Bird Camp Diaries: November 2008

The Bird Camp Diaries are nothing more than whimsical monthly musings. I hope you find them entertaining, and sometimes thought provoking.

The Salt Lake Hurricane

Salt Lake is classified as a "divisional saline lake" between Minnesota and South Dakota. The 312-acre lake is considered to be one-third as salty as seawater. That's typical Midwestern modesty - it wouldn't be considered polite to take the other two-thirds. That and it's trying to watch its shoreline.

Bird Camp Diaries: November 2008 Salt Lake is a few miles as the crow flies from the small Lac Qui Parle County town of Marietta. Historical accounts about the lake are sketchy at best, but here's what we do know: Lac Qui Parle is French for "Lake that Speaks," and Salt Lake is French for "Lake of Sodium." The Lake was named after a Mormon exploratory expedition mistakenly thought they were in Utah. And the small portion of the Lake that is part of South Dakota was given to the state by Minnesota out of sheer pity.

Old Salt's location can help attract more western birds including avocets, Wilson's phalaropes, and the occasional nesting colony of eared grebes, but it's the wide variety of waterfowl passing through Salt each fall that perks my interest.

Despite a wind advisory, my brother, a buddy and I decided a few Sundays back that conditions were ripe for a Salt Lake hunt. After spending enough time on the prairie, you resign yourself to the fact that it will just blow. And blow. And blow.

We exited the vehicle in darkness, but this was beyond anything I've experienced. Salt Lake is completely devoid of barriers, a cruelly beautiful mix of grass and water that is at the mercy of the wind. The feeling of that first gust across the face almost seemed like Mother Nature's way of trying to slap some sense into us. She should know better: We're waterfowlers, and we're completely irrational.

The hunting wasn't fast or furious, but steady (including a few nice mallards). That and the wind just made it damn hard to shoot. We filled the time between passes by guessing the wind gusts. Forty-five? Fifty? Sixty miles per hour? One other group of hunters on the opposite side of the lake reminded us we weren't the only ones with a few screws loose.

We eventually packed it in and made it back to the truck - worth noting considering we were directly up against the northwest bluster. During the trek, I felt like one of those meteorologists reporting from inside a hurricane. Then I thought about how much I hate meteorologists who report from inside hurricanes.

That night, the highest reported wind gusts on the Twin Cities news came from - wouldn't you believe it - Marietta, Minnesota, at 67 mph. Just for fun, I checked and found that a storm becomes a category one hurricane at 74 mph, so the reference wasn't that far off.

This got me thinking again about those meteorologists, and how much they irritate me. It's just idiotic to go out in those conditions...But really, I thought, how am I any better?

Weathermen, I guess, are assigned. It's completely rational to follow orders.

We went out into the Salt Lake Hurricane on our own volition.

Because we're waterfowlers. And we're completely irrational.

If you have story ideas, dog photos, pre-1980 hunting photos and requests for future On The Wing consideration, please send correspondence to ahauck@pheasantsforever.org.

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