Following the short drive north from Detroit Lakes (which provided some commentary fodder for another day) I arrived in Thief River Falls which was the closest place to Agassiz (apparently the "z" is silent) National Wildlife Refuge I could find with a campground that could handle my rig. I made this image of another Red-necked Grebe on its nest late in the afternoon Wednesday on a brief scouting trip. Thursday morning I would find a couple more but not as near to the road as this one happened to be.

While I was working on the above grebe I spotted this furry critter swimming in the background. I am still undecided what it is exactly: Beaver or Muskrat? I just don't know them well enough, lean towards Beaver, but still have doubts. The following day I got a good look at a Muskrat and, besides the fact I could clearly see its round tail, with some new knowledge about size (after doing some research back "home") I could make a positive ID. With the animal in the photo I have used the following logic(?): Knowing that a grebe is about 18", considering we don't see the mammal's tail (which accounts for about 1/3 of the overall length of a Beaver), and given that the mammal is more distant - by about 50% - and occupies a similar proportion of the frame, I can't come to any other conclusion than "Beaver". I'm just not 100% certain. Is there a mammal expert in the house?

I also spent some time that afternoon talking with a staff member at Refuge HQ about what I could expect to find and where. I do this a lot and this was the first time that I have been offered a "Special Use Permit" which would allow me to access closed areas of the refuge (I've since come to find out that all I have to do is ask for one) and on Thursday morning took advantage of the offer. I ultimately spent about 4 hours getting twisted and turned around on various refuge back roads and found a lot of great backlit birds. I saved a couple of the spots on the GPS system so that I could find them again in the afternoon when I returned and the light would be in my favor. This Red-winged Blackbird is one of a series which were the only images I kept (besides a few more of the grebe and a couple of scenics). I had shot a few more but the 20-25 mph winds left me unmoved by the results and those ended up in the trash.

My plans to return to the refuge that afternoon (and again this morning) changed once I got back to town and checked the weather. The forecast was anything but good for today (Friday) and, not wanting to hook-up and drive in the coming storm, I decided to cut short my visit to Agassiz and move on to North Dakota. Considering the condition of some stretches of I-94 it was a very good move - there were a few long stretches with one narrow lane and a speed limit of 40 and a couple more short ones with a speed of 25. It was far better to do that last night with the wind and dry than today with a wind of 25 mph and driving rain. I do know that when I return to Minnesota again Agassiz will be high on my list of places to visit.

This trailer gets real small when you are cooped up in it for the better part of the day and I'm looking forward to maybe a little sun and lighter winds tomorrow. I did ride out to Arrowwood NWR for a short look around and things look very promising here. There is a Birding Festival taking place in Jamestown (my base of operations for the next few days) and I stopped by to chat with a few of the folks there to get some tips. I'm excited. Let's get going!

(Don't let me forget to charge that camera battery . . . )