May 05 2015

15 Years in the making…that’s bird photography

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Broad-winged Hawk - Buteo platypterus

Broad-winged Hawk
Buteo platypterus
Click for a larger view

15 years.  A few posts back I started a thread with “5 years”, referring to the last time I’d seen a Virginia Rail.  The 15 years?  That’s about how long I’ve been birding and taking photos.  In those 15 years, I’d never gotten a photo of a Broad-winged Hawk until yesterday.

That’s how bird photography seems to work.  Just like in birding itself, people tend to have “nemesis birds”, birds that may not even be that rare, but simply due to luck-of-the-draw, they’re a bird you haven’t seen.  It’s the same with photography.  Broad-winged Hawks definitely aren’t rare, although South Dakota is at the fringe of their range.  But until yesterday, I hadn’t seen them all that often around here, and when I had, they had always been at quite a distance.

Given the actions of this bird yesterday, I don’t even think it’s because they’re shy.  This bird was extremely cooperative, continuing to scan around and hunt while I took photos of him from pretty close range.

One (relatively common!) nemesis bird down!!

May 04 2015

Short- vs. Long-billed Dowitcher

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Short-billed Dowitcher vs. Long-billed Dowtitcher

Which kind of Dowitchers are these? Click to get a much higher-resolution version.

Alright, I admit I have no freakin’ clue how to tell apart Short-billed Dowitchers vs. Long-billed Dowitchers.  I DID find this great website:

http://www.surfbirds.com/ID%20Articles/dowitchers1005/dowitchers.html

More info than you can shake a stick at!  But I’m still not sure that it helps me.  Given that I live in South Dakota, where we’re much, much more likely to find Long-billed Dowitchers, I have pretty much always called Dowitchers I take photos of here Long-billed Dowitchers.  But over the years, I also have no doubt I’ve seen, if not photographed, Short-billed Dowitchers.

So, tonight I was birding around Newton Hills State Park, and came across a group of 15 Dowitchers.  Long- or Short-billed?  Check out the photo above.  What are they?  All Long-billed?  A mix?  Bill length, as expected, is one of the ID marks in the SurfBirds article above.  Check out the 2 birds with an “A” by them.  The one on the left has a much longer billl than the one on the right.  Leg length is supposed to be another mark, with Long-billed Dowitchers having longer bills.  Again check out the birds labeled “A”.  The one on the right has the water reach his belly, while the birds right around him have leg showing.  Same for the one bird in the back by the “B”, where one bird has water reaching the belly, and the other two don’t.

The SurfBird site has many more ID keys, such as a supposedly straighter supercillium on the Long-billed, but even on their example images I find that hard to see.  Plumage differences and shape differences are noted there as well.  Any thoughts out there? What are the Dowitchers in this photo?

May 04 2015

Now vs. then…how things change

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Upland Sandpiper - Bartramia longicauda

Upland Sandpiper, how you always see them around here, on a fence post. Unfortunately they’re not a common sight any more in my part of South Dakota

Cattle Egret - Bubulcus ibis

The new kid on the block, a Cattle Egret. I’d pretty much expect to see these guys more commonly than Upland Sandpipers in my part of South Dakota.

I spent Sunday morning birding in Lake and Kingsbury counties, to the northwest of Sioux Falls.  Early May, certainly a great time to get “First-of-Year” (FOY) birds, and I certainly saw quite a few new species for the year.  It wasn’t a great day for photos though, as there were really only about 3 species of which I got decent photos.  Two of those species, Cattle Egret and Upland Sandpiper, were FOY.  Both are species I don’t see all that frequently in this part of the state.  As I was driving home I was thinking about the photos I got for the day, and it struck me that right now, in this part of South Dakota, I’d probably expect to find Cattle Egrets before I’d find Upland Sandpipers.  How things change…

In Minnehaha County, the county that contains most of Sioux Falls, I’ve only seen Upland Sandpipers on a handful of occasions, and only once during breeding season.  Given their preference for grassland for breeding, that’s not a surprise, given that we’re mostly corn and soybeans around here, with little prairie/grassland.  Cattle Egrets however, are very well named, as pretty much every time I’ve seen one in South Dakota, they’ve been in a pasture and in close proximity to cattle.

Upland Sandpipers are obviously the natives here, and there’s little doubt that they were once vastly more numerous in my part of South Dakota than they are today.  You could say the same for a heck of a lot of grassland species, birds that were once seen in southeastern South Dakota that have now all but disappeared.  Cattle Egrets are the newcomers.  They were unknown in the New World, until a few ended up in South America in the late 1800s.  By 1950 they had spread all the way to the United States, and for quite a while they have now bred up here in South Dakota.  From all indications, Cattle Egrets were natural invaders with a handful somehow making it to South America unaided, they weren’t introduced.

It does make you wonder what birds you’d find around here today, had people never settled the area and converted nearly all grassland into agricultural land.  Upland Sandpipers would definitely be around, but given the Cattle Egret’s desire to hang around cattle (for the insects they kick up as they graze), you’d bet they would have likely found Bison herds an acceptable substitute. In other words, had nature taken her course, in today’s southeastern South Dakota, it’s likely both birds would be around.

As it is, the “native” Upland Sandpiper is a rarity, a true delight whenever I should happen to find one around here.  Even though I have, oh, a few hundred photos of Upland Sandpipers sitting on fence posts, most are from elsewhere in the state, so when I see one around here, I can’t help but stop and take photos.

May 03 2015

Photographing a Ghost

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Virginia Rail - Rallus limicola

Virginia Rail
May 3rd, 2015
Lake County, SD
Canon 70D, 400 5.6L
(Click for larger view)

5 years. Until this week that’s the last time I’d actually seen a Virginia Rail.  I actually think they’re pretty common around here, as you do hear them quite a bit when you’re around wetlands with a lot of cattails and shallow water.  Actually SEEING a Virginia Rail though?  That’s a treat.

I admit I cheated in getting this photograph.  I rarely do it any more, but I did use a digital call of a Virginia Rail on my iPhone to attract this bird.  I was birding in Lake and Kingsbury counties, trying to concentrate on shorebirds and other water birds.  In a very large wetland on the Lake/Kingsbury county border, I heard one, then another, then another Virginia Rail.

Virginia Rails have several vocalizations, but whenever I think of Virginia Rails, I think of the Three Stooges.  Yes, the Three Stooges.  Why, you ask?  Because their grunting call to me always reminds of Curly doing his “Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!!!  That’s what I was hearing on this morning, multiple Virginia Rails doing their very best Curly imitations.

What’s so dang frustrating about these guys, and Sora, another species they always seem to be found in conjunction with around here, is that sometimes when you hear them, they’re vocalizing mere feet from your location. You’re staring at the source of the sound, and instead of “bird”, all you see are cattails and other wetland vegetation.  After 5 years of not actually seeing a Virginia Rail, I did indeed pull out the iPhone to see if I had a Virginia Rail call.

I did, and after a few Curly-style “Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk Nyuks”, I saw a twinge of motion in the cattails.  He was only perhaps 20 feet away, peering out from amongst a stand of cattails.  He was obviously interested in whatever fellow Three Stooges fan was making that noise, but he also made it quite clear that he wasn’t going to come out into the open.  Not wanting to disturb him any further, I took what photos I could and stopped playing the tape.

5 years, but I got my Virginia Rail fix, and a photo that turned out better than I expected.  It does a great job of showing how these guys like to stay hidden.  Unless I’m incredibly lucky, now I’ll wait another 5-10 years or so before again trying to get a photo of one of these guys.

May 03 2015

Walking around in a crooked world

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Crooked Sandpiper - Rotated Photo

Crooked Upland Sandpiper photo, rotated clockwise like most of my original shots.

I’m broken.  I’m talking a serious medical condition. That’s the only logical explanation.  Somewhere in the last 47 years, my internal gyroscope has broken, and I’m walking around crooked.  Or perhaps it’s just my head that’s walking around crooked.

The evidence? My photography.  I hate tripods with a passion, so pretty much every shot you see by me is taken by hand-holding my camera.  My Canon 70D does have a little sensor that can tell whether the image your framing is level.  There’s a little icon that shows up on the bottom when you look through the viewscreen, that shows whether you’re level, and what direction the camera may be tilted.  The problem is that in bird photography, it’s usually pretty fast action, and I rarely have time to pay much attention to whether the camera is level or not.

When I download my photos and start to process them, it’s obvious that I’m crooked, because most of my photos have a slight clock-wise rotation to them.  You can tell from this photo, where you have a tilted horizon and fence post, when both should be straight.

It’s no big deal from a photography standpoint, as I can simply rotate my photos a smidge once I start processing them.  What I’m really worried about is whether my crookedness is hereditary.  What if my poor son inherits my crooked gene?  Will this automatically disqualify him from many careers?  It’s hard to be an architect if you’re always crooked.  I don’t think I’d want a crooked surgeon operating on me…god knows what he/she may accidentally do.  I can only pray he chooses a career such as photography, where your inherent crookedness can be digitally fixed.

May 01 2015

Ant Moat! What a great idea!

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments

Just came across this product:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/Droll_Yankees/Ant_Moat/prweb12685768.htm

What a great idea!  Every year, late April, we start to see ants in the house.  We spray outside around the foundation and it ends, but they are ALWAYS an issue around my hummingbird feeder.  I usually put some pesticide around the base of the pole that holds the hummingbird feeder, but that only seems to help for a day or two.  The solution? This ant moat may just do the trick!  I do believe I will have to order one….

Apr 30 2015

New – Major update to Bird Photography Tips pages

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: 2 Comments

I admit I had been letting some pages on my main website languish for far too long.  I always upload new photos when I get them, and I’ve slowly been completing species account pages for every species seen in North America (over 820 done, “only” ~130 to go!).  Some of my other content has been static for, well…too long. One of the sections that desperately needed an update was a page I had on Bird Photography.  The page was meant to provide tips for taking photos of birds.

How long had it been since I updated that page?  Well, one section of the Bird Photography tips page discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using film vs. using digital cameras!  Yeah, it was time to update that section of the website.  I’ve extensively modified the material that was on the old page, and have added a lot of new material as well. The new Bird Photography pages can be accessed here.  The content is now broken into three sections:

  • Equipment Advice – This section provides advice on the necessary equipment to shoot photos of birds, including camera bodies, lenses, flash, tripods, etc.
  • Shooting Birds – This section provides advice on how to get close enough to birds in order to take photos, and also tips on camera settings that ensure you’ll be prepared to get the shot.
  • Photo Stories – Experience is the best teacher. This section provides stories of how individual photos were achieved, including how I got close enough to the bird, and how I used my tools to get the shot.

I hope the vast improvement in this section is useful for those just starting out in bird photography!  When I first started I was feeling my own way around and it took a while to become proficient.  I hope this information shortens the learning cycle for new photographers!!!

 

Apr 29 2015

The Ultimate “Yard Bird” for New Mexico Birder

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: 1 Comment
Hoary Redpoll - Acanthis hornemanni

My best yard bird, a Hoary Redpoll that showed up 2 years ago and stuck around for several weeks. A great yard bird, but it doesn’t top Joe Fitzgibbon’s new bird.

Do you have a yard list?  A lot of birders keep a yard list, a tally of the different species they’ve seen or heard in their yard.  With the advent of eBird and the ease of entering bird sightings on my iPhone, iPad, or desktop, it’s awfully easy to keep track of a yard list, or other area list. I really didn’t ever formally keep ANY list, until I started entering bird reports in eBird.  Now I not only know how many species I’ve seen in my yard, but I also know how many I’ve seen in Minnehaha County, South Dakota, and the U.S. as a whole.  A handy tool that made a “lister”  out of a non-lister in myself!

My yard list isn’t all that fantastic. I only have 52 species.  We’ve lived in our house for 8 years now, so 52 species isn’t all that impressive.  It’s a new house, with landscaping I myself put in 8 years ago when we built the house. Without mature landscaping and bigger trees, you do limit the species you can find!  I do have a few nice “yard birds” though.  There’s an active Bald Eagle nest just a mile from my house, and it’s not rare to see one of them soaring overhead. When we first built the house and moved in, it was an incredibly rainy September and there were no other houses built around us yet.  there was a Lesser Yellowlegs in the muddy pools in the backyard.  Nice to get a shorebird in a suburban backyard!  The best yard bird was from 2 winters ago though.  I’d never had Common Redpolls in the yard, and it was a tremendous winter for Redpolls across the region.  I had a group of about a dozen Redpolls regularly visiting when one day, my young son looked out at the feeder and said “what’s the white one”?  It was a Hoary Redpoll, a real rarity, and a bird that really stood out from his “common” cousins. A great yard bird, and one that several folks came over to see.

An even better yard bird happened to land in the back yard of a good birding friend from work.  Alas, it happened before I became a birder and I never saw it, but he had birders flock to his yard from across the region to see the mega-rarity.  A lifetime birder who had never seen a Great Grey Owl, my friend looked out one winter, and lo-and-behold, a Great Grey Owl was perched in his backyard.  Why is this better than my very rare Hoary Redpoll?  Up until my friend’s backyard visitor, the ONLY Great Grey Owl ever seen in South Dakota was a dead one that was found.  His was the first live bird ever seen in the state, and to this day it remains the only Great Grey Owl seen in South Dakota.

The Hoary Redpoll was a nice addition to my yard list, and the Great Grey Owl certainly was a highlight for my friend, but neither can touch the new yard bird from Joe Fitzgibbon in New Mexico.  An avid birder, he had recently made a trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona to try and spot a California Condor.  He didn’t have any luck.  A little while later, while at home, he saw a very large bird land in his backyard.  It was…you guessed it…a California Condor!! It was the first Condor seen in New Mexico in likely over a century. Not a bad yard bird!  In the pecking order of great yard birds, I’d say Fitzgibbon’s Condor trumps my Hoary Redpoll and my friend’s Great Grey Owl!!

That’s part of the excitement of birding.  You never know what you may find when you venture out on a birding trip.  And on occasion, just a casual glance out the kitchen window might yield the surprise of a lifetime.

Apr 28 2015

Weekend Shorebirds and Waders

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Black-necked Stilt - Himantopus mexicanus

A Lifer (for South Dakota!). A lone Black-necked Stilt has been hanging around for several days in Minnehaha County.

It’s still a bit early for a lot of the songbirds to be moving through (particularly for warblers, the group I love to look for in the spring), so my recent birding efforts have focused on shorebirds and wading birds.  South Dakota is actually a great place for shorebirds in the spring and the fall, as we have such a great variety of migrants that move through here. In addition to the common ones, you never know when you might find a rarity.

Over the last several days there has indeed been a rarity that I’ve found, a first for me in the state!  There’s been a lone Black-necked Stilt hanging out at a wetland in northwestern Minnehaha County, a bird that was nice to enough to hang around for a return visit 4 days after I initially found him!  I say “alone”, but in fact he had buddies.  His buddies just happened to be a different species, as he was loosely associating with several American Avocets that were also using the wetland.  It’s always great fun to see and observe Avocets around here.

It’s actually been a bit slow for shorebirds overall though. Part of it is undoubtedly the water conditions.  It’s been very dry here, and several of my favorite shorebird spots don’t even have any water right now.  Despite that, there have been some scattered shorebirds around, with a nice mix of variety (in addition to the Avocets and Stilt).  There have been a few Willet, which always seem kind of drab until they unfold their wings and take flight, showing that gorgeous black-and-white wing pattern.  I have yet to see any Hudsonian Godwits, but I have seen a few scattered Marbled Godwits. There are always plenty of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs around, and Pectoral Sandpipers always seem to be pretty common as they move through too.  Baird’s and Semipalmated Sandpipers are also around as usual, with a few scattered Least Sandpipers too.

American Avocet - Recurvirostra americana

Always a fun one to see, and watch as they feed…an American Avocet.

There are three other kinds of shorebirds I’ve found too that are some of my favorites.  I ran into a group of about 15 Semipalmated Plovers, probably the most I’ve ever seen at once, as they normally seem pretty solitary.  They always look so dapper to me and couple with their very small size, they’re just so darn cute.  Another favorite are Wilson’s Phalarope which are pretty common around here right now.  The birds themselves are beautiful, but it’s their behavior that’s such a great attraction, with flocks of them sitting on the water’s surface and spinning around like mad-men as they try to swirl up food items in the water column.  One more favorite are Dunlin, seemingly yet just another small shorebird until you see that distinctive black belly patch.

A nice variety overall, but there are still quite a few shorebirds I normally see in the spring that I haven’t seen yet.  Bigger wading birds are starting to arrive too, including a nice group of White-faced ibis I saw the other day (a species I don’t see all that often).  Black-crowned Night-herons have arrived, as have Great and Snowy Egrets.

White-faced Ibis - Plegadis chihi

Two of five White-faced Ibis found at Lake Thompson, actually the first I’ve seen there.

I’ve also had some nice luck not only hearing, but seeing a couple of species that are normally pretty camera shy!  Sora are something you hear pretty frequently in wetlands, and although I thought it was a bit early for them, I was fortunate this week to not only hear them in two different spots, but to actually see and photograph them.  Nice to add to a relatively sparse number of photos I had of the species!  Virginia Rails may as well be the Sora’s “Twins” in terms of shy behavior, but I also heard a rail and caught a glimpse of him moving through the wetland.

The weather’s been lovely, and the birds are arriving! I can’t wait for the coming days as the full-fledged songbird migration adds to all the fun that the shorebirds and wading birds have given me!

 

 

 

Apr 28 2015

Eegads!! Feathers and Folly hacked!! A new blog…

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments

ACK!  My old blog, “Feathers and Folly”, was hacked!  I started receiving notices from Google that my overall site had been hacked, but I had no idea what the issue was. I brought up all my web pages, and they looked normal.  It wasn’t until I went onto a Google Forum and asked for help that someone pointed out the problem.

When you looked at my old pages, they seemed fine, just how I wanted them to look.  But some searches involving my site on Google including some pretty awful stuff, links that would redirect you from my site to other, pretty nefarious sites.

I’m looking at this as an opportunity to start fresh!  Given that I didn’t update my old blog very often, I’m starting anew.  I deleted all “Feathers and Folly” material and this will be the new companion blog to South Dakota Birds and Birding. With a fresh start, I hope to post more often, including the following:

  • Recent birding trips and photos
  • Photo stories, describing the experience of getting a specific photo
  • “In the News”, news stories involving birds and birding
  • Conservation issues, involving news or related material about conservation of habitats and the creatures that live in them.
  • Science/Research, highlighting new research in ornithology and related topics.

Check back soon and I hope to keep the NEW South Dakota Birds Blog updated frequently!!

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