Prairie Wetlands Learning Center

After my visit to Tamarac NWR I headed over to the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center in Fergus Falls to participate in a Minnesota Odonata Survey Project event. The morning started out with some showers and thunderstorms but by afternoon the sun was out and shinning.
The Prairie Wetlands Learning Center is a cooperative venture between the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Minnesota DNR, and the city of Fergus Falls. It is the first residential environmental education center that is operated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The center began as the dream of local conservationists in the Fergus Falls area. A grass roots effort began in the 1970s to create a facility, that was open to the public, that would focus on prairies and wetlands. In 1989 they formed the Friends of the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center to help to accomplish their goal.
Through a combination of private donations and public grants they eventually were able to fund the creation of the center in 1994. In 1998 they expanded by adding a visitors center and dormitory. In 2008 they expanded again and added an education wing which included six classrooms and a multi-purpose meeting room.
The center is a part of the Fergus Falls Wetland Management District and includes 330 acres of native and restored prairie, 28 wetlands, oak savannah and 3.5 miles of trails. Over 180 bird species have been identified on the property including the yellow-headed blackbird and purple martins pictured in this post.Unfortunately I did not see any new and exciting dragonflies, however there were some cool insects around for me to photograph. Two of the cool new insects that I was able to photograph were the Virginia tiger moth and the yellow garden argiope spider pictured above.

Prairie Wetlands Learning Center

On my way back home from the Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds I decided to make a stop at the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center located near Fergus Falls, MN. I had the option to visit the center on one of the festival field trips but I choose Itasca and Tamarac instead because the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center was an easy stop on my way home.

The Prairie Wetlands Learning Center is the first residential environmental center operated by the U.S. fish and wildlife service. It began as a grass roots effort back in the 1970's to establish a public use facility focusing on prairies and wetlands. A local group calling themselves "The Friends of the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center," formed in 1989 and through private donations and grants they were able to open the center in 1994. The facility was expanded to include a dormitory and visitors center in 1998 and an education wing in 2008.

The Prairie Wetlands Learning Center is located on the Townsend Waterfowl Production Area, a 330 acre tract of land consisting of native and restored prairie, 28 wetlands and an oak savanna. There have been over 180 different species of birds that have been identified on the center grounds. With the abundance of prairie habitat it is no surprise that many different types of sparrows can be found there.

I have to confess that I have a difficult time identifying sparrows, right up there with gulls and darner dragonflies, so if I have misidentified any of these sparrows please let me know. I believe that the first sparrow, 2 pictures above, is a white-crowned sparrow, the one directly above is a clay colored sparrow and the one below is a song sparrow.

One of these days I am going to have to take the sparrow workshop that Doug Buri and Bob Janssen put on out in western South Dakota. I took their shorebird workshop back in 2008 but have not had the time to get out to take the sparrow workshop in October. Last year they identified 14 different species during the three day workshop. If you are interested in this workshop here is the address where you can find more information.

Besides sparrows there were other birds like this eastern bluebird. Bluebirds seem to be more common these days. That is just my unscientific observation.

Another cool bird that I was able to photograph were purple martins. I have seen purple martin gourds at several different locations but usually there have not been any purple martins. At this locations there seem to be a healthy population.

Besides the prairies the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center also has wetland areas. Around the wetlands I found quite a bit of bird life, such as Canada geese, mallards, American coot, as well as redwing and yellowheaded blackbirds.

While I was on my way back to the car everything went quiet. All of the small birds seemed to just disappear leaving me with just the Canada geese and mallards. A shadow crossed over head and I looked up to see a coopers hawk crossing the sky in search of prey. Since the geese were a little much for a coopers hawk it continued on its way.