Audubon National Wildlife Refuge

We visited the Refuge Sunday, traveling north and east to where Lake Sakakawea nears it's eastern edge.  The area was created when the Garrison Dam was built in 1956 which is a 2 1/2 mile earthen dam, and it caused the Missouri River to back up and create Lake Sakakawea and this lake is 368,000 acres in size.  The Refuge is one of 565 refuges in the US and this particular one was named in honor of John James Audubon, one of the great naturalists and wildlife painters of the the 19th century. Audubon spent the summer of 1848 near this area collecting bird specimens and painting pictures of northern plains wildlife.

Stopped to allow one wing of a wind tower pass by.  They's biggun's!

Native prairie grasses

Barn swallow nest - looked closer and found babies in them

The refuge office/visitors center was closed but we were able to take the 8 mile auto tour around the refuge, and we spotted many birds.  And bison in the distance, and a large deer that we startled when we came up on it. However, the variety of birds and ducks we saw made this place quite impressive.  Along with the birds and animals, we saw prairie grasses, as far as we could see they grasses waving in the breeze.

Many little babies

Known as the "Duck Factory" of North America, the Prairie Pothole Region produces more than half of the continent's waterfowl.  Hundreds of species of migrating birds use this refuge as a breeding habitat.

Dikes built to create shallow areas where ducks can feed

Bison in the distance

An island where cormorants and geese built nests - could hear them from
the car before we got out to take pictures.

Pelicans! in North Dakota, go figure

Whooping cranes and sandhill cranes use this area as a stop over on their paths north and to the south.  Impressive to see.

On our way out, stopped to look at this painted turtle

Size - about 5 inches across by 7 inches.  I picked it up and moved it
off the road, was not heavy at all.

Stopped by the Garrison Dam Spillway on way home, the water is
being released more.  This is high time for snow melt - typically
until July 15th is the scare for flooding, which we still see.