Our mission for yesterday's road trip, should we choose to accept it, was to find Northern Pintails. Well, mission accomplished. It was another early start, 1 am in fact. Left home at 2 am and headed west for Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge.  It was approximately a 5 hour drive, but well worth it.

Just outside the refuge we saw a coyote chasing a couple of birds in a field. Then we spotted a beautiful hawk, but have not identified it as of yet. Then we took a short 3/4 mile hike and scared up a female white tail deer and her fawn. We also stopped and photographed a Willow Flycatcher. Upon our exit of the trail we discovered (to our horror) our dog was covered in wood ticks.  Back home the season has basically ended, however, not in South Dakota apparently.  They seem to be about 2 weeks behind us this year.

Next it was time for the auto tour. Here we were able to photograph a beautiful Eastern Kingbird, a chatty Yellow-headed Blackbird, Double-crested Cormorants, American Coots, Snow Geese, Mallards, White-tail Deer, White faced Ibis, Blue-winged Teal, Western Grebe, Pied-billed Grebe, Redheads, Hooded Mergansers, Western Kingbird, Savannah Sparrow, Bobolink, Canadian Geese, Bank Swallows, Northern Shoveler, Pheasants, Great Horned Owl, Black-capped Night Heron, Cattle Egret, Marsh Wren, Great Blue Heron, Red Winged Blackbird, Least Bittern, American Bittern, a beautiful little Ruddy Duck, and finally the Northern Pintail. :)

I absolutely fell in love with the cutest little ruddy duck.  Spent some quality time watching him swim around the pond while I was photographing him. He has the coolest little ritual before he quacks. He beats his chest with his beak, which creates a slew of bubbles, then he lifts his head, stretches his neck and lets out a single albeit quiet quack. Too cute.

We left the refuge around 7:30 pm and arrived home at 12:30 am. It was a very long day but a total blast!