It was cloudy early, but they passed through and sun shined all afternoon. 68F to 81 F, light breeze (West).
As we had indicated previously, Devils Lake is a body of water that has no outlet unless it gets to it’s 1,000 year level, which has not happened since then. (1,000 years ago.) But now, after six years of precipitation averaging 25 percent above normal, the lake has come to the houses around it.. Rising an astounding 24 feet on the virtually level prairie. It has quadrupled in area to 194 square miles, swallowing 70,000 acres of farmland and devastating nearly 500 homes. The creeping waters have been kept away from others by an elaborate breastwork of levees, so that once fashionable lakefront houses in the nearby town of Devils Lake now have views of a wall of dirt. "It's a flood that never goes away," says the town's mayor, Fred Bott.
So, some of the wildlife refuges in the watershed have been the victim of that flooding. Some areas are inaccessible as the roads are cut off by the water.
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| This is 47th Ave that leads o Lake Alice. It is10 miles from US 2. |
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| One of many roads that no longer go past Lake Alice. |
That does however, make wonderful nesting areas at some place that would not have been there, otherwise.
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| American Avocet is one bird that nests there. |
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| The White Faced Ibis with their young (white neck). (Lesser Yellowlegs) |
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| A female Blue Winged Teal and young |
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| This Great Egret was the first we saw since Texas. |
Ruth and I went on a 20 mile drive today to see Lake Alice and the surrounding potholes that encompass it. There are no Antelope as we have run out of that range now. We did not see any deer (although mule deer live in the habitat of grasses here yet.)
Fishermen were assembled at the very basic boat launch at the end of 47th Ave where the road stops at Lake ALICE. It should not be considered a :Boat Lanch"in the literate sense. It'smorelike,"back up your trailer if yu can and shove the boat in." About 7 trucks and trailers were there as a drop off point to fish. The road is a narrow gravel road for 8 miles to get there off of US 2 near the city of ‘Penn’ which is one of those British named cities we mentioned two nights ago.
The AMERICAN AVOCET and MARBLED GODWIT were surprises as we saw them in the last ten minutes of the drive. We did see some RED TAILED HAWKS, and NORTHERN HARRIERS. On the drive to get some supper an AMERICAN BALD EAGLE flew right over the truck a few hundred feet up. A fitting ending to the day. Our total was 35 bird species seen today.
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| Another female Blue Winged teal and young. |
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| One of three baby chicks of the Upland sandiper |
Tomorrow we head for Bemidji MN for a 5 day stay. This will be a move to more forest, and with that are trees of the glacier moraines including evergreens.
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