Not very rosy picture...

I would say that compared to last year the northern plains are in much better shape than a year ago.
Other than in the far north east it is almost too wet in some of SD. The drought monitor has been behind what the surface conditions are. It can take a while to build up the subsoil.

What I heard early from ND seems optimistic at least. Montana is remarkably better.
I have not paid much attention to Canada to know if the drought in the south is getting better or worse.

Here in SE SD and SW MN, where I do most of my hunting, I'm a little worried about the coming upland season. Lots of ditches and lowlands have been flooded at one time or another. It's going to be great cover and there shouldn't be much CRP haying...just not sure if the nesting success will be good enough to fill it up with birds.

My brother is the mayor of a small SW MN town. He is dealing with record flooding this weekend. The rain fell several days ago 50 miles from him but the river running through town is within inches of an all time record.
It feels a lot like the mid to late 1990s. Every time there is a chance of rain you can count on at least an inch or two. I hope this pattern moves a little bit north.

Tim
 
Thanks, Tim, nice to hear of improvement. So, do you think these conditions favor late nesting species ?
 
It should help some of them. I wouldn't say it's done a 180 but over 100 for sure. Even though the winter was somewhat wet we didn't have the widespread snow pack because of a couple thaws earlier in winter. So the pond counts didn't improve much.

If nothing else we will be set up better for this coming winter. There was just very little subsoil moisture and inadequate cover going into last fall.

I hear that an El Nino is possible this year so who knows what will end up happening.

Tim
 
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