Articles

Jan 03 2016

Fish in a barrel…

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Bald Eagle - Haliaeetus leucocephalus

A mature Bald Eagle hanging on a tree branch overlooking the Missouri River, below Gavin’s Point Dam on the Nebraska/South Dakota border

I usually spend part of New Year’s Day birding.  I admit one of the reasons?  Often my Nebraska Cornhuskers are playing in a bowl game that day.  In recent years (decades?) they have been too stressful to watch, particularly in a bowl game.  Hence, going birding gives me a reason to avoid seeing/hearing about the game. (Yeah, I know, that’s messed up..).

I missed New Year’s Day this year, going a day late!  I don’t go down to Gavin’s Point Dam on the Nebraska/South Dakota border all that often, perhaps once a year.  But it is a good place to bird in the fall and early winter.  The most obvious attraction are Bald Eagles.  Taking photos of Bald Eagles at Gavin’s Point Dam in winter truly is like shooting fish in a barrel at times.  Not only are there good numbers around, but they’re often perched in a strip of trees that’s squeezed in between the Missouri River and the road, on the Nebraska side.  With the steep bluff and cottonwoods lining the steep shoreline, the eagles like to hang out on branches that overlook the water, giving them an opportunity to swoop out and capture a fish (or sometimes unfortunate waterfowl) found right below the dam.

I have a lot of Bald Eagle photos,as they truly are a pretty easy to find species in South Dakota, but I would guess that about half of my photos are from the Gavin’s Point Dam area.  I didn’t stay long yesterday, only hanging around the dam area for about an hour or so, but as always, I was able to get a few Bald Eagle photos.  There were about a dozen hanging around, along with a few very big groups of ducks in open spots on Lake Yankton below the dam.  A nice first birding trip for 2016!

Dec 02 2015

A very lost Great Kiskadee in the great white north

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

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.

Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

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!

Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

Nov 13 2015

Madera Canyon and Santa Rita Lodge in the “off-season”

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Phot of magnificent hummingbird

A male Magnificent Hummingbird soaking up some rays at Santa Rita Lodge.

May 7th.  It always within a day or two of May 7th when the first Ruby-throated Hummingbird shows up in our yard. While there are no confirmed breeding records in far southeastern South Dakota, there’s little doubt they nest there. I have birds in my yard all summer, and by July sometime I start to see immature birds. After a great (but short!) summer flitting about our yard, they’re gone by the end of September. That’s less than 5 months, with the “hummingbird off season” consisting of 7+ months of cold weather and absolutely zero hummingbirds.

It’s the “hummingbird off-season” where I am this week, in Tucson.  After peaking in August here, where up to 15 hummingbird species may be sighted, numbers and variety start to dwindle. By this time in November the slow season is definitely underway. There’s just a WEE bit of a difference in the Tucson off season compared to South Dakota. Here in the Tucson area, you can still find plenty of hummingbirds, but “only” 4-5 kinds (typically).

Photo of Costa's Hummingbird.

A male Costa’s Hummingbird, not commonly found at Madera Canyon in the winter.

There are some extremely famous hummingbird locales that attract birders from across the world. Madera Canyon south of Tucson is world famous for many birds, but it’s the hummingbird feeders at Santa Rita Lodge that are the big attraction for many. In the non-work part of my trip I twice visited Madera and Santa Rita Lodge, and I’d be hard pressed to call it the “off-season”. No, there were no Plain-capped Starthroats, Violet-crowned Hummingbirds, or other U.S. mega-rarities that make southern Arizona famous. For the week I “only” saw and photographed five different species, with all five being seen at Santa Rita Lodge (and some species also found elsewhere).

From a photographers standpoint it’s really nice taking photos at Santa Rita Lodge. Until 1:00 or so you have the sun at your back, and most of the feeders are out in the sunlight, making it easy to get beautiful photos of hummingbirds with their gorgets “lit-up”. The ever-present Mexican Jays, Bridled Titmouse, and Wild Turkeys are there to entertain, and you never know what might show up to feed on the suet, fruit, and seeds that are also available. Hepatic Tanagers have an extremely limited U.S. range, but they are pretty reliable in Madera Canyon. Despite it also being the “off-season” for them, I did find a pair at Santa Rita Lodge and was able to add the species to my life list.

Hepatic Tanager

Hepatic Tanager, a southern Arizona specialty.

Santa Rita Lodge is also the only place I have ever found Arizona Woodpeckers. Acorn Woodpeckers are also always around, while the Niger seed feeders typically have a bunch of Lesser Goldfinch and Pine Siskins. Checking the trees around the feeders can reveal all kinds of interesting songbirds, and even in this slow season, I saw Black-throated Gray Warblers, Hutton’s Vireo, Yellow-rumps Warblers, and more. I also got a nice surprise by standing by the one big berry-laden bush in font of the feeders.  A Red-naped Sapsucker flew in and landed literally 2 feet in front of me and started feeding on the berries. A newcomer to the Santa Rita Lodge, a pair of Canyon Wrens started nesting under the building recently, despite the uncharacteristic habitat

Not a bad “off-season” visit!  And this doesn’t even touch on the Elegant Trogon or other birds you can find in the Canyon.

I enjoyed birding this week all around the Tucson area, but in terms of “birdy-ness”, nothing beats a trip to Madera Canyon and Santa Rita Lodge.

Photo of Canyon WrenRed-naped SapsuckerBroad-tailed Hummingbird

Oct 05 2015

Saw-whets are a’ comin’!!! For now, a drawing…

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Colored pencil drawing of a Northern Saw-whet Owl - Aegolius acadicus - By Terry Sohl

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!!  🙂

May 11 2015

Predicting that next invasion of winter finches

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Common Redpoll - Acanthis flammea

A Common Redpoll, one of several “northern finch” species that sporadically invade the conterminous U.S. With this study, perhaps those irruptions could be predicted in the future.

It was 2 winters ago that we had an incredible redpoll invasion.  I’d never even had one in my yard before, and we’d lived in South Dakota for 20 years.  However, in the winter of 2013/2014, we had Common Redpolls around for several months.  A real thrill when one, and then another, Hoary Redpoll showed up at my feeders and stayed for a couple of weeks.

Such events are always a surprise, and it’s not just Redpolls.  Both Red and White-winged Crossbills are equally unpredictable winter invaders across the U.S., as are Pine Siskins and Evening Grosbeaks.  It was generally understood that large movements southward in the winter were due to poor seed crops for pines and spruces further north.  A new study from the University of Utah attempts to explain the winter invasions, based on climatic variables. First, the study finds that favorable climate patterns tend to shift across the continent. When one region is favorable to seed production, other parts of the continent are more likely to have unfavorable conditions for seed production, resulting in periodic movements in birds as they key in on areas with the most food resources.

The other climate finding is that it may be possible to predict irruptions to south up to two years in advance!  Seed production itself tends to be correlated with favorable conditions 2 or 3 years PRIOR to the actual growing season.  So, for example, if 2015 has unfavorable climate conditions in much of Canada, it may mean reduced seed production in 2017, resulting an increased likelihood of a southward irruption of northern finches. One of the things I love about birding is the total unpredictability, as you never know what you may see when you head out, but it would be cool to be able to anticipate a great winter finch season.

One final aspect of the work I like…they relied very heavily on eBird data.  A GREAT resource, but one that really isn’t being used for research nearly as much as other, more established monitoring programs like the Breeding Bird Survey.  If found the eBird data to be invaluable for the bird/climate/land-use study I published, and I think you’ll see more papers like this finch study use eBird data in the coming years.

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