Almost 2600 miles in the last week. My travel impressions:

1. Traveled mostly I-90 through Montana, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Road closed periodically due to storms. Most of trip at 65 mph, some sections at 25 mph. Lots of 18-wheelers overturned in ditches.

2. Southeastern S. Dakota at 15 degrees and covered with snow. Despite being "winter", many hundreds of prairie dogs visible. Surprised me that they were out and about.

3. Entire trip, only saw one roadkilled raccoon, 1 r.k. striped skunk, one r.k. coyote and 21 roadkilled whitetails. I thought there would be more. Live game critters, saw only 1 coyote (and it was limping badly), maybe 500 pronghorns, 100 deer (both muleys and whitetails) and 2 turkeys..

4. Birds almost nonexistent through S. Dakota and Minnesota. Was astounded at the lack of birds. Granted, I was on interstate and crappy weather, but should have seen way more birds. Only thing seen in Minnesota was American Crows. No magpies, English sparrows, starlings, raptors. South Dakota a few more species, but no good diversity until Montana and Idaho with 25 species seen. Is this typical of Minnesota?

5. Couldn't hardly see the prairie through S. Dak and MN, as there were literally thousands of obnoxious and tacky billboards in the way of the views. Wall Drugstore was worst offender, with nearly 200 billboards counted along the roadway, all screaming out to motorists. Very bothersome to me. Made me very glad that billboards are illegal in Alaska.

6. Fuel varied from $3.14 to $3.84.

7. Southwestern South Dakota with innumerable 1-20 acre farm ponds. Very noticeable lack of muskrat push-ups or lodges. Are the 'rats all gone?

8. Commercial windfarms with 100s of towers in Minnesota. Pretty much ran out of windmills in S. Dakota. Was surprised that most windmills were not turning; I suspect that the wind was too strong. They shut 'em down when there's too much wind?

9. Medical tests for 2 full days in Rochester. Very exhausting. Will hopefully know more in a week or two. Pretty impressive facility and pleasant, polite staff.

10. Where were the hawks, owls, and eagles? Saw fair numbers in Idaho and Montana, but completely lacking in South Dakota and Minnesota. Silent Spring?

11. Really glad to be home. Missed my dogs.

Jack, I am glad to hear you made the round trip fine. I think you were wise to go on I-90. You had bad timing with the weather, or the weather knew you were going one. I have no idea about birds in SD and MN, but everything that can leaves ND in the winter pretty much. Along the rivers there are some eagles that hang out. The hawks all leave. Great horned owls stay and are nesting through the storm. They should have chicks now. I saw a magpie yesterday fly by the house.
It took my son in law three days to get from Fargo to Bismarck. He went over to Fargo to work and got stuck there and spent the night. When they opened the freeway he headed west and got stuck in Jamestown for the night.

Your suppositions are pretty much correct. Windmills are the very expensive scourge of the land. Raptors… we have too many, probably hiding behind the billboards.
We’re getting magpies across northern MN these days I don’t think so much southern.

I do hope the results bring more hope.

Osky

S/W SD is not the big rat country the eastern border with MN is the mother load. Very cold winter here my guess is the hawks and eagles hung out further South normally in the mild winters you see 1-3 per mile checking traps. Eagles just showed up a few days ago most follow the flocks of geese.

No cover for birds anymore lots or released then hunted birds I’m feeding 20-30 now from the pay to hunt place down the road now. In many places you can stand at a crossroad and not see a stick of cover. Some birds around the home places what little cover gets buried in drifts.

Glad you made it home safe and sound. Hope you get good news on all your tests.

Been thinking of you, Jack.

Glad you made the trip safe. The weather was horrible on the roads going over there.

Rest up !

Good luck with your test results Gulo.
This time of year here is normally pretty lean.

Good to have you home !. I'll bet you filled up a Write-in-the-Rain !

Gulo Thanks for the update Hope you get a good report and nice to hear you had good interaction with your doctors It does not always work that way . The lack of wildlife was most likely due in part to the storms going through the area . Plus an uneventful trip is not always a bad thing .

Lack of birds in SD is mostly due to the bad winter, anything that can get up and move easily to find a better life did. Deep snow makes hunting hard for most of the raptors so they tend to move to areas with less snow or a more abundant food source.
Snowy owls have almost been nonexistent this winter in the dakotas due to what I have heard was a lemming crash on the breeding grounds.
Don’t think a single gyrfalcon was seen in SD this year on what is being blamed on them eating ducks sick from avian influenza up north last summer.

It’s been a long miserable winter if your a birder in much of SD this winter, and now it’s starting to look like we might get a fall migration before we get a spring migration this year.

Curious to see how many eagles make the trip back from down South that were following the sick Snows and eating on them so much. Did see a pair of bald eagles on the lake today but we often get 12-15 along with the geese but it’s early. Did find a dead snowy owl on a fence line last fall while looking for the neighbors dog.

Marsh hawk hanging around this winter and some medium sizes bird killing hawk/falcon hanging at the bird feeding stations. Hear some hooting at night so some owls still around ours (Waldo) is gone flu maybe.

Once the ground squirrels are up there is no more sleeping.....the males run around and do not survive, Females come out later sometime only one male does not emerge...stud time he sure gets. Last years young emerge later ( more stored fat reserves) unless water goes into their winter dens

There was a good population of meadow voles up here so the Snowy owls stopped short. There has been few Great Greys or Halk owls this winter

Some eagles got ahead of these systems, but few in the last two weeks. Eagles were on their nest area on south Lake Winnipeg 10 days ago

lets hope the test get some results moving......We ALL MISSED FRIDAY THREAD

I saw two snowys as far south as the twin cities this winter, the second one maybe a week ago.
As for those black bald oversized crows the winter cant hit them hard enough. More than enough to go around.

Osky

What? There is prairie down there? I’ve only ever seen row-cropped fields for miles on end. Which might also answer most of your wildlife questions.

we always keep a running count on the animals that we see also :), hope your test come back good , its a incredible place , they saved me back in 2006

Concerning your observation that there were several windmills not spinning - and your suggestion that perhaps they shut them down when it gets too windy - I had the exact same thoughts a few years ago when I was driving through a windfarm on an especially windy day. So I called a buddy of mine who works in the electrical utilities industry to find out. When I posed the question to him he just chuckled and said, "Oh, no - it's just that about 25% to 30% of them are broken down at any point in time."

Nice.

Started a brand new Rite-in-the-Rain for the trip; maxed it out! Pretty much filled it up. Didn't Barb tell Lisa something about southcentral South Dakota around Chamberlain/Oacoma? Overnighted in Chamberlain on drive home. Looks like some great potential fishing in that country, and probably a few psychedelic ditch-chickens.

Also I liked the country around Buffalo, Wyoming and on up to Hardin, Montana. That Big Horn River and the Little Big Horn appeared to be good trapping country.

Jack

Never been to Chamberlain but I imagine you're right about the PDC's. My experience in that country is further north.

You comment about not many muskrats houses reminds me of 2009 I think. Super wet year and Toby and I were seeing many road killed rats on all the back roads. Never seen it like that since then.

I suspect that area around the Little Big Horn is good trapping country. I think Custer found that out the hard way.

The Chamberlain area of the Missouri is excellent walleye and SM bass country. World class at times. You saw some nice country. I have deer hunted a lot of that southeast Montana country, excellent whitetail and mule deer.

Great walleye fishing up and down the river no limit on most catfish on the Missouri River. Some crappies, northern and smallmouth/white bass in the river.