Jan., 1916 
CHARACTERISTIC BIRDS OF THE DAKOTA PRAIRIES 
15 
The other of the two roadside sloughs was down a road running between 
blue green spiky wheat and yellow green leafy flax fields with their delecta- 
ble promise of acres of golden grain and fields of sky blue bloom. The slough 
could also be reached by cutting across pastures whose well worn cattle trails 
led to its water. A pair of brown Gadwall were so often seen on the slough 
that they doubtless nested in the surrounding pasture. They sat undisturbed 
when wagons passed only a few rods away, but if the horses stopped would fly 
off, the drake showing the characteristic black hinderparts. When I went 
down to watch them one day the cattle coming to water with jangling cow-bell 
covered my approach so that I slipped in unobserved behind a chokecherry and 
juneberry screen. The Ducks sat complacently on the pool though the cows 
half encircled it, one of them taking its stand only a few feet from the birds. 
As I watched, the pair swam slowly along the edge of the slough feeding 
as they went, the drake showing the orange edges of his bill, the duck her 
black bill and orange feet. Hunger satisfied, they stopped to plume them- 
selves, after which, sitting on the water close together, their big hills resting 
on their backs, Darby and Joan proceeded to nap. They napped not with 
one eye open but with both eyes winking so often that there was an alterna- 
tion like that from the winking of the shutter of a camera — light — dark — 
light — dark. An excellent safety device it seemed, though there appeared 
little need, for they looked more like chunks of wood than birds, the white 
wing patch being the only exposed note of color. While I waited impatiently, 
Joan awoke and started to swim away, at which Darby, vexed, perhaps at the 
interruption of his nap, opened his big bill at her. Nevertheless he swam 
after her, though he repeated his eloquent remonstrance. What would they 
do next? High over the prairie appeared a flock of Franklin Gulls coming 
rapidly toward us. Joan, as if startled, rocked back and forth long enough 
to get up momentum, and then rose clear of the water. Darhv followed 
unquestioningly, the pair, to my disappointment, flying away across the pas- 
ture out of sight. 
In another place on a small slough between the road and a barn we sur- 
prised, and were surprised by, a Bittern. We stared at it in amazement, but 
though it watched us alertly, as we did not stop the horses it bravely stood 
its ground until we were out of sight. 
One of the most interesting and characteristic of the small sloughs seen 
was only a few yards from the road, a grassy slough not more than twenty-five 
feet in diameter that seemed only the merest saucer in the level prairie. As 
we drove up we saw a Yellow-legs, a bird whose long yellow legs show to good 
advantage, standing on lush green marsh ground and whose neat fresh plum- 
age makes it fit in well in a land of cool clean wheat fields. As we came 
alongside the little slough we were surprised by a loud outburst, the musical 
ecstatic song of an invisible Sora. Along the edge of the pool in the marsh 
grass we discovered a parent Coot swimming around with its droll little pink- 
headed youngster. And as we drove off, one of the fascinating Black-headed 
Terns wavered over the slough. Facinating, anomalous birds of both water 
and land ! They were often seen flying over the prairie hunting insects where 
there was apparently no water in the landscape. What a thrill the sight of 
these black-heads gives ! But the most enchanting, magic moment of all is 
when just the long pointed gray Tern wings become visible in a gray sky — as 
when the white forms of Gulls come out of a fog. 
