Birding the high prairie in North Dakota this week has been a real blessing! Such an amazingly diverse area, with all shapes and sizes of watery (and wildlifey) gems hidden in the folds of the landscape, and that prairie sky with all its drama overhead. This is birders at dawn, out towards Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge. We piled off the bus to walk this prairie track and look for Grasshopper Sparrow and Upland Sandpiper. Marbled Godwits circled over head. A muskrat floated like a log in a small pothole watching us. Black-crowned Night Herons and White Pelicans did fly-bys at hill top on their way from one small lake to another.

It was miraculous. Miraculously alive and miraculously beautiful. The image just maybe catches a bit of the miracle. Canon SX40HS in program with – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. I exposed for the sky and counted on being able to bring the foreground up in Lightroom. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, as well as exposure balance.

And for the Sunday thought: we are always tempted to call such moments “magical”.. I suppose we mean that they awake a sense of mystery and wonder in us… and we are aware of that the are things going on that defeat the rational mind. But of course there is another word that attempts to catch that sense of wonder and mystery. ” Miraculous.” Miraculous includes the awareness of a specific power for good in action, an attempt, not to mystifying and impress, but to enlighten and uplift. And it is certainly the sense of miracle that fills me in the prairie dawn!