Day 37--Dead ends, many birds and the Yankton Indian Reservation

A Buffalo herd that we saw on one of the side rods.

The banks of the Missouri showing the Niobrara formation
It is 82-87 million years old.

Let's start with the"Many birds" that occurred quite early in the morning. We had taken a route that was west of Yankton to attempt to get to Pickston SD where there were some good bays, that had a habitat for waterfowl especially. When we were only 10 miles down the road (ND 52) we stopped as we often did to scope out a large pond next to a farm.  It was shallow and had birds on it , and then we realized this was the MOTHER LODE!  It was filled with manybirds , both shorebirds, and ducks of many kinds. To top it off we spotted 4 very white birds on the opposite shore.They were Snow Geese. That was a first!  About 99% of the Snow Geese had gone north a few weeks ago, but here were stragglers or ...the story is that if one of the geese is hurt or sick, the other members of the family will stay behind until the goose gets well or dies. We believe this was the case here. There were twenty species here that were new for the day, and although we had seen some already, here are the ones we added to the list.
American Avocet, Lesser Yellowlegs, Semiplamated Sandpiper, Pintail Duck, Gadwall, Hudsonian Godwit, White Rumped Sandpiper, Green Winged Teal, Meadowlark (on grass), Long Billed Dowitcher, Ruddy Duck, and the Snow Geese. Quite a list.

Actually that was the majrity of the birding for the day, as we traveled some 164 mies and added only 8 more birds. Total for the day was 40 species.

Many of the roads lead to the Missouri River and seldom was there anything ON the river. More times than not in the trees nearby (Cottonwood especially) we found a few birds including the Yellow Rumped Warbler. It is often the forerunner of migratory warblers.

On one of the roads we drove through the tiny community of Marty (Mar-tay) named after the Bendictine Priest who worked with the Indians in this area. There is an Indian school there that has been there for some time. It was originally a Catholic Mission school and there is now a new building housing the students built a few years ago. It is on the Yankton Indian Reservation. We looked for a NWR but were unble to find anyne who new just where it was. I suspect it is very small and not often visited .

Look who is coming to visit! Billy Mills the Tokyo Olympics
10,000 meter gold medal winner. What a great man  he
is for youth and leading a  fit life.

The Indian (new) school at Marty

We returned  to the trailer  and had turkey burgers with tomato, onion and cheese. YUM.

One more full day here before we head north to Aberdeen, SD and a NWR that should start to fill in the warblers for us.  (Sand Lake NWR)





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