Newsworthy

A Bismarck Tribune article about two grants Theodore Roosevelt National Park received had my picture in it, I have been told.

Update: The superintendent brought me a copy of the newspaper. The story is front page news, but the picture is tucked away on page 9A.

Four Firsts

While Amber and I were playing tennis* on a day that was too cold, hitting balls over the fence and into the horse corral/prairie dog town, I heard an unfamiliar sound from above. There was a big group of larger birds silhouetted against the clouds, but I could hear a sort of high-pitched sound they were making while they circled straight overhead. They were circling a lot like sandhill cranes but the sound indicated it was not a crane. Web research proved that it was not the sound of tundra swans or snow geese. Finally, I investigated the greater white-fronted goose and declared a winner (First #1).

I was out walking the Ridgeline Trail getting some pictures of pasqueflowers when I heard another unfamiliar sound. The birds are pretty shy around here, so it's hard to get a good look sometimes. This little guy looked and acted like a flycatcher, perched in the top of a bush and flying down to grab bugs on the ground. I took a couple pictures which revealed enough, memorized the sound, and later nailed the sighting down as a Say's phoebe (First #2).

Today is the 60th Anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt National Park's establishment. I hiked to the old (abandoned) east entrance station as a sort of pilgrimage to the past.

The big kickoff for Medora's 125th centennial is this weekend. Hopefully my cabin tour passes muster since I will be giving the only two tours of the weekend.

Speaking of passing muster, both of my interpretive programs from last summer passed the National Park Service Interpretive Development Program's certification standards. So chalk that one up on the resume. The products I submitted were my interpretive boat cruise and my slide program. These were the first programs I have successfully certified (First #3 and #3.5). I could have used those back about 4 weeks ago when they could have influenced my promotion potential for the summer.

*I am now undefeated at tennis in the State of North Dakota, and it was my first victory ever (First #4).

This used to be the gate at the main park entrance. It was abandoned when Interstate 94 came through and forced the re-routing of park roads to their current configuration with the Medora entrance.

Mmm, Afterbirth

The bison are having their calves now, and I have seen several newborns. I saw one that had just been born; it was still wet and laying down while its mother ate the afterbirth. While that seems gross, it's helpful to reduce the smell for fear of predators (the crows had already found them within minutes of birth) and because there is still some nutrition in that material that might as well not go to waste.

On a trip around the loop road, Amber and I saw upwards of 100 mule deer. There was a group of four at every turn. We probably saw more than half of the south unit's bison, too, plus a porcupine, several turkeys, elk, and the other usual suspects. The areas that were burned in a prescribed fire action last week look really nice with all the green grass coming up.

I am trying my best not to go to the Medora Ball, which is supposed to kick off the 125th anniversary of the founding of Medora. (Oh, can I please pay $50 to be in a socially awkward situation for which I cannot possibly be properly dressed?) There are some free tickets floating around out there and I'm trying not to be the one who ends up with them. It's not out of any spite for anyone that I don't want to go, just that I don't like that kind of social situation. Plus, supper is served at 10:00 PM. I will certainly die of starvation before then. My contribution to the big kickoff weekend is going to be giving the inaugural Maltese Cross Cabin tours.

Résumé-building

Now I can add "Bison herder" to my résumé. I got some needed exercise and a few hours of overtime on Friday helping to herd bison back into the park. Although the result was a failure - we lost them in the woods in very steep terrain - we got to do some creek-stomping and a lot of trespassing. It was a success in that I saw the first pasqueflowers of the season, a horned lizard, and a big flock of Bohemian waxwings.

I would have been recruited to help fix the fence today, but I'm the only ranger on duty.

Awakening

The house finches finally found my feeder after four months. The male was sitting on my back porch light singing last night, and they were eating in the feeder this morning.

A gooseberry bush in front of the visitor center has green leaves, and the grass especially along the sidewalks is turning green.

At Painted Canyon Tuesday, I saw a huge flock of about 500 sandhill cranes go over. They stretched way up into the clouds and were difficult to see without binoculars.

Painted Canyon, for as boring as it is to sit there all day when people don't come in, does attract the occasional falcon or hawk that uses the wind coming up the hill (ridge lift) to gain altitude and speed. It also attracts the occasional weird, greasy-haired highway traveler. Sometimes the bison are right outside the building.

Treading Water

Spring continues its slow, drawn-out march to the Badlands. The green grass is slowly starting to become more evident among the brown, but only where the grass gets mowed. The hiss of the dry grass in the prairie wind still dominates. Killdeer have arrived, pairs of bluebirds are easily found, and there are swarms of slate-colored dark-eyed juncos in the park. A lap around the loop yesterday revealed a small band of elk between the Ridgeline Trail and Paddock Creek. I saw a band of horses from I-94 today that had two foals. No new calves or fawns that I've seen yet.

The rabbits outside my window, one of which lives under my car for a good chunk of the day, have been doing some interesting things. They do a little dance where they face one another, then one of the rabbits will run at the second, who jumps straight into the air as the first rabbit runs underneath. In between actual run/jump actions, the one doing the running will try to fake the other one out. Sometimes it leads to a brief chase. It's bizarre and comical, and I suppose it has something to do with them testing out each other's agility (gaging the prospectus for rearing survivable offspring).

Medora is starting to awaken a bit. I saw a few new cars by one of the TRMF dormitories, and there are a few cars out in front of the Cowboy Cafe daily now. Speaking of the Cowboy Cafe, they ripped out some really awful-looking housing from behind the cafe yesterday. Today, they are breaking up the slabs. I wasn't sure for months whether it was housing or a storage shed, if that gives you any idea what it was like. I can see a lot farther out my back windows now.

I went back to the Queen City Barber Shop and did some more investigative work. Last time I had been there, there were some questionable aspects regarding my experience. First of all, regarding the name "Queen City," the owner of the barber shop told me that was the name when he bought it 39 years ago, and even he didn't know what it really meant (yet didn't bother to change the name which I still contend has "gay" written all over it). I had discussed the issue of the name "Queen City" and barbers with leather vests with the eye doctor* which he found pretty funny, but he had no answers either. The eye doctor, who studied in Chicago and understood why I had this perception, had joked that I probably wouldn't be visiting the "Queen City Night Club" either. On the second issue, that of the alleged roadkill bear hide to be displayed in the barber shop that I had read about, the barber told me that it belonged to an employee of his who taken it to a taxidermist, but that was two years ago and he had not paid attention to the story since then. Well, for a barber, he sure didn't know much. The dirty truck-driving guy waiting after me, however, was more entertaining for his frighteningly racist and mysogynistic views regarding the presidential election. That was the first time I've ever heard the N-word applied with its original meaning that didn't appear on black-and-white film.

*I trying to distract myself so as not to pass out uncontrollably from the glaucoma tests. My first order of business with him was to declare the large area of blue carpet in front of me to be my landing zone. For whatever reason, I did not get nauseous this visit. It may have helped that I got to put my head in a vise-like thing while he shined the obnoxiously bright lights directly into my brain.

I do have a news item regarding Glacier for the summer. After much waiting, many phone calls, and a lot of wondering, word has been passed down that I will be doing the same job as previous years: GS-05 interpretation in St. Mary, and I will act as Dorm RA again. Mark offered me the opportunity to work in Many Glacier, and while it's beautiful and a lot of people's favorite place, St. Mary is my preference. At least the chances of St. Mary burning down are slim now, compared to other duty stations. Also, I love the Beaver Pond hike, even if no one else does. I think Mark felt bad that he couldn't give me the promotion, but he's already done plenty for me; I wouldn't have gotten past being an SCA without him. While I'm disappointed - I really thought this was the time I would advance, since I've been with the park longer than the person who got the job - I am excited to keep doing what I love: presenting.

I'm thinking about doing a new slide program about fire lookout towers. There is something majestic about them, and certainly something fascinating about the people who work in them and their experiences. If I can find the materials and the photos I need, I think it'll be a phenomenal topic. I had thought about this after seeing a co-worker's photo of one of the lookout towers, forgotten about it, then got really excited after discovering Edward Abbey's writings about his summer at the Numa Ridge Lookout. I have been to that lookout and reading Abbey's account, all I could do was say "Yep, yep, that's exactly how it is." (I destroyed my right hip flexor in the process of hiking to that lookout. It has never fully recovered.)

Avoiding Danger

What was predicted to be a 4 to 8 inch snowstorm only amounted to half an inch, which measured out to .03" melted. Lame. We still have only had about 25% of the precipitation we should have had so far this year. However, Amber got stuck on her way home and has to spend the night in Fargo.

A hairy woodpecker bonked into the window of the visitor center. I heard the telltale "boomp" of the glass and knew immediately what the sound was. The pine siskins had been working in the tree and along the building picking up spiderwebs and parts of an old nest that fell out of the tree to build their own nest yesterday, and I assumed it was one of them. When I went to the window and looked down, I didn't see anything. Only when I looked up did I see the hairy woodpecker sitting in the tree with its eyes closed. Ouch. I took advantage of the situation and got some extraordinary pictures.

NPS photo by Nathan King

After a few minutes with me sitting there next to it, the woodpecker finally started cocking its head. I figured that was a good sign. Next time I went to check on it, it hopped to the other side of the three. Finally, it flew away, but not before bonking the window one more time for good measure. It flew into the cottonwood tree and resumed feeding and squeaking like nothing had happened.

The visitor center always has crickets hopping around. They never seem to go away. One of my childhood memories of the park were the crickets in the bottom of the urinals in the campground, weird as that is to remember. I was closing up the visitor center today, chasing the crickets around as usual when I saw something that didn't hop.

So there I was staring at a big, gloss black spider with a spherical abdomen high up in the air. It was pretty huge for a spider. "Well, hey, that's a black widow," I thought (yes, I said "Well, hey," in my head.) To be sure, I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and tried to flip it over as it went to scurry under the bookcase. I saw the flash of red on its underside. No mistaking that.

I scooped up the black widow with the paper and carried it to the back door. Luckily, it held still on the corner of the sheet as I walked it to the door. I was a little nervous about taking my eye off it while I unlocked the door. I released it to the wild. Maybe it will cut down on the crickets.

Petrified Forest

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park map has an enticing area called the "Petrified Forest." There's a nice loop trail there (one of 4 possible loops in the south unit) but since I didn't go there while the river was frozen, I had to drive several miles down a gravel road to get to the hole in the fence barely big enough for full-size Nathan to fit through. The petrified forest really is not as big as the map might make it seem; the larger of the two patches of petrified wood was perhaps the size of a football field, the other about 1/4 acre.

Petrified wood

Throughout the hike, we were buzzed by a low-flying Cessna. I would have found it annoying but I knew that it was the wildlife biologist doing an elk survey, and it was so windy I couldn't enjoy any kind of peace and quiet anyway.

Bison got in the way several times, forcing us to detour. I don't trust them one bit to tolerate me walking near them. One detour led us to the Wannagan Seeps, a muddy watering hole that comes out of nowhere. I had to find a way for us to get through a steep section, so I followed the animal trails, which led right to the water source. I suppose for an animal in this environment, that source of water is a welcome relief.

We saw several grouse and a couple prairie falcons. Perhaps the most exciting thing we saw was a group of 250 to 300 sandhill cranes migrating north.

Some of the 250-300 sandhill cranes.

In other news, ticks are a nuisance. So far none has lived long enough on me to get attached, but finding one in my bedsheets was disturbing. That'll teach me to leave my hiking pants laying in the bedroom.

Lastly, the 4-H program in Bowman, ND was cancelled, at least for me. Not enough kids signed up for my program, which is unsurprising since I was up against "Air Rifle." I don't want to think about how many hours and how much paper I wasted putting together that program. What am I going to do with a life-size track plot of a wolf loping after a running elk? I demand that North Dakota State University reimburse the taxpayers!