What are these boys thinking?....coteau update

BillS

BillS

Well-known member
I drive 40 miles to work each way, One route I take, is smooth state roads and I drop out of the pothole region at 5 miles and look at farm fields the whole way. Not bad when scouting for snow geese or mallards, but this time of year I like to take the route for 20 miles up through the coteau that is rough and has 8 gravel sections as a result of high water. Here is a sight I saw this morning, imagine the conversation of all these boys.

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Spring has come much earlier than last year, I have seen broods of geese for 3 weeks, last year mid june I was still seeing ducks chasing each other and didn't see broods of geese till end of june. May pond counts in this area will be down, which is great! Nesting weather has been great, ponds are drying up which long term is very positive. and wow the sound of pheasants cackling at my house here in town is encouraging, along with the number of birds I have seen on the road to my fishing spots. Still the loss of CRP is not good and even in this area we are starting to see the effects of oil speculation. Farmland is being bought at prices that local farmers can't afford or sustain and more CRP will be pulled out. Long term we still need much more of a drought to revitalize most of these wetlands into productive wetlands. But seeing sights like these drake Redheads is a pure pleasure on my drive to work.
 
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Cool picture Bill! Gotta love seeing that.

I'm not totally familiar with the situation out there. But are you saying that the high waters of recent years has degraded the wetlands? Has it flooded out the beneficial vegetation?
 
Probably thinking "sure is quiet without all those darn women around and fussing at us, lets go have a beer!"
 
yep, exactly and invertbrates as well. On our place the 40acre slough should be 1-3ft deep and be interspersed with catails, the catails on the edge we had from the year before were flooded, leaving little nestiing cover for divers. I measured the depth at 8ft last year and there are many that are even deeper. The plus side is there are a lot more fishing lakes. Last year, we had a mass lateral migration in Aug. Birds moved east and west to areas that typically don't have water because the new water there, was a lot more productive for food. There are theories out there, that the water in these larger discharge wetlands, will not go back down to normal levels. One is that with a sheer size of Devils lake its putting underground pressure on the ground water system for the whole area. I don't now if there is any science to that, but that is what many of the locals beleive.
 
Bill,
Good to see you taking those quiet side roads. Much to say for sanity! Loved that shot of the ducks. With the lack of hens in that shot it is a great indicator of good things to come.
Al
 
"Sigh....apparently nobody told the pintail about the coordinated swimming event....somebody always has to be different...."
 
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