We’re camped at Crow Valley campground in the Pawnee National Grassland of northeast Colorado. Apparently this is a world-class birding site this time of the year, affording glimpses of over 300 species of birds, some of which migrate through on their route up the east side of the rockies. The ‘people watching’ is interesting too, all the L.L. Bean clad visitors with binoculars or cameras glued to their faces, looking up into the trees. We were planning on going for a walk to take pictures as it cooled down this afternoon, but at 4:46pm the wind shifted and increased to a howling, cool blast. The temperature dropped from 87 to 65 degrees in 15 minutes! So no current pictures, but here’s a shot of a buffalo we saw in Wyoming in May of 2006. I’m sure these grasslands once supported buffalo, but they aren’t here anymore. We have seen some pronghorn and lots of prairie dogs though!

On our walk today we saw a beautiful yellow-orange bird flitting around the yucca and grass, then flying into the cottonwoods chasing a paler version of itself. It took me many clicks of the mouse to discover what birds they were. I finally settled on Bullocks Orioles (see some pictures by clicking on the name). This is the extreme eastern edge of their breeding range. We’ve also seen blue jays, cardinals, goldfinches, many other songbirds and wild turkeys. On our recent cross country drive we’ve even seen turkeys doing their mating dances in open fields. Here at Church Grove we’ve gotten just glimpses of the wary birds, but their tracks are evident in the rain soaked roads. We also found broken egg shells, hopefully from turkey chicks hatching, and not marauding raccoons.

Pretty flowers compete with the colorful birds.

From the huge Lake McConaughy (Bic Mac to locals) on the North Platte river near Ogallala, Nebraska, we traveled south to a smaller more remote reservoir on Frenchman Creek at Enders, Nebraska. We’re hunkering down for a few days to let a weather system pass. We’ve had some rain and some breaks in the weather to walk and entertain Mavrik, but it’s still snowing in Colorado, our current destination.

Church Grove in Enders Reservoir State Rec Area.

Frenchman Creek flowing towards the reservoir.

The Prairie; you get the feeling that you're "out west" in this environment.

Turkey tracks on the road.

We spent a week in Robert’s hometown of Hinsdale, Illinois to help celebrate his Mom’s 92nd birthday. She is an amazing woman, preparing a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for her 3 sons, nephew and daughter-in-law, on her own birthday! Thank you Mom, for taking such good care of us while we visited.

We enjoyed a few breaks in the rainy weather to walk around town and admire the fine architecture and meander the forest preserve, Fullersburg Woods, alongside Salt Creek.

The sky reflected in rain-swollen Salt Creek.

For a mere $2,299,993 you too can live in Hinsdale, only 3 blocks from Robert's Mom's house!

We are spending a week visiting my Mom in her hometown of Winona, Minnesota. We’ve had Walleye dinners and an eyeful of midwest spring vegetation.

In 2009, visiting the site of my great-uncle's marina on the Mississippi river.