South Unit, North Unit, & First Sign of Spring

I'm working at the North Unit today, and thought I'd actually write about what's going on in the park while I take my lunch break, since there isn't much else I can do in the meantime. This is only the second time I've had to work the VC up here, which is only open 3 days a week in the winter. It's not a hard job because nobody really comes up here that doesn't live nearby. It's a good thing, since I have a hard enough time finding the brochures in the regular office let alone in slightly different locations. The view from the office here is better.

Looking out the North Unit Visitor Center office window.

It's complicated going from the South Unit to the North Unit because there is an element of TIME TRAVEL. Yep, go straight north and change time zones. Go figure. It messes with my head every time I have to do it. It's like doing calculations for a space launch. OK, if I need to be at the North Unit at 9:45 local time, and it takes 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there, I have to leave at 8:30, which is really 7:30 in Medora, so I need to wake up at 6:00. It takes a mathematical theorem just to figure out how many hours I've worked at the end of the day, plus I don't get hazard pay for traveling through time. I just keep my watch on Mountain time and try to get back in time to not have to do overtime paperwork, navigating the blowing snow, pheasants, and abundant horned larks on Hwy 85 the whole way.

Doc & Marty seeing me off on another journey to the North Unit

I went out into the park yesterday afternoon to see what I could see, and to check on just how high the river had gotten. The bison and prairie dogs were active on the top of Johnson Plateau, where the first big prairie dog town on the loop road is found. The wind blows much of the snow off the top of the plateau, and although grass is minimal because of the impact of the prairie dogs, the access to forbs is good and a small group of bison has been up there much of the winter. The bitter wind makes it pretty unappealing for humans to stay there for long.

A young bison sweeps snow out of the way to reach vegetation in a prairie dog town. The chirping sound in the video is coming from the prairie dogs.

I went down to the campground, which was eerily quiet. Only the distant sound of highway traffic could be heard. Everything was very still, and the tracks in the fresh snow told the story of the past day or so. Mice had run back and forth along their routes. Coyotes had trotted past the edge of the woods. The deer's dew claws showed where they stepped into the deep snow.

Coyotes on patrol

White-tail deer in the campground

The flooding in the Little Missouri River last week rafted huge blocks of ice onto the floodplain adjacent to the campground. In reality, the campground is also on the floodplain, but on a tier that is a few inches higher than the part immediately by the river. As you walk from the campground toward the river, the trees abruptly stop and you step down a few inches into a wide plain with scrub brush that continues for about 100 yards or so until you reach the river channel. The river is much closer to the campsites on the southern loop, which is closed in the winter, and where the channel is somewhat deeper. It is in this scrubby plain between the other loop of the campground and the river that the water can go when it undergoes periodic flooding, and then into the campground in a serious flood. There were impressively large chunks of ice that, when covered by the fresh snow, looked as though they might have been boulders alongside a mountain creek. It was a little bit of an alien landscape, and a strange feeling to walk among the boulders of ice that aren't normally there.

Little Missouri River at the Cottonwood Campground

I continued up the road and encountered a fairly large group of pronghorns in an area that typically doesn't have any large mammals in it. They're such a unique and interesting creature, the only surviving member of a family of ruminants called Antilocapridae that once lived across North America in prehistoric times. People often mistakenly refer to them as "antelope," when they are indeed an entirely different animal, just as people mistakenly call bison "buffalo." Having seen a variety of species of true antelope and true buffalo in Africa, I can tell you that they are not the same. Let's stop calling them colloquially antelope and buffalo, and give them the unique identity they deserve!

I've seen pronghorns throughout the park all winter selecting rugged terrain that is uncharacteristic of their species. Usually they find the flattest, openest places, and absolutely avoid being anywhere near trees.

Pronghorns are extraordinarily wary, keeping their eyes (the largest in the mammal world at 2" across) fixed on any threat. Their personal bubble is very big, and they will run away long before any other animals as danger approaches. Run, they can. They are the fastest animals on land while running aerobically, and only the African cheetah is faster in an anaerobic sprint. There isn't a natural predator in North America that can touch them. This poses an interesting question: without the pressure of natural selection, why are pronghorns so fast? They must have had a predator that, until very recently in evolutionary terms, was also extraordinarily fast. Might it have been the North American cheetah? I'll have to do more research to answer that question.

I saw the first sign of spring on the way out of the park: three mountain bluebirds have returned. They are probably the first migrant to return overall, and meadowlarks will not be far behind. I'm looking forward to seeing all the migrating warblers and sparrows soon. I also saw a Northern shrike, whose winter range is in the park, so winter isn't entirely over. Spring is coming!