Birder Paydirt

I took another family trip to Doland, South Dakota for my wife's grandmother's 80th birthday. The town is fairly birdy but I've had little time to explore. I saw some good things there earlier this summer and brought my binoculars along just in case. It seemed generally quieter, no Western or Eastern Kingbirds, only one faint Western Meadowlark calling in the distance. One morning I went to check out a little pond near where we were staying and while there wasn't anything there I could see some gulls circling not far away. Hmm. The next day I had a spare moment so I hopped in the car and drove down the road. I took a right on the first road I came to and it was rural dirt road. There wasn't even a sign and I almost missed it. The only reason I slowed down was that I saw some power lines and I remembered the gulls being near the power lines. I drove down the road until I saw a little pull-off and the following sign.


This is birder paydirt. We are a sick lot who spend our time hanging out at sewage treatment ponds just because that is where the birds are. The wording of this sign brings up an interesting grammatical and perhaps ethical question. Are they saying keep out of the water or out of the entire facility? Luckily you can get good views of the ponds even without going over the barbed wire fence. Fall migration isn't in full swing yet but I did see some good birds. There was a flock of about 21 Black-crowned Night Herons flying overhead.

When they circled around I managed to snap a few closer shots. This is an interesting one since it is of a juvenile bird and they look quite different than the adults. They have a real American Bittern quality to them.There were also numerous ducks, including a lot of Northern Shoveler. The gulls all turned out to be Ring-billed Gulls. A smaller white bird was hanging out with them at one point but when I got close enough to see it had vanished. I found myself wishing I had brought a spotting scope. Here's an example of why. How many birds can you count in the photo below? I uploaded it full quality so go ahead and click on it and count. I'll wait.


All done? I count eight birds in the photo. All ducks swimming at the base of the rocks. In theory there is a ninth bird. Somewhere in there is supposed to be a Spotted Sandpiper but it has completely disappeared in the rocks. I swear it was there when I took the photo!

Also in the area were Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Barn Swallows, Mourning Doves, American Goldfinches, Killdeer and probably more things I missed. Next time I go back I'll have to stop in to see what else turns up.

Here's where the ponds are if you happen to be birding in the area.

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South Dakota Road Trip

Twin Cities Naturalist on the road! I spent last week in South Dakota. It was a family reunion trip for my wife' side of the family. All birding and natural history behavior thus had to be done in little stolen moments or while careening down the highway at 75 mph in a rented minivan. While I didn't return with a multitude of new western bird species sighted I did make some nice observations and saw a few lifers.

Our first stop was Doland, SD. Aside from numerous mourning doves and house sparrows, there were some other birds hanging out at the edge of town. I quickly spotted a kingbird but even without my binoculars I could see the white stripe on the tail indicating that it was an Eastern Kingbird. I see the Eastern pretty much every day on my way to work. I was hoping to spot a Western Kingbird. I thought maybe we weren't far enough west. Realizing I had a few minutes while my son napped, I went inside to get my binoculars and camera. I was glad I did! The Eastern Kingbird was gone but it was replaced with a beautiful Western Kingbird just a short distance away.

It stuck around for the two days we were there so it much have been nesting nearby. The Western Kingbird was a lifer for me.

I walked along a row of trees and saw a bird fly in and land. When I put up my binos I was rewarded with not only an American Robin but an Orchard Oriole. We have Orchard Orioles at home and we band them once or twice a year at work but I have never stumbled into one in the wild so this was a lifer for me as well.

Here's a photo of the Orchard Oriole sitting next to the American Robin for comparison. The Orchard Oriole is smaller than a Baltimore Oriole. It's also brick red instead of bright orange. Another difference is that the tail is all black whereas a Baltimore Oriole also has some orange on the tail.


I also saw this Brown Thrasher in the same area. This would have been a lifer last year. For a while this was a nemesis bird of mine. I could never find them. Now, for whatever reason, I've seen something like three or four of them this year.


While doing a little yard birding I heard a Western Meadowlark and followed the sound out to the road where he was perched on a power line. He was facing away from me so I didn't get any good photos. Out on the road it was fun watching the Western Kingbirds chase the Killdeer. There were numerous killdeer around and the kingbird would chase after them if they flew under the powerline he was sitting on. I snapped a few photos of the pursuit, this was the only one that came out. They were moving really fast. You can see the bottom of the city's population sign, "Pop. 297" There are probably more birds than people. Heck, there are probably more house sparrows than people.


We pushed on a few days later to the black hills for the family reunion. We narrowly avoided a forming tornado along the way. I had my eye on this storm cell for a while and as we drew closer I could see this interesting looking area on the tail end of the storm. When we got closer I could see little tendrils spiraling down out of this area. They would form and disappear pretty quick so I didn't catch them in photos very well. Luckily we were traveling perpendicular to the storm at 75 mph and we cleared the area without so much as a drop of water on the windshield.

There wasn't really any time for birding when we reached the Black Hills but I did manage to see a Spotted Towhee outside the entrance to Sitting Bull's Crystal Caverns and a number of these gorgeous Mountain Bluebirds at the Rushmore Shadows Resort.


~Kirk

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