Tall Grass Prairie

            Last week I took a walk along the Agassiz Trail in the Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve. Along with two other couples my husband Dave and I were exploring an area where the natural prairie habitat has been protected.

        We have been friends with Fran and Marge Giesbrecht and John and Chris Neufeld for decades. Fran is an avid birder. He can identify birds in seconds by hearing their song, noting their flight path, or looking at them through his binoculars. John is an expert on Manitoba flowers, especially orchids. It was my husband Dave’s idea to bring John and Fran together for an afternoon of hiking in Manitoba’s natural prairie habitat. What an inspiration!

     As we trekked through the tall grass John would stop and point out the rich beauty of an orange- red wood lily or the fragile loveliness of the white upland aster. We paused at length while John told us about the Western Prairie Fringed Orchids that were blooming around us.  These orchids are an endangered species. Once believed to be extinct in Manitoba the feathery flowers were discovered quite by accident in the Tall Grass Prairie.   John focused our attention on the encroaching aspen trees. If allowed to flourish the aspens can turn the open tall grass prairie into bush. In the past natural fires rid the prairie of these trees but now conservation officers use a process called girdling. They slowly starve the trees to death by prying rings of bark off the trunks.    

       Fran identified twenty- six different species of birds on our walk. The first was a family of sharp tailed grouse scurrying along beside the highway just before we turned into the nature preserve. A mother and her babies scuttled into the ditch to get away from us, but a lone chick was left behind and was running along the gravel road shoulder in a state of panic. Its brave mother returned to the busy highway to find her missing child and shepherd it to safety. We would never have spotted the eastern blue bird, the clay colored sparrow, the hairy woodpecker, savannah sparrow, or the cedar waxwing if Fran hadn’t heard their song or known exactly what kind of trees they favored for perching. I was quite proud however to be the one to find the American Wood Cock.   As I walked by a stand of grasses near a puddle, the bird whirred out of hiding into the sky and I shouted at Fran. The bird only made a short flight before disappearing into the trees. It was airborne long enough however, for Fran to identify its markings. He got out the bird book he carried tucked into the waistband of his pants and showed me a picture of the woodcock.        

          Besides birds and flowers we saw many lovely butterflies on our hike. My husband Dave, the only male on the trip without an area of nature expertise, decided to become the frog spotter and was able to find quite a number.

       That night in bed as I checked Dave for wood ticks (he’d managed to pick up quite a few on our trek) we talked about what a good time we’d had learning more about Manitoba birds and flowers from our two expert friends. At one point on our hike, our friend John considering the view before us said, “You’re prairie born. Look at the prairie alive with color and beauty.” The prairie was beautiful. Not a grand kind of beauty like the mountain and ocean vista we see from our Hong Kong apartment but a warm, natural beauty that feels like home.