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Birding Flowers and Plants

Back in the Black Hills

I left the Slim Buttes on Wednesday and headed for Spearfish Canyon. I got a campsite at Rod and Gun Campground. It has been a few years since I’ve in this part of the hills and it didn’t take long to remember why. There are ATV’s and people everywhere. The development of Roughlock Falls has done nothing but attract more people. Anyone who wants some quiet must be there at sunrise, then one can have a couple of hours of quiet for some birding. At any rate, I was glad to leave. I am back at my quiet spot in the southern Black Hills. It is free (Rod and Gun is $21.50 a night) and quiet. The logging is pretty much over or has moved far to the south. This morning I hiked up Hell Canyon and picked up a Lewis’s Woodpecker for my year list. At Jumpoff Spring I added a Townsend’s Solitaire. I’m up to 330 species now for my year list.

One of my target birds at Roughlock Falls was a Veery, which had been reported on eBird. It didn’t take long to find it early Thursday morning.
American Dippers have nested at the falls for many years, probably centuries. I found this one roosting over the waterfall and caught it winking its white eyelid. It is thought that dippers use the white eyelid to signal each other. In their noisy environment, visual signals work better than calls.
I also visited Ward Draw, hoping for some other birds I needed and got several Golden-crowned Kinglets. Ward Draw was a pleasant change from Roughlock Falls, no one else was there.
In Ward Draw I saw lots of Twinflower, a common flower in spruce forest of the Black Hills.

On the Rimrock Trail above Rod and Gun Campground I came across a few Wood Lily.
A Bee-mimic Robber Fly. I don’t think I have ever seen one before. This was in Ward Draw.

One reply on “Back in the Black Hills”

I had no idea Dippers signaled woth their eyelids! Wow. That Kinglet shot is pretty neat. That’s the bird that got me into birding as a teen.

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