up and, seeing itself alone, took off like a shot into the tall grasses. I can recall one morning when, all alone and heading up the trail in the Kubota, I saw a hen turkey up ahead on the trail. All this bravado leads to the happy observations of early summer. Likewise, the drama of the northern harrier skydance is hard to beat. It’s always a joy to see the sandhill cranes hopping, bowing, and sweeping their huge graceful wings for their mates. We were delighted and so was Mark!Īs spring arrives, the pond floods with waterfowl and the birds begin to brush up on their dancing in preparation for mating season. ![]() In a matter of minutes a seemingly fruitless owl prowl had turned into a threefold sighting. We carefully backed up and observed it for a moment before it flushed, and flew over the west pond to land on the ice, alarming the few brave Canada geese that remained this late in the season. It took us a moment to realize that we had driven right past a snowy owl sitting on the shorter snag. On our way we drove past the pond and the snags of cottonwoods that hug the east pond. This was enough to buoy us and as it was very nearly dark, we started to head back to the house. A moment later we saw another short-ear glide silently over the same field. Then, pausing up near the UW quarry, in one of those happy twists where the rock you thought you saw turns out to be an owl, Caleb spotted a short-eared owl hunkered down on a fencepost. We drove around for the better part of an hour with no luck. I will never forget the night that Mark sent me and Caleb, a former intern, out to do one last owl scout at the end of a bitterly cold day in December. The busyness at our feeders, the high-flying rough-legged hawks that silently cast shadows over the still, white landscape, and, if we’re lucky, the short-eared and snowy owls. ![]()
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