Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge, located northwest of

Minot, North Dakota Minot ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Ward County, North Dakota, United States, in the state's north-central region. It is most widely known for the Air Force base approximately north of the city. With a population of 48,377 at the 2 ...

, was established in 1935 as a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife. The refuge straddles of the picturesque

Souris River The Souris River (; french: rivière Souris) or Mouse River (as it is alternatively known in the U.S., a calque of its French name) is a river in central North America. It is about in length and drains about . It rises in the Yellow Grass Mars ...

valley in northern

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

. The Souris River basin figures prominently in the cultural and natural history of the North American mid-continent plains and prairies. The refuge includes a narrow band of river bottom

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

s, fertile

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

s, native mixed-grass hills, and steep,

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

-covered

coulee Coulee, or coulée ( or ) is a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone. The word ''coulee'' comes from the Canadian French ''coulée'', from French ''couler'' 'to flow'. The ...

s. The focal point of the refuge is the Lake Darling, a reservoir created by the

Lake Darling Dam Lake Darling Dam is an earthen embankment dam on the Souris River in the west north central United States, located northwest of Minot in Ward County, North Dakota. The dam began impounding water in April 1936 and was completed July of that yea ...

, which was constructed in 1936 to provide water to downstream marshes on J. Clark Salyer and Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuges. The

American Bird Conservancy American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a non-profit membership organization with the mission of conserving wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. Its focus is on threats to birds in the Western Hemisphere – threats which include ov ...

has designated the refuge as a Globally Important Bird Area. Lake Darling is also designated as critical habitat for the endangered piping plover. Bird watchers come from across the nation to search for small grassland nesting bird species including Baird's, Le Conte's, and

Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow Nelson's sparrow (''Ammospiza nelsoni'') is a small New World sparrow. This bird was named after Edward William Nelson, an American naturalist. Formerly, this bird and the saltmarsh sparrow were considered to be a single species, the sharp-tailed ...

s, as well as the

Sprague's pipit Sprague's pipit (''Anthus spragueii'') is a small songbird (passerine) in the family Motacillidae that breeds in the short- and mixed-grass prairies of North America. Migratory, it spends the winters in the southwestern United States and norther ...

References

Refuge website

External links

* * * * {{authority control Important Bird Areas of North Dakota National Wildlife Refuges in North Dakota Protected areas established in 1935 Protected areas of Ward County, North Dakota Protected areas of Renville County, North Dakota Historic American Engineering Record in North Dakota Wetlands of North Dakota Landforms of Ward County, North Dakota Landforms of Renville County, North Dakota

See also

References

External links