Living and Working at the Brown Ranch

On May 21st, after two full days of driving my new car, I arrived at the Brown Ranch near McLeod, North Dakota and was greeted by Eric Hoff, the preserve manager, and his dog Molly (I sure was glad his dog wasn't named Maggi). The Brown Ranch is headquarters for The Nature Conservancy's land holdings in and around the Sheyenne National Grasslands, which are owned and run by the Forest Service (so technically, they are public lands). Because these are National Grasslands, they aren't farmed, like most of the exceedingly fertile (but extremely wet) land around here. Instead, they are grazed by local landowners under lease or rental agreements.

As in any place that is not owned and run by local landowners, there are tensions between both the National Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, and ranchers. The ranchers want more land drained of water so that the land will grow more grass for their cattle. But part of the purpose for National Grasslands is to maintain the ecosystem in its fully functional state, which around here includes lots of wetlands. The Nature Conservancy is also doing its part to maintain the wetlands and the upland tallgrass prairies, both by not draining the lands and by burning the uplands, which would have been a big part of the ecosystem two hundred years ago. There are also lots of invasive species to take care of, like Kentucky Blue Grass, and the horridly successful Leafy Spurge. So I think I will experience an interesting dynamic between people wanting to be friendly to me but also having big reservations about The Nature Conservancy holding the lands they want.

I miss my Cora!

Yellow-headed Blackbird, beautiful bird, but funny sounding song.

Sunset behind the field house.

Windmill pulling up water for the cattle to drink.

My job this summer, as in many of my summers, will be to monitor breeding birds in the tallgrass prairies. Thankfully I don't have to monitor ducks, since I can't ID most of them to save myself. I'm doing "distance sampling" for Grasshopper Sparrows, Marbled Godwits, Bobolinks, and Upland Sandpipers. I got two days of surveying in this last week, and have probably 25 more to go, depending on the weather. I will also be surveying vegetation, so I'm really glad to have learned some of the plant species already in the mixed-grass prairies; there is quite a lot of overlap here. Next week will be a little lonely since I should be the only one around the house (besides Eric, who lives in a separate house but comes in to work in the office). But I'm used to being in the field alone, and there should be people arriving in a week or two. Today I had a day off because of wind and rain, and I'm not sure I'll work tomorrow or the next day, either, since it's a holiday weekend. But I'm looking forward to getting more settled in with the field work and with the house, hoping to get some nice photos this summer to share with everyone!

Bobolink, I love these guys!