Doug Backlund Travel and Photography

Ajo!

I made it to Ajo last Sunday, late in the afternoon. I drove all the way from Bosque del Apache NWR, a long day. I don’t drive much over 60 mph when towing, so it takes awhile. Anyway, I was happy to see my favorite spot was empty when I got to the campground. There are only a few other outfits here. I got the astrophotography equipment set and am taking images tonight.

This Eastern Phoebe has been at Lake Ajo for several weeks now, I was hoping it would stay untill I got here, as I needed the species for my year list. Species 376 for the year.

I saw two Gray Fox in trees yesterday. This one had an odd position, with its head held down below a fork in the branch.

A Pyrrhuloxia in the cactus garden at Bosque del Apache NWR.

Another new bird for the year, an American Golden Plover at Bosque del Apache NWR.

It’s not often I can get a good shot of a Northern Harrier. This female posed for a lot of shots.

A Cooper’s Hawk on the hunt at Bosque del Apache NWR.

Birding

Heading South

I’m finally on the way. My first and second nights are at Lake McConaughay State Park in Nebraska. This lake and Lake Ogalla are well known for good gulls, ducks and often jaegers. I’ve never birded the area before so I thought this fall would be a good time to check it out. There are literally thousands of ducks and gulls around! I picked up two more species new for the year, Long-tailed Duck and White-winged Scoter. I was especially happy to see the White-winged Scoters as it has been many years, well over a decade, since I’ve seen any. The photos aren’t great but good enough for eBird, see my checklist at this LINK. The two new duck species put me at 373 for the year.

The day before I left, Rick called to tell me the Short-billed Gull (formerly Mew Gull) was back at the tailrace. This being the fourth time I’ve gone up there to see the bird and and find it gone, I finally got it. Here it is in front of a Ring-billed Gull. Other birds I’ve picked up since my last post include Lapland Longspur and Rusty Blackbird.

Here’s one of three Rusty Blackbirds I saw on Farm Island.

I’ve seen a few Fox Sparrows this fall but had no photos to show, until a few days ago. A couple of the Fox Sparrows started coming in to the feeders at Farm Island. All I have to do is park the truck by the feeders and wait.

Also got this nice shot of a female Purple Finch.

Birding

A Life Bird-Brambling!

This morning I decided to sit in the truck by the Farm Island feeders and do some photography. I was actually hoping for a Fox Sparrow to come in, but after a few minutes I briefly saw another bird, from the back, that looked very unusual. I could see it was more brightly colored than the Harris’s Sparrows that were also present, but then it flew off. I sat there wondering, could that have been a Brambling? Nah, couldn’t be. I sat there another 15 minutes or so when all of the sudden there was a Brambling! Wow! I managed to get some photos, despite the thick clouds and low light. I put out some alerts on eBird and the local birder hotline, and within 20 minutes almost every birder I know in the Pierre area was there. Everyone got to see it.

The Brambling is a widespread species in northern Europe and Asia during breeding season. It is migratory, wintering in southern Europe, North Africa, southern Asia and Japan. It frequently strays into Alaska during migration and there are scattered records across the northern United States and southern Canada. In South Dakota, there are two previous records, and hardly anyone got to see either of those.

Brambling in the fallen leaves. This makes 603 species of birds on my ABA area list. I was at 605 but there were some taxonomic changes so I lost three species so now I have to find two more to get back to where I was. For South Dakota, my life list is now at 374, Hughes County 318.

Here’s one more. The light was pretty bad and I had a lot of blurry photos, so I’m glad a few came out OK.

Birding

More Birds

I’m still here. The weather is getting colder and the days are shorter. I will need to head south soon. I’m getting my drivers license renewed on Monday and then at the first break in the weather, I will depart. I’m up to 367 species for the year now. Lately, I’ve added a Northern Shrike and a Rough-legged Hawk, both with only poor photos taken. A few days ago, I got three Surf Scoters, also with very poor photos taken from a great distance. I do have some better bird photos to show.

One of my favorite birds, a Golden-crowned Kinglet. My sister Sally was with me and she picked them up on Merlin, it didn’t take long to find them, three Golden-crowned Kinglets. As always, they are very active and difficult to photograph, this one turned out well.

One morning, while driving down the Farm Island causeway, a Merlin smoked a robin right in front of me. This behavior is called mantling, guarding fresh caught prey by spreading the wings over it.

The Merlin flew a short distance with the robin and began to pluck it.

Here’s another new bird for the year, a Purple Finch. This female and few other females and one male are feeding mostly on Green Ash seeds.

A Red-bellied Woodpecker peeking around the trunk.

On the left, a Red-necked Grebe, another new bird for the year. I was hoping to get one before I head south and here it is.

While walking on Farm Island this morning, I found this dead Northern Short-tailed Shrew (*Blarina brevicauda*). The saliva of this species contains a toxin used to paralyze and subdue its prey. The toxin is strong enough to kill small animals (up to mouse sized) and results in painful bites to humans who attempt to handle the shrew. I often see dead shrews like this and sometimes voles and mice, laying out in the open and I wonder what it is that kills and then leaves them there. Possibly the shrews are not very appealing as food, but that doesn’t explain the mice and voles I see like this.

Astrophotography Birding

A Comet and More Birds

I’m sure most readers have heard about the recent comet as it has been all over the news lately, C/2023 A3 ( Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). Apparently it was quite bright for a few days after it emerged from the glow of the sun, but I missed it for a long time due to clouds. Finally, one night I went out and set up my camera, and right on schedule more clouds came in. I could still see it but it wasn’t all that great. Compared to Comet Neowise, I would classify it as a dud! However, this comet did have a nice anti-tail and I was glad to capture that.

Here it is, C/2023 A3 ( Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), photographed through some high clouds. I could see it with the unaided eye on this night. The faint anti-tail is quite apparent.

The following night, I tried again. Due to some unforeseen glitches with my camera, the results were not very good, the backgound is blotchy and vignetted. Also, the comet had faded out, I could no longer see it without binoculars. The anti-tail does show up better though. It was very hazy and the bright moon made it difficult.

My most exciting bird was this female Bay-breasted Warbler! This is a fairly rare species for our area and I haven’t seen one for many years. It posed for me and I got a lot of nice photos.

A Ring-billed Gull playing catch with a crayfish.

Here is a Field Sparrow that was feeding on the seeds of Big Bluestem.

A Cackling Goose with some Canada Geese, a new bird for the year!

And here is my latest new bird for the year, an American Tree Sparrow, species number 358 for the year. Can I make it to 400? I don’t know, maybe.

Aurora Borealis

Northern Lights Surprise

The sun is quite active now. Another powerful X-class flare was reported today and could give us another round of northern lights on the night of the 9th and 10th. Last week, two X flares sent CME’s (coronal mass ejections) toward Earth. Solar storms were predicted on October 5 and 6, but that turned out to be a dud. However, the last two nights, especially last night (Oct. 7), there were unexpected displays of auroras. Last night, I happened to be out there at just the right time.

It was about 9:30 when I saw pillars showing up in the northeast sky. For the next 10-15 minutes, there was a brilliant display that worked its way across the northern sky. The Pleiades are in the lower right, where the red turns green. At the top center, one can see the Double Cluster.

I stitched two frames together for this pano. I really need to get wider angle lens, something in the 14mm class. At 35mm, I can’t get an entire display in the frame. The bright star Capella can be seen a bit right and lower of the center.

Looking toward the Big Dipper. I enhanced the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

Brilliant reds that the camera captured could be seen with the unaided eye, just not this bright.

Later I noticed a patch of nebulosity in the sky almost directly overhead, so I point the camera at it. I believe this is a SAR (stable red arc). SARs are red arcs in the night sky, with a monochromatic glow at 6300 Å that comes from atomic oxygen in the upper atmosphere. The human eye is relatively insensitive to light at this wavelength. SARs are usually so faint that no one notices when they pass overhead. Cameras catch them easily, though. I think what I could see was the green patch and I’m not sure how that came to be there. I’m going to post this on Spaceweather.com and see if I can get an expert opinion.

Another pano, looking due north. As always, one can can open these images in another window for a larger view, assuming use of a computer and monitor.

Birding

350 +1

Today I crossed 350 species for the year. Folks who do ABA area big years consider getting over 700 species to be a good year. To do that one needs to go Texas, Florida, Alaska, California, and other places, and do some pelagic trips. I’m not doing that, I’m happy just birding South Dakota and Arizona and places in between. Anyway, I finally got the two sparrows that the Sparrow Patch is famous for.

The Sparrow Patch is an eBird hotspot, primarily because it is a good place to get Nelson’s Sparrow and LeConte’s Sparrow in the fall migration. They finally showed up! This is a Nelson’s Sparrow. The gray median crown stripe separates it from the LeConte’s Sparrow, which has a white to orange median crown stripe. There are other differences too, but in the field these are usually the easiest to see.

And here is a LeConte’s Sparrow, this image is a large crop so not the best quality. Both of these sparrows are difficult to photograph, they don’t like to stay out in the open very long. LeConte’s Sparrow was #350 for the year.

Later in the morning I went to Farm Island to check my sunflower seed stashes. I was hoping for a Fox Sparrow, but while watching for sparrows I got this Northern Parula! This may be one of the best photos I’ve taken of the species. Like all the other warblers, it was foraging in the Red-osier Dogwoods.

Another Sedge Wren in the Sparrow Patch.

Birding

More Birds

The weather has been very nice for people but it has not helped with birding. This has been the most dismal warbler migration I can remember. Last spring was bad too and I was hoping to make it up this fall, but it did not work out. I’m missing many species that I should have got, like Northern Waterthrush, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Palm Warbler, to name a few. I guess there is still a chance of seeing some warblers I need but time is running out. Sparrows are starting to pick up though. I’ve added a few more species to my year list, I’m up to 346 species now.

Swamp Sparrows have arrived in numbers. Always difficult to photograph well, I was very happy with this shot.

I finally added Sedge Wren to my year list!

Not a new species for the year, but I like how this Marsh Wren posed for me!

A Spotted Towhee coming in for the sunflower seeds I placed on the ground.

White-throated Sparrows are moving through, this one was at my sunflower seed dump.

An Orange-crowned Warbler with a crab spider. The bird was in the shade against a bright background, difficult processing but I guess it came out OK.

Orange-crowned Warbler in nice light! At this time of year, the warblers love to feed in red-osier dogwood, the leaves harbor lots of aphids and other insects.

Here’s one picking the aphids off the underside of the leaves of red-osier dogwood.

Birding Photography

More Birding News

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date September 18, 2024

The migration continues, but here in the Pierre area warblers have been few and far between. I think most of them have passed through already and the next wave of warblers will be mostly Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumps. I missed many migrant warblers last spring that I was hoping to find this fall. This will hurt my year list but there is not much I can do about it. The good news is the Corp of Engineers opened two stilling basin tubes for two days and that attracted a lot of gulls, including at least two Sabine’s Gulls.

Here’s one of the Sabine’s Gulls. It happened to fly by very close to me! There were thousands of gulls feeding on the dead fish coming through the stilling basin tubes. Go to this LINK to see what the stilling basin looked like in 2011 during the big flood. For my 2024 year list this is species #342.

This morning I was watching a large group of gulls on a causeway when they all took off in panic. This Peregrine Falcon was the cause of the panic. It landed on the road then took off, circled around and flew right over me.

This Merlin was also a new bird for the year. It has an unidentified prey in its talons. It seems like Merlin are getting harder to find every year.

Lesser Black-backed Gulls are arriving in small numbers, the first ones I saw were two adults that were too far away for good photos, and this 2nd cycle bird I found on the Legion Beach, easy to get close to! This morning, I saw five in the Oahe Downstream area.

Not the best photo but a good bird, a dark morph Broad-winged Hawk. I haven’t seen one of these since 2017. See the LINK for the last one I saw, I got better photos of that one.

While hiking on LaFramboise Island a week or so ago, I found some fresh Moose tracks. This isn’t the first time a Moose has shown up here. The local Game, Fish and Park game manager said there was a Moose photographed in western Sully County just a few days before. Perhaps it is the same Moose.

Another gull with fishing lure attached. It is probably doomed to a long, slow death.

Birding

Fall Birding Report

It has been almost three weeks since I’ve made a report, I will have do better than that! I’m back in Pierre for the foreseeable future. It is not truly fall yet but the birds don’t know that. Migration seems to be in full swing but the weather has been so nice that it is hard to find them. Most of the warblers seem to be just passing through. We need a period of bad weather to ground them. The only new warbler for my year list has been Black-and-White Warbler. Other new species for my list are Blue-headed Vireo, Ruddy Turnstone, and Sprague’s Pipit. I got two Sprague’s Pipits this morning, number 339 for the year.