February 2016’s featured bird, the Northern Saw-whet Owl. Click the link to individually download printable calendar pages for the coming 2016 year.
As I always do about this time of year, I put together a free, downloadable and printable bird calendar for the coming year. As a long-time South Dakota “tradition”, the calendar of course features the Great Kiskadee for the month of December (in honor of the one freakishly lost bird that is still around!). You can access the calendar here:
A quite lost Great Kiskadee, casually hanging out on a post on a sunny day in “warm” South Dakota.
A couple of weeks ago, the South Dakota Ornithologists Union (SDOU) had their fall meeting in Brookings, South Dakota. As the meetings were going on, the folks in attendance became aware of an incredibly unusual sighting in the area. A landowner near Volga had reported seeing at least two Great Kiskadees in her yard, stating that they had been hanging around since at least August. Great Kiskadees normally are found in Latin America, as they are warm weather birds with a range that just reaches into the United States in far southern Texas. In the U.S., there have been a handful of sightings outside of Texas. Of these, there have been several in Oklahoma, a handful in Louisiana, and one or two in Kansas and New Mexico. The one found in central Kansas was incredibly unusual in its own right, occurring hundreds of miles away from the next closest sighting. Hence, a Great Kiskadee? In South Dakota? In November? The SDOU attendees were understandably skeptical. The skepticism vanished when a conclusive photo was provided, and most people attending the meeting got a very exciting treat, making the short trip to the farmstead where the bird (birds?) was seen.
I was out of town on travel at the time. When I got back, I told myself that maybe if the bird were still hanging around, I’d head north to try and see it (and photograph it). A couple of weeks passed, and I managed to make excuses not to go. In other words, I was being lazy!! Honestly, I rarely have any luck chasing single birds like this. However, today, serendipity struck. I was walking in the hall at work this morning, and passed my friend Pat, who is also a birder. He had seen the Great Kiskadee, and we started talking about it. He noted they were still seeing the bird relatively recently, and it got my mind wandering, in the way that a mind sometimes WILL wander on a Wednesday at work. After several days of gloom and snow, the sun was finally out. What was better, sitting in a windowless office, or going out searching for a mega-rarity?
In no time I grabbed my coat, headed home to grab my camera equipment, and then started north towards the area where the bird(s) was being seen. There are two farmsteads adjacent to each other, and the Great Kiskadees had been seen at both. Having been told the south farmstead had an extensive feeder setup, that’s where I headed. With a big snowstorm ending just the day before, I thought surely the bird would be hanging out by the feeders. I called the landowner and asked permission, and ended up walking around her land for an hour, and hanging around her feeders for another hour. No luck…no bird.
Snow. That’s a Great Kiskadee, sitting in a pine tree covered with snow. I would bet there haven’t ever been too many similar photos taken.
Par for the course, when I chase a lone bird! I got back in my car, sent a quick note to the South Dakota “listserver”, informing birders that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to re-locate the Kiskadee. Perhaps the snowstorm was too much for a tropical bird, I thought.
That’s when our digital, instant-communication world saved the day. “KC” replied almost immediately to my email to the listserver, telling me that he had seen the bird just this morning. I spent nearly all my time at the southern farmstead, but he said the bird was now hanging out almost exclusively at the northern farmstead. I was only 5 miles away when I noticed his message, so I turned around and headed back, this time going to the “right” farmstead.
It only took 2 minutes of looking before I saw the bird. The landowners had set up special feeders just to try and help the wayward Kiskadee, with suet and mealworms provided for it. Within 2 minutes of walking around, a lone Great Kiskadee came flying into the feeders, along with some of his new buddies, 3 Blue Jays. What a gorgeous bird! A bright splash of yellow isn’t exactly a common sight for a birder in South Dakota when there’s a foot of snow on the ground! The recent snow doesn’t seem to have hurt the Kiskadee. He seemed fat, happy, and was feeding very well. I ended up watching and photographing him for about 45 minutes as he flew back-and-forth between the feeders and the surrounding trees. He wasn’t shy, either, ALWAYS a very welcome development for a bird photographer.
When I awoke today I was expecting the same old grind at work! Thanks to bumping into Pat in the hall, and thanks to my own TRUE talent at finding excuses to get away from work, a normal work day turned into a truly once-in-a-lifetime birding day! A Great Kiskadee in the snow and cold of South Dakota in December!
Northern Lights on the early morning of November 7th, 2015 in southeastern South Dakota.
What would I do without my cell phone? How did people survive without them? OK…I DO have a nice iPhone. I would bet I use it less than 99% of all other human beings with a cell phone. But there are times it comes in handy. At about 10:00 last night I was about to go to bed, when the phone beeped with a notice. I have an app called “Solar Monitor” that you can use to track solar weather, and it said that a “moderate storm” was in progress.
Since it was a Friday night and I could sleep in this morning, I grabbed my camera and went out to try to take some shots. I would say that the Northern Lights this time were much better than they were several weeks ago when I was able to see and photograph them for the first time ever. Last time, it was a glow on the horizon, without much appearance of movement or any distinct features. Last night, there was a short stretch where you could see them with the naked eye quite well, and could see the changing patterns of the “curtain” of light.
I’m still not the greatest at photographing them however! Part of it is my equipment. I just never shoot landscapes and the like so don’t really have a great wide-angle lens. But who am I kidding, it’s not just equipment. I have no idea what I’m doing trying to shoot them! After a lot of experimentation last night I came up with something that at least produced a decent looking image.
A nice unexpected night of photography!!
An osprey circling over Lake Alvin, near Sioux Falls.
In about, oh, 2 weeks, I’m likely to bemoan the fact that I live in often frigid South Dakota. Winter here isn’t for the faint of heart, and even moving just one state up from where I grew up (Nebraska), it’s clearly, much colder here. But, I have to admit…May through October are usually freakin’ spectacular in terms of weather. Yes, we get some hot muggy days, but more often than not, we have some truly wonderful weather from late spring through mid-fall.
The weather this fall has been above-and-beyond wonderful, with crisp nights, but typically sunny and warm days. Today, November 1st, and it was sunny most of the day, high of about 65, with nary a breeze. I took the opportunity to go birding this morning, with the intention of doing my first real hard searching for Saw-whet Owls. People banding them in the state have been catching them, so clearly they’re moving through. I bush-whacked through thick cedar stands for about 3 hours this morning with nary a hint of an owl. Not only no owls, but not a bit of “whitewash” (the white-stained tree branches and ground below their frequent roosts), and no pellets. My guess is that it’s still just too early.
Red-tailed Hawk protecting a kill. Another was just a few feet away, hoping for a bite.
It still was a wonderful day to get out and walk around, and I did have other birds that “saved the day”. First, an Osprey circling over Lake Alvin, just south of Sioux Falls. Osprey aren’t a species you see all that often around here, so it was nice to get good close looks at him.
Near there I came across a pair of (young?) Red-tailed Hawks, hanging out on the ground on the edge of a tilled field. One was clearly protecting something that it had caught, with it’s wings spread a bit and hovering over the prey like a protective umbrella. This bird was feeding while another was sitting about 10 feet away. You definitely don’t think of raptors like this “sharing”, so I would bet that 2nd bird ended up going hungry.
American Robin gorging on berries in a cedar tree. An awfully common species…but in frigid South Dakota, one I’m not likely to see much of for the next 5 months!
The other thing of note this morning were the scads of birds gorging on berries of cedar/juniper. We get a few American Robins that actually over-winter here, but overall most move south of South Dakota a little ways. This time of year though you certainly can see many Robins gorging on berries in preparation for winter. It wasn’t just Robins, and there were also many Cedar Waxwings joining the feast. I know encroaching eastern red cedar isn’t a popular thing for many, but one thing you do have to admit is they provide a heck of a lot of good habitat and food for some species of birds.
One last nice bird to end the birding portion of the day…a beautiful male Red-bellied Woodpecker at our feeder at home. We live across the street from the Big Sioux Recreation Area, a State Park with a lot of mature forest. You often see (and hear!) Red-bellied Woodpeckers in the park, but it’s not very often one makes the effort to cross the street and visit my yard.
Great way to end a gorgeous fall birding day in South Dakota!
A colored pencil of drawing of a Northern Saw-whet Owl. I couldn’t wait until they arrived for the winter, so in the meantime sat down and drew one.
Last winter was a blast. OK, that’s not something you typically say when you live in frigid South Dakota, but I really enjoyed last winter, and am looking forward to the cold weather again. The reason? Northern Saw-whet Owls!! Prior to last winter, I’d seen them on rare occasion, when I went to the Pierre area. It was a quite a few years ago when birders in the area started looking for them in cedar tree thickets near the Missouri River. It takes quite a bit of work to find one however. Looking for Saw-whet owls typically involves bush-whacking through dense cedar thickets, looking on the ground and on tree branches for the tell-tale “white-wash” that accumulates when the little owls use the same roost day after day.
When I say I’d seen them on “rare occasion”, it was literally ALWAYS finding a bird that someone else had found. Oh sure, I’d given it the ol’ college try. Prior to last winter, there were a number of times that I myself would go tromping through cedar thickets in Pierre, trying to find the little owls. I was great at finding roosts where they USED to be! As for finding a live owl? Not so much.
I think people always suspected Northern Saw-whet Owls were much more widely distributed in South Dakota in the winter, but actual reports were few, likely due tot he effort involved in actually finding one. Last winter I was determined to 1) actually find my “own” Saw-whet owl, and 2) do so right here near Sioux Falls, rather than making the 3 1/2 hour drive to Pierre, where they’re known to be found. It wasn’t very encouraging at first. And when I say “at first”, I mean there were probably about 10 fruitless trips trudging through cedar tree thickets, looking for owls. The story was much like my attempts in Pierre…I was GREAT at finding owl pellets and whitewash, but wasn’t finding the owls themselves.
That all changed in January when I finally found my first Northern Saw-whet Owl in southeastern South Dakota. It was at Newton Hills State Park, and he wasn’t alone! On that truly magnificent day, I found not one, but four different Saw-whet Owls, all in the typical cedar thicket habitat that was similar to where they had been found for years in Pierre. At least according to “eBird” reports, these were the first Saw-whet Owls reported in this part of the state. The rest of the winter was great, going back to visit previously found Saw-whets (they tend to have roosting site fidelity, using the same sites for many days in a row), and finding new ones. I ended up finding a few more at Newton Hills that winter, and then also started finding them around Lake Alvin, just south of Sioux Falls. For the winter, at least 9 individual over-wintering owls were found.
Just in the past few days bird banders in the area reported capturing and banding the first migrating Saw-whet owls of the season. They’re here! Or, at least they’re starting to arrive! I’ll probably wait a couple of weeks before heading out to actually look for one, giving them a little more time to arrive, giving a little more time for the whitewash and pellet evidence to accumulate. In the meantime, last weekend in my excitement for the coming winter, I did a colored pencil drawing of a Northern Saw-whet Owl, using a photo of one from last winter as a guide.
I can’t wait! The owls are coming! The owls are coming!! 🙂
A Prairie Rattlesnake, curled up in a weedy spot right next to the burrow of a prairie dog.
I had never seen a rattlesnake before until 4 years ago. I knew Prairie Rattlesnakes were found in much of South Dakota, but not in the eastern part of the state where I live. A fellow birder posted something that fall, about not only finding some nice birds on a prairie dog town (e.g., Sprague’s Pipits and Burrowing Owls), but also noted that after a cool fall night, there were rattlesnakes out sunning on that warm fall day.
Rattlesnakes! An 8-year old son! What better father-son bonding activity than going “rattlesnakin’!!” I am SUCH a good father! First actually, we went fishing in the morning on the Missouri River, below Oahe Dam by Pierre. However by noon, with a nice warm sun starting to heat things up, we grabbed lunch and headed for that same prairie dog town. It didn’t take long to find sunning rattlesnakes. They hang out in prairie dog burrows (presumably abandoned ones), coming out to sun during warm fall days. On one prairie dog mound were 4 rattlesnakes, 3 quite large ones, and one very small one that couldn’t have been more than 12 inches long. Great fun had by all! Photos! A son that, well…wasn’t quite enamored as I was in seeing poisonous snakes up close and personal.
Funny…my wife and sister also both gave me a bit of grief for PURPOSELY taking our son out to see poisonous snakes. Silly family…they don’t know good clean fun when they see it!
Another Prairie Rattlesnake, and this guy was a big boy. Probably the biggest I’ve seen.
I hadn’t been back out “rattlesnakin” again until this past week. No, I didn’t bring my son this time, but I did the same thing…fish during the cool morning hours, and then look for rattlesnakes as the sun warmed the ground at the prairie dog town. Rattlesnakes weren’t out in force like they were on that fall day of four years ago, but there were still a handful to be found, including probably the largest rattlesnake I’ve seen.
So, if you’re sitting at home on a warm fall day, wondering where to have some good clean family fun, don’t forget! Rattlesnakin’….a family activity you ALL can enjoy!!
Aurora on the night of September 22nd. Not much for “moving curtains” of light, but a beautiful array of glowing colors on the horizon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…it’s been 3 weeks since I’ve blogged. What can I say, feeling sorry for myself again with the Sjogren’s, haven’t felt very good and haven’t felt much like going out and shooting photos. But I have had a few good photo ops in the last 3 weeks.
This one is pure serendipity. A week ago Sunday, I got up extremely early, at 4:00 AM, with the intention of going west to the Pierre area and doing some fishing and birding. Serendipity, because when I got up at 4:00, I checked my phone when eating breakfast, and saw that my “Solar Monitor” app was indicating a strong global solar storm of Kp 7. The app doesn’t say specifically whether you’ll be able to see an aurora in your location, but I know that you generally need a Kp of 6 or higher to have much of a chance to see it this far south.
That’s the theory! But in the 22+ years we’ve been in South Dakota, I’ve never seen an aurora. Luck was on my side on this morning though. Before beginning the 3+ hour drive to where I was going to fish and bird, I went to a dark spot outside of town, and lo-and-behold, an aurora was clearly visible. It wasn’t the earth-shattering, magical moving curtains of light you see in the videos, it was more a glow of subtle colors on the far northern horizon. Beautiful to watch though on a beautiful clear night!
A large wasp, busy digging a hole in the mulch and dirt by my flowers. He would disappear into the hole every few seconds and come out carrying a bit of mulch, such as that in his jaws in this photo.
There are unconfirmed reports that I DO have new bird photos. That’s right…actually photographs of feathered creatures, ala the old days when such a thing was commonplace. I haven’t processed those photos yet though, so here’s a few photos from yesterday, just poking around the yard.
I have yet to ever be stung by a wasp or a bee. Not in my entire life. I think I’m pushing my luck. The wasp was a very large one, at least an inch and a half long, who was busy digging a hole in the mulch and dirt by the honeysuckle by our front door. He wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was trying to shoot photos of him. I sat on the front step and at first he would buzz up from the hole and fly around me a bit. But as I sat there he seemed to get used to me. He would disappear into the hole for a second or two and come out with a piece of dirt or mulch, so my strategy was to move ever so slightly closer to him every time he went in the hole. It seemed to work! Before I knew it I was within about a foot of him (the distance you have to be with the macro lens to get a shot like this). I have no idea how aggressive this wasp species actually is, and how likely it is that it would (or could) sting you, but I figure it’s only a matter of time before I come across one that’s not so camera friendly.
The dragonfly was another nice one to get. I haven’t gotten many photos of dragonflies yet with my macro lens. They seem just a bit too skittish to get close enough to. Just like with birds though there always seems to be an exception to the rule. With some bird species, they all just seem too skittish to photograph, but then you run across the one cooperative individual who seems to break the rules. This dragonfly was certainly as cooperative as could be, letting me snap away at close range as much as I wanted.
Some day soon, some actual new bird photos will be posted here! I promise! For now, click on any photo for a larger view.
A tiny Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata), hanging out in front of our house, and just begging to get his photo taken.
August…good riddance. It’s been a downer of a month. I’ve had all kinds of eye issues this month, and just haven’t felt up to getting out and taking photos. Heck, I haven’t even felt like opening my eyes! It turns out my really dry eye turned into a very nasty scratch across my cornea. Not only did it hurt like hell, but everything was so blurry in that eye that I couldn’t even think about photography.
Thankfully the eye is getting better, and I have some treatment options that seem to be working for the eyes overall (crossing fingers that continues). I still haven’t felt like going out with the camera, but maybe tonight was a sign I should start doing so again. I went for a family walk with the dogs, and when we returned home, my son said “Frog!”. Not really expecting frogs in our front driveway, I thought he was joking around or something, but then he pointed out the tiny little Chorus Frog that was hanging out on the edge of the driveway.
A side view of the cute little guy.
I’ve pretty much just tried the macro lens on insects and a few flowers, so a tiny frog was a nice option to try something new. This guy was an inch long at most, a perfect size for some macro shots. He wasn’t really in much of a mood to move or anything, so I was able to lay down on the driveway in front of him and take a wide variety of shots.
A sign perhaps, that I should get my lazy, bad-eyed self back outside and start taking photos again? Nah…I don’t believe in that kind of stuff, but ANYTHING that made me grab the camera again is a good thing.
Someone told me there are still creatures out there. Beautiful creatures, flying around. With feathers. I believe these creatures are called “birds”. When I’ve gone out to take photos lately, every once in a while as I’m staring intently at a tiny patch of ground or scouring an individual leaf for a buggy critter to photograph, I hear one, or even see one. Maybe someday I’ll try taking a photograph of one.
In short…I’m still having fun with my new macro lens! One of the things that attracted me to birds when I first started in photography 15 years ago was the sheer variety.. Particularly as a “new” birder and photographer, you just never knew what you might come across on a given trip. That’s obviously the case with macro photography. I’m finding I never go more than a few miles from our house, and indeed, many times I never leave our yard. There’s just so much to explore and photograph when you “think small”.
Some more recent macro photos below:
