In Exotic Estevan!

Hello dear readers,

Tonight I find myself in the glorious town of Estevan Saskatchewan. After the quickest 9.5 hours of my life, my father and I checked into a motel and I scuttled as quickly as I could to the internet. It was an exciting day; my stated goal at the outset of this trek was to see a pronghorn antelope, and just out of Medicine Hat, I – you’ll never guess – saw a pronghorn antelope! The excitement lasted me all the way to Moosejaw.

The thing that really surprised me was my lack of boredom. Normally I become insufferably bored on long trips unless I read, do word puzzles, knit, basically engage my brain and hands somehow. Today, I just looked out the window; I’m glad that I did, as the scenery of the prairies is actually quite beautiful, and I saw tons of different bird species. Sadly we didn’t think to bring binoculars, but I can say with some conviction that approximately 30 billion red-winged blackbirds were spotted. They like to hang out in marshes, and in case you didn’t get the news, southern Saskatchewan is now a swamp. At one point around Macoun, there was still a great deal of water over the CanAm highway, and it felt like we were driving over the surface of a lake in some sort of Jesuscar.

Some bird species that I can tell you with certainty were espied were Northern Pintail, Least Sandpiper, Northern Shoveler, Lesser Scaup, Killdeer, Osprey, what I’m nearly 100% certain was a Black-Crowned Night-Heron, Red-Tailed Hawk, and Swainson’s Hawk. There were billions more, but sadly I didn’t get a firm identification of them.

Tomorrow we plan to trek on down to Fargo, that is, North Dakota. I will keep a watchful eye on the skies (and plains!) to see if I can spot anything interesting! Sadly it’s too early to see any cranes, but perhaps I shall see a Turkey Vulture!

-T.