Leader: Dale Hjertaas
About 10 members braved the cool and grey morning to journey to Buffalo Pound. We walked the boardwalk and the bison trail and visited the bison lookout. Some of us also visited the Red-necked Grebe slough just north of the park. Of particular excitement was seeing a moose twice, or two moose, but we think we saw the same one twice.
We had fair success finding early spring wildflowers, identifying the following species either blooming or budded and almost in bloom: Prairie Onion, Pale Commandra, Prairie Crocus, Sand Bladderpod, Wild Black Current, Three-flowered Avens, Early Cinquefoil, Cushion Milk Vetch, Early Yellow Locoweed, Golden-Bean, Nuttall’s Yellow Violet, Early Blue Violet, Buffaloberry, Plains Cymopterus, Leafy Musineon, Prairie Parsley, Moss Phlox, and Common Dandelion.
We recorded 62 species of birds. Some of the more interesting observations were 43 Western Grebes, 1 Pectoral Sandpiper, Red-necked Grebes, 1 Black-crowned Night Heron, Mountain Bluebirds including a par carrying material into a nest box, 2 Say’s Phoebe and 2 Lark Sparrows, and Myrtle and Orange-crowned Warblers.