When I can’t stand to open a paper or look at the news online (this week would be one of those weeks), retreating to the safe space of birds and nature is always a good idea. A revisiting of the daily haiku’s I used to do. Migration has actually been a slow and delayed by the harsh winter, but streams of geese were flying over one morning last week. Always one of the first signs of spring, and a VERY welcome sight after this past winter.
It’s been a damned cold spring. There’s no denying that. As I speak, it’s snowing to beat the band…on April 8th…and we’re supposed to end up with about 5 more inches. It’s been a winter of MANY 3-6 inch snows, and winter doesn’t seem to want to give up its grip just yet. But the birds are putting their two cents in and saying they will NOT be deterred.
I went out west of Sioux Falls last night, on a kind of a day that’s been rare around here lately…sunny, and no wind (but still pretty cold). Even now, most of the big lakes are still frozen over, as are many of the small ones. Water is starting to open up, and the waterfowl are really starting to stack up as they await warmer conditions (and more open water up north) to allow their continued migration. There are still geese around by thousands. I had a blast at one location last night, watching as flocks of Snow, Greater White-fronted, Canada, and some Ross’s Geese would intermittently land or take off from a group of geese resting by a large slough. Ducks were on pretty much every available patch of open water, with some spots having incredible concentrations of Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Ducks, as well as pretty much every other duck species you could ever expect to find here.
A highlight came late in the evening when I came across a Great Horned Owl perched in the relative open (for a Great Horned Owl). He was quite unconcerned by the guy with the camera, giving me some of the best looks and photos I’ve had of the species. As the snow and wind lash us again today, it was also a nice reminder that spring IS here and better weather is ahead!
A quite tame Great Horned Owl, casually giving me a glance as he prepares in the late evening for a night of hunting.
The most numerous goose species were Greater White-fronted, of which I came across several thousand during the course of the evening.
A female Common Merganser, sitting at one of the open spots in the ice and occasionally making a dive in search of food. Always loved the “haircut” on the females.
One sure sign of spring here is when you seemingly see Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels on every every telephone pole. Plenty of both last night, including this dude giving me a staredown.
Another sure sign of spring…when the ever present Canada Geese are vastly outnumbered by other geese species.
Still plenty of Snow Geese around. Starting to get a little late to have them stacked up in such huge numbers, but the weather hasn’t been too cooperative.
Birds are definitely on the move in the area, with thousands of geese and other waterfowl moving through the area in the last couple of weeks. I haven’t had a chance to get out much, but did manage to get out for a couple of hours south of Sioux Falls, in Lincoln County. With all the snow melt, there’s certainly plenty of standing water, even without the lakes and ponds themselves still frozen. There were a number of places I found Snow Geese, Greater White-fronted Geese, Canada Geese, and the usual duck suspects hanging around the standing water and surrounding ag fields.
While watching one group of (mostly) Greater White-fronted Geese, I saw a strange-looking bird. The group flew just as I was starting to get binoculars on him, so I quickly grabbed the camera and tried to get a few shots. Not the greatest photo in the world, and it is from some distance, but it sure looks like the bird in the upper-right is a hybrid Snow and Greater White-fronted Goose. Much of the plumage and white base of the bill screams Greater White-fronted, but the extensive white, and even the “smile” patch on the bill are Snow Goose characteristics.
Not a hybrid I’ve seen before, but I guess not too surprising given how much these two species intermingle, at least during migration through the state.
Bird in the upper-right, appears to be a hybrid of a Snow Goose and a Greater White-fronted Goose.
Wow…And I thought the goose migration was incredible a few weeks ago when it started. Then came the cold weather, all the lakes froze over again, and they…disappeared.
Evidently many either stayed down south or moved back down south for a while, because with the warmer weather today, the migration has been incredible. I’m working at home, sitting in my 2nd floor office, looking out the open window, and for over 2 HOURS now, it’s been a constant stream of geese moving north. Snow Geese, Greater White-fronted Geese, and Canada Geese. Spring has sprung! And hopefully this time, it sticks!
I am in a major photographic funk. We’re talking an industrial-strength photo drought, a big-league slump, a unlucky spell of biblical proportions. For a guy who loves bird photography, I can’t for the life of me get a photo of anything with feathers lately. It’s been a season-long slump, lasting all winter long. The most recent failure was this weekend, where I managed to fail twice to bring home a single bird photo. Saturday, I drove all the way to the central part of the state to look for lingering winter raptors. I did what I normally do when I go to the central part of the state…I got up 3 hours before dawn so I could arrive right when the sun was coming up. The sun did indeed come up. I guess that’s good. But it revealed a landscape utterly devoid of the raptors that are usually found there by the dozen. It’s late in the season, and I didn’t expect December/January numbers of raptors. But I didn’t expect nearly ALL the raptors to have left already.
I cut Saturday’s trip short, and decided to just drive back after a couple of hours of fruitless raptor searching. On the way back, on an incredibly windy day, I saw thousands upon thousands of waterfowl migrating overhead. Nothing I could photograph mind you…they were all high in the sky, but there were certainly huge numbers of birds. Encouraged by the sight, I thought the next day I’d head out just around Sioux Falls, to look for waterfowl. What did I find? Mostly frozen water, very few birds, and not a single photo opportunity.
THIS has been my winter! I have never had so much time pass, with so few bird photos!! Even my winter passion, searching for owls, turned out to be a bust. MANY hours busting through brush looking for Northern Saw-whet Owls, and while I did catch a glimpse of one, I had nothing close to a photo opportunity. No Long-eared Owls, a species I often run across while looking for Saw-whets. No Short-eared Owls during my trips to the grassy areas of the state, a species I often find in winter. No Snowy Owls…just not a great winter for them, not many reported around most of South Dakota. Even freakin’ DARK-EYED JUNCOS, possibly THE MOST COMMON CREATURE ON THE PLANET (well, sometimes seems like that here in winter) were almost completely absent from my feeders all winter!!
After a freakishly warm few days earlier this week, most of the lakes have finally opened up, and given all the waterfowl I saw migrating through over the weekend, I thought surely the local lakes and ponds would have good numbers of waterfowl now. After work today, I rushed home to grab my camera, and headed to the western part of Minnehaha County to canvas all the wetlands and lakes in the area.
The good news? The water was indeed open in most spots! There were THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of Snow Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese migrating overhead, their squawking filling the air. But at ground level, in the open water? Nada. Zip. Zilch. At least in most places. I did find a couple of spots with some waterfowl, nearly all dabbling ducks. Nearly all were Mallards and Northern Pintails, with a few Green-winged Teal, Gadwall, and American Wigeon. But even in the couple of spots where I found SOME ducks, they were having NOTHING to do with my camera. I guess I did get a “bird photo”, if you can count a blurry, long-distance, out-of-focus shot of a boring Mallard. But good LORD it has been a LONG time since I’ve gotten a good bird photo, something worthy of posting online.
In lieu of any good bird photos, I did grab my iPhone and shot a bit of video of the Snow Geese passing overhead (video above). This really doesn’t do justice to the number of birds moving overhead, because at one point, there was seemingly a continuous band of birds from the southern horizon to the northern horizon, moving overhead in a steady stream. A wonderful, incredible sight to see, and something I look forward to every spring around here.
Now if only ONE of those high-flying migrants could be kind enough to actually drop down to earth for a photo session? Sigh…for now…the slump continues.
Snow Geese migrating through the area. We started seeing Snow Geese in small numbers over 10 days ago. Starting in the latter half of last week, huge flocks started moving through. Just a few days after Valentine’s Day, when normal HIGH temperatures should be around freezing, and we’ve got a major migration going on. That’s not the only sign of an early spring…or of global warming.
Ignore for a moment the forecast. We’re supposed to get hammered with snow tomorrow, with a full-fledged blizzard watch. We’re likely to get a foot, and possibly more, over a 24 hour period starting tomorrow. It’s not supposed to get very cold though, with high temperatures of close to 30…very close to “normal” for this time of year. Disregarding what’s likely to happen tomorrow though, it’s been anything BUT a “normal” winter in South Dakota.
Right before Valentine’s Day, people started noticing small groups of geese passing overhead. We can get truly massive flocks of Snow Geese that move through in the spring, and we also get large flocks of migrating Canada Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese. What’s NOT normal is to start seeing the goose migration in mid-February! With incredibly warm weather in February (It was over 70 degrees in Sioux Falls yesterday, and nearly 65 today, more than 30 degrees above normal!!), the trickle of migrating geese has become a torrent, with truly massive flocks of birds moving through the area. Normally at this time of year, I’m hunkered down in the cold, with my local birding restricted to the few Dark-eyed Juncos, Downy Woodpeckers, or American Goldfinches that might visit my feeders. This year I’m already enjoying the sights and sounds of thousands upon thousands of VERY early migrants.
The warm weather and the migrating geese aren’t the only signs of an incredibly early “spring”. Given that my livelihood is based on the use of satellite imagery for mapping, monitoring, and ultimately predicting what’s going to happen on the earth’s surface, I follow a lot of other similar work, including data provided by the National Phenology Network. “Phenology” is “the study of cyclic and seasonal phenomenon”, and the National Phenology Network examines plant and animal phenology and how it relates to the environment. From a vegetation standpoint, we can use satellite imagery to assess the phenology of growing vegetation, tracking the timing of spring “green-up”, peak vegetation activity in the summer, and the senescence/browning of vegetation in the fall.
The National Phenology Network produces a data product called the “Spring Leaf Index Anomaly”. The measure compares satellite-based measurements of spring “green-up” of vegetation compared to the historical green-up across the United States. The latest update was a map of conditions released today, as shown here:
The “Spring Leaf Index Anomaly” released today. Vegetation is already greening up as far north as Kansas City, a rate that is over 3 weeks ahead of when things normally start to green up. It’s such an anomalous, warm late winter so far that the legend is going to need some revising!!
We’re SO early in terms of vegetation green-up that we’re literally off the scale! The legend for the Spring Leaf Index Anomaly shows how early or late spring green up is compared to historical, but only goes out to a 20-day departure from normal. We are almost a full MONTH ahead of schedule for many parts of the U.S.
Warm weather, migrating geese, vegetation green-up from satellite imagery…it doesn’t stop there! Daffodils are coming up around Sioux Falls! In FEBRUARY! Talking with colleagues from the east coast, daffodils and tulips started coming up a few weeks ago already! We’ve still got plenty of porous, honeycombed ice on many of the lakes around here, but there’s quite a bit of open water, particularly with all the rivers and streams now unfrozen.
I’m still baffled how any rational human being can choose not to believe that climate change is occurring. Even for the right-wing nut jobs who have long denounced climate change as some kind of incredibly elaborate, world-wide hoax that evidently involves all scientists on the planet, there’s been increased recognition that something is happening. Well…duh!! Those same climate-change deniers have increasingly accepted that climate change is occurring, but refuse to believe that human beings that are the cause.
As a scientist, at this stage…frankly I don’t CARE if people believe we’re the cause. The ship has already sailed…we’re already FAR down the path to severe climate change, given that we’re now over 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There’s just no concerted, global, political, social, or MORAL will to make the sacrifices necessary to slow down climate change, so at this stage…SCREW the cause of climate change. It’s HERE. It’s HAPPENING.
If I could say one thing to the politicians who don’t want to acknowledge our role in changing the climate…AT LEAST SUPPORT ACTIVITIES THAT MONITOR CLIMATE CHANGE, and HELP US TO ADAPT TO WHAT’S COMING. REGARDLESS of what you think is causing climate change, CLEARLY IT IS HERE. The environment around is, the creatures within that environment, are necessarily adapting to the rapidly changing conditions.
The million dollar question is now if we can do the same.
The male Red-bellied Woodpecker who almost religiously comes to my suet feeders several times a day. Today? Not once did I see him. So went my first ever participatory day in the “Great Backyard Bird Count”, where the usuals didn’t show up, but the (global warming induced) goose migration made up for it.
If you know me at all, you know that I’m not the most social of birders. In fact, I’m probably the least social birder you know, in that it’s extremely rare for me to go birding with another person, join in group events, or participate in group activities. That extends to things like the Christmas Bird Count, Breeding Bird Survey, or other yearly events. No, for me, my birding is “me” time. It’s my time to relish the outdoors, to relish the solitude, to enjoy it all on my own terms.
I’ve never participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count either. But today, I had a lazy day at home, with stuff I wanted to do on my office computer upstairs. For the first time ever, I thus did an official count for the GBBC, seeing what I could from my 2nd floor window, and also occasionally checking the feeders in the backyard. The weather? 60+ degrees, and brilliantly sunny for most of the day! That’s in South Dakota…in mid-February! Not usual weather, and NOT the usual day for birds in my yard.
For one, most feeder birds weren’t around. For a birder, winter in South Dakota might as well be known as “Junco Season”, as it sometimes seems like Dark-eyed Juncos are the only species that are around here in winter. Today however, in the beautiful weather? Not a single Junco to be found. When it was colder in December and early January, the one thing I could count on at my feeders were hordes of American Goldfinches, sometimes with over 50 fighting for a spot at the thistle feeder, or waiting in a nearby tree. Today? 6 Goldfinches. Even House Sparrows, the ubiquitous little bastards that love to come in hordes and wipe out my sunflower feeder, were curiously absent. The only ones I saw were 5 hanging out and taking a sun bath on the bushes in the front yard this afternoon.
While it wasn’t a great day for feeder birds, and certainly not a typical WINTER day at my feeders, the sheer quantity of birds was likely much higher than I’d ever normally get during a GBBC, thanks to the warm weather and all the geese already moving through. They usually say February 14th, right around Valentine’s Day, is the start of the Sandhill Crane and waterfowl migration down in Nebraska along the Platte in the spring, yet here we sit on February 19th, and scads of Snow Geese, Canada Geese, and Greater White-fronted Geese are migrating through the area already. If I were to have sat outside and counted all the geese flocks that went overhead, I’m positive I would have been well over 1,000 individuals. As it was, I only counted flocks that went over this morning, when I could have my office window open and not be blinded by the afternoon sun.
Totals for the feeders and yard? Just a little over 20 birds, of ALL kinds, and that’s even with me looking at the feeders at least 20 times during the course of the day. Totals for geese flying overhead? In the time I watched this morning, 275 was my best estimate. Here’s the breakdown from the day:
Done, and entering now in eBird! A semi-social birding contribution, by the biggest “loner” birder there is!
A mighty flock of swirling snow geese, looking for a place to land while migrating through South Dakota. It can be pretty spectacular when the geese are migrating through the state, but alas, these birds have to land SOMEWHERE to rest and refuel. A massive flock in Montana made the mistake of landing in a toxic mine pit, resulting in the death of thousands of birds.
I had to travel to Minneapolis yesterday for a work trip. We’re about a 4-hour drive from the Twin Cities, I HATE flying, and especially given that I’d have to tly, pick up a rental, and then drive 20 miles through town to the north part of the city where my meetings were, I decided I’d drive instead of flying. Winter has finally hit the area after an incredibly warm and beautiful fall, with 40+ mile-per-hour winds yesterday and plummeting temperatures, but that huge weather change did trigger a massive migration of Snow Geese through the area. As I drove I often saw many very large flocks of Snow Geese, struggling a bit in that wind, but all moving south to escape the cold temperatures.
Around here in South Dakota, you’ll typically find Snow Geese in two types of locations. During the day, you’ll often see massive flocks sitting in open agricultural fields, feeding on grain residue. When they’re looking for safety and a place to rest, they’ll choose a lake or other water body. Imagine a flock of 10,000 Snow Geese, heading south to escape winter. They’re flying for many hours, are tired and are looking for a place to rest, and upon finally spotting a large patch of open water, they circle and head down and land on surface to rest.
It’s not just South Dakota and Minnesota where the migration has been in full swing. In Montana a flock of many thousands did the same thing this week, circling down to rest in a large water body. Unfortunately, that open water body was the infamous Berkeley Pit, an EPA Superfund site, and a toxic cesspool of cadmium, copper, zinc, and a host of other dissolved minerals that result in water acidic enough to dissolve metal. The bodies of thousands of geese were found in the lake this week, chemical burns covering their bodies, as well as the linings of their mouths and throats for birds that tried to drink or feed. Some birds temporarily escaped the toxic hell, but the bodies of many other Snow Geese have been found scattered throughout the area as they succumbed to the chemical mix after leaving the mine pit.
There are no physical barriers to prevent waterfowl or other wildlife from accessing the toxic water in the mine pit. The story notes the company that owns the mine (Atlantic Richfield Company) uses noise and other deterrents to try to scare away wildlife from accessing the water. The company touts “official” numbers they report to the EPA, that only 14 birds died in the mine pit in the period from 2010 to 2013. Yeah, sure. The company may have reported finding 14 carcasses during that span, but I find it very hard to believe that open water didn’t attract more wildlife, deterrents or not, and that intentionally or unintentionally that 14 count is a woeful undercount of the true toll.
Don’t think a company would try to cover up other such incidents? The Washington Post story notes that a similar, yet smaller scale event happened in the same pit back in 1992. During that incident, Atlantic Richfield Company tried to pass blame of the birds death to other causes, stating that perhaps “toxic grain” or some other poison killed all the birds that were floating in their mine pit. That defense fell apart when the University of Wyoming did postmortems on the birds and found their deaths were caused by severe burns, from water acidic enough to dissolve aluminum and other metals.
This is but one incident, in one mining pit. There are literally thousands of such waste pits in the western U.S., relics of either past or current mining operations. Very short-term economic gain drives the development of these mining areas, but what about the long-term impacts? What is done with waste pits like after mining ceases? Are there any plans to ever detoxify the waters and clean up the mining residue? Or is this the “norm”, where seemingly the only plan to avoid environmental catastrophe is to make a little noise to try reduce how many animals die in the toxic stew? This pit was in operation from 1955 to 1982, a 27-year run of productivity, but in the 34 years since mining ceased, what has been done to mitigate the toxic stew that’s been left behind? It’s an EPA Superfund site, but that designation clearly hasn’t fixed the problem 34 years later.
A mining company profited for 27 years from this pit. The environmental damage and what’s been left behind will end up taking a toll for a much longer period of time. We’ve now got a new administration coming into office with an obvious laser-sharp focus on corporate America. Cabinet appointments to date, stated policies that are being pushed once they take office, a desire to slash regulation and even kill off the EPA…it all typifies that “ME FIRST!”, selfish, greedy, short-term gain mindset that sadly “Trumps” any thought of long-term devastation such as this. I’ve said it before…I always wonder if people with this kind of mindset have any children, or give a damn about their futures if they do have children. I can’t ever imagine putting money and short-term well-being over the well-being of future generations.