Prairie sloughs and swales

The prairies of the mid-western part of the continent are well known for their incredible productivity as well as critical migration habitat for numerous waterfowl and shorebirds. I'm referring to the potholes and swales, an iconic feature of the prairies.

If you look at various parts of southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and the adjacent states, it is amazing how many sections of the landscape look like the following Google Earth image. That is an incredible number of potholes in a relatively small area! They vary in size, of course, and some years are wetter than others, so water birds have to adapt to whatever is available to them. The home territory where they hatched one year might be as dry as a bone when they go back to it the next year, making life challenging.

Many potholes are well away from the roads, and you don't see them. But fortunately some have easy access, and in some cases, the road goes right along side, or even cuts right through them. Some have steep sides, surrounded by dense cattail vegetation. They were used primarily by ducks, it seemed. But where there were gently sloping sides and muddy edges as the water level dropped, it was great for shorebirds.

We came across a few that I just had to stop at. One of them had a good variety of shorebirds, including:

Marbled Godwit

Willet

I did see a small number of Black-necked Stilt, but did not get any photos. There were lots of smaller shorebirds such as Lesser Yellowlegs, Pectoral Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, etc.

Other birds commonly found in prairie wetlands were also present, including

Franklin's Gull

Eared Grebe

It was neat to see all these Eared Grebes in prime breeding plumage.

One slough had a Horned Grebe nesting just a few metres away from the edge of the quiet gravel road. I got their photos from the van.

Some young had already hatched, but one egg remained in the nest.

 Do you see the youngster peeking out from the far side of the adult?

One slough complex that I was particularly intrigued by was this next one. There was lots of room to pull off and explore one of the sizable cells that made up this complex, and the road went along another part of it. The water was fairly shallow in most places.

As I explored parts of it, I quickly realized how little of the overall complex I could actually get to. This next image from Google Earth shows the complex. I only got to see about 10% of it, primarily the part along the road.

There were at least 1000 shorebirds that I saw, of various species, including more than 30 American Avocets.

 A single Cinnamon Teal was resting amongst the shorebirds.

 A flock of 22 Marbled Godwits was flying around.

 Red-necked Phalaropes were plentiful.

 There was the occasional dowitcher, presumably a Short-billed

 Here, a Short-billed Dowitcher is surrounded by almost 100 other shorebirds. There was a huge number of Wilson's Phalaropes making up most of the shorebird numbers.

Wilson's Phalarope

 Various ducks, and quite a few Eared Grebes were around.

Given that I likely only saw about 10% of the pothole/swale complex, it makes one wonder what there was over the entire complex. It seemed especially interesting to shorebirds, quite possibly because there was a small cattle operation adjacent to part of it, providing lots of extra nutrients.

At another slough complex in Manitoba, I saw a ton of Eared Grebes and Am Coots...

 ...but by far the highlight was seeing several White-faced Ibis! According to the established range for this species (Sibley's Field Guide; Cornell U site), it does get into the very southern part of Alberta and maybe just barely into the southwestern corner of Saskatchewan. But apparently over the last few years they have been expanding. According to a contact I have with the SK Breeding Bird Atlas, they got their first confirmed breeding record in 2018, the second year of their first provincial atlas.

 Unfortunately the birds I was able to photograph were all in flight, and all chose to give me mostly back lighting, so these photos are much more heavily processed than I would like.

I was surprised by how few Yellow-headed Blackbirds I saw in my travels. Surprisingly I have seen more in Chatham-Kent this year (9) than I did across all three prairie provinces (2).

Clearly the pothole and swale complex of the southern prairies are wonderful places to visit at certain times of the year if you like birds. It makes the sewage lagoons of southwestern Ontario, as productive as they seem to be on occasion, look pretty quiet by comparison. A return trip to spend a greater amount of time is warranted!

The next post in this short series will focus on a very special place of the southern prairie provinces.