We had a great morning walking around our friend’s land in Iowa.  C pointed out where he has hunted in the past, and he put up 2 game cameras.   We both looked for wildlife, seeing and hearing deer, and many different species of birds. 

Later we talked with our friends and helped cut (C) and drag (M & C) brush. We left after 3 pm and traveled less than 200 miles today.  We have no need to hurry as we are now less than 6 hours from the VRBO we rented near the chicken blind. https://roaming-nature.com/2025/02/18/blind-date/

Hopefully Sunday is as good as today (or even better!)  Our reservation for the Greater Prairie Chicken blind is approximately at the red dot on the map below.  The larger dots on the map are snowfall totals from the recent storm.  Yikes!  Hopefully, snow melts, packs down, or blows away by 4:30 am Sunday morning.  We will check out the conditions in daylight either tomorrow or Saturday.

It turns out that our enjoyable day wasn’t so good for my knee.  I overextended it jumping a creek, and while it seemed fine for hours of activity afterward, by 2pm it was swollen and hurting.   That could be an added challenge as it is a 0.5 mile walk to the chicken blind.

This evening, C found us the excellent Bluebill Wildlife Area where I saw my first Pied-billed Grebes (in breeding plumage!)    I added these plus 2 other colorful birds to my life list – Eastern Meadowlark and Red-headed Woodpecker.   Alas, the only acceptable photo of birds was from a cooperative Red-winged Blackbird (above).