Author: Doug Backlund

I had a few pretty good nights, I put in some hours, staying up to around 2 AM. That gave me about 3-4 hours of shooting time each night, assuming everything went smoothly. I lost some time the first night because the guide scope had lost focus and it was difficult getting it back in focus.

I spent most of my time on this, the Crescent Nebula. This is the first time I’ve tried it with the IDAS Nebula Booster filter and it sure made a difference. For the first time I can see the bluish light emitted from oxygen around the nebula. Even better, at the bottom, slightly right of center, is the rarely imaged Soap Bubble Nebula. It wasn’t even discovered until 2007, by an amateur astrophotographer. It is a very faint planetary nebula.

Here’s some info on the Crescent Nebula from Wikipedia:

The Crescent Nebula (also known as NGC 6888, Caldwell 27, Sharpless 105) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1792. It is formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 (HD 192163) colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant around 250,000 to 400,000 years ago. The result of the collision is a shell and two shock waves, one moving outward and one moving inward. The inward moving shock wave heats the stellar wind to X-ray-emitting temperatures.

This is M16, also known as the Eagle Nebula, which harbors the structures known as the ‘Pillars of Creation”, made famous by photos taken from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. I’ve done this before but a long time ago, before I had guiding tools and the new filter.

A cropped view with a larger view of the Pillars of Creation. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions. The Eagle Nebula lies in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way.

Birding Insects

More Birds

I’m still here in the Black Hills. It is has been pretty cool and also quite a bit of rain, one afternoon I got hailed on, lots of hail but it was small. I’m up to 332 species of birds for the year. At my campsite, the pine cone crop is nonexistent, but I can drive about 5 miles north and there are lots of cones, and that is where I got my latest species, a Red Crossbill. The weather looks suitable for some astrophotography for the next few nights, so if that works out I will be staying up late.

I was at Mud Springs when I got this male Red Crossbill. At first it stayed high in the trees, as I was about to leave it flew down low and landed on a short pine. It actually let me walk up pretty close to it.

I went to Newcastle for groceries and on the way drove up to the Elk Mountain Lookout. In past years, I’ve found nesting Lewis’s Woodpeckers up there and this year was no exception. By the 4th of July they are always feeding young.

At my favorite bird photography spot, an Ovenbird posing on a lichen covered log.

Western Tanagers are easy at my photo spot, this female came in very close, the male is out of focus behind her.

While hiking out from the photo spot, I got this Juniper Hairstreak on a coneflower.

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.

Birding Flowers and Plants Insects Mammals

Slim Buttes

I’ve been checking out the area, picking up a few more new birds. Yesterday there was an eBird alert on a Cassin’s Kingbird just 20 miles away, so I went to look for it this morning. I did not find it and neither did another birder who came to look for it. Cassin’s Kingbird is quite rare in South Dakota but I saw lots of them in Arizona and New Mexico this spring. I did finally find a Mountain Bluebird though, which brought me up to 324 species.

I found a pair of Long-billed Curlews on the Park Road, they must have had young ones hidden in the grass as they kept harassing me. This may be the best flight shot I’ve ever got of a Long-billed Curlew.

A mother Pronghorn with her twins. There are lots of Pronghorns around, this just happened to be close to the road and in nice light!

I was at the pond in Deer Draw this morning, when I heard a slurping sound. I crept up to the pond and saw this cow Elk in the water, as soon as she saw me she took off. Photo in bad light.

Yellow Avens (*Geum aleppicum*) with a visiting Nomad Bee. Yellow Avens is a common flower that is native across temperate North America, Europe and Asia.

A Badger I saw way out on the prairie, I could not get closer.

Wilson’s Snipe on a post by a small wetland.

The 324th species for my year list, a Mountain Bluebird.

Birding Flowers and Plants Insects

Out West Again

I’m currently in the Slim Buttes of Harding County. I spent a few days at a Shadehill Reservoir campground, near Lemmon, South Dakota. The Grand River National Grassland is in this area and is a good place to get Baird’s Sparrow. I left there this morning and its a good thing as that campground just got hit by a severe thunderstorm, with large hail and strong wind. It is nice here. So far no mosquitoes. I’m up to 322 species of birds for the year now. It is getting harder to find new ones, but I seem to get one or two every day since I left Pierre.

Finding a Caspian Tern was surprisingly difficult but I finally got one on Discovery Island while I was still in Pierre.

A wet Baird’s Sparrow. I only saw three and heard several, the Merlin app picked up more but I couldn’t hear them. A very secretive bird that usually hides in the grass, on this morning I found this one on the road, I assume it was avoiding the wet grass.

My 322nd species for the year, Trumpeter Swans at the JB Pond. They have nested there for several years now.

A fledgling Chestnut-collared Longspur in the rain. I suspect these young birds were having a hard time staying warm. Some seemed quite lethargic. There were lots of them on the road and I saw some dead ones.

A distant shot of a Short-eared Owl. This is another species that I haven’t seen for a long time. I’m hoping for some better opportunities!

A Silvery Blue butterfly, one of the few butterflies I’ve been able to photograph recently.

The Grand River National Grassland has an abundance of wild flowers, I selected this one to show, Yellow Sundrops, *Oenothera serrulata*.

A female Lazuli Bunting that posed nicely for me.

Birding Flowers and Plants Herps

More Birds and Few Other Things

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date June 6, 2024
2 Comments on More Birds and Few Other Things

My 2024 year bird list keeps growing, but more slowly. I’m up to 310 species now. Perhaps the most exciting was a Scarlet Tanager on LaFramboise Island. Scarlet Tanagers are not very common in this part of the world. A Dunlin was another good find but I had already seen one in Arizona this year so it didn’t add to my species list.

I got this male Scarlet Tanager yesterday. This morning, Rick and Susan went back with me and we found the male and this time a female. I didn’t get any photos better than this one though.

Susan spotted a patch of Meadow Anemones, I haven’t seen this plant in flower for a long time so I had to take a photo.

A Blue Grosbeak in the shelterbelt behind the house. I had spotted this bird a few days before but this is the first chance I’ve had to photograph it.

I made another trip to the Fort Pierre National Grasslands to pick up a few new species. I got some Greater Prairie Chickens and some Chestnut-collared Longspurs. I found a pair of longspurs that were on a prairie dog mound, this female was preening and fluffing out enough to reveal a brood patch.

Here’s the male in flight, not the best photo but not too bad either. In the same area, I got 5 Greater Prairie Chickens but they all flushed at a distance so no photos.

An Upland Sandpiper walking through the grass, the yellow flowers are buttercups.

Another nice find, a Dunlin at the same wetland the Red Knot was found at a couple of weeks ago. There are only two other records in eBird of a Dunlin on the FPNG.

Another first for the year, a Field Sparrow.

Here’s a Prairie Rattlesnake I came across in the prairie dog colony. I wanted to get it in better light but it went down a hole before I could get it to move.

Nothing special, a Common Yellowthroat, but I really like this sharp image as it clings sideways on a cattail stalk.

Birding Flowers and Plants

300 Species of Birds

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date May 23, 2024

I’m back in Pierre, South Dakota again. I picked up a few more birds in Nebraska but since I’ve been back in South Dakota, I have picked up 47 more species. Today, I got the 300th, a pair of Common Terns. Just a few minutes ago, 301 with a Common Nighthawk fly over. I missed a lot of migrants though, I found hardly any migrant warblers, vireos, and sparrows. I missed out on Harris’s Sparrows and others that I expected to get. I will have to try for some of those in the fall. But, I’m still doing pretty good, I have almost double the number of species I had this time last year.

By far the best bird I’ve seen since getting back to SD is this Red Knot. Dan Svingen found it on the Fort Pierre National Grassland and it stayed long enough for several local birders to see it. I have seen eight Red Knots in South Dakota in my lifetime.

Also present were a good number of Short-billed Dowitchers. There were a lot of shorebirds present.

Of the few migrant warblers I saw, I did manage a couple of Magnolia Warblers. I also got Blackpoll and Tennessee warblers.

Then there are the local breeding warblers, like this American Redstart.

On my way through Nebraska, I stopped at Valentine National Wildlife Refuge for a short walk. I saw these flowers along a trail, different than anything I’ve seen in the northern plains. This is Manystem Pea, *Lathyrus polymorphus*. It is a legume that is found in sandy soils of Nebraska, northeast Colorado and southwest South Dakota.

Birding Photography

Timpas

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date May 15, 2024

I left Bosque del Apache yesterday morning and drove straight through to Timpas, near La Junta, CO. I’ve stayed at Timpas before, it is a Forest Service picnic area/campsite in the Comanche National Grassland, no cell phone service and therefore no internet for me. There is usually no one there and that’s what I found when I got there last night. It was windy and cloudy, but I was still able to find a Cassin’s Sparrow. This morning, the weather was much better, the Cassin’s Sparrows were easy and I got some nice photos. That accomplished, I drove north to Rocky Ford where I picked up a Mississippi Kite (I saw them there last spring too), then north to the Pawnee National Grassland where I was hoping for Thick-billed Longspur (McCown’s Longspur) and Mountain Plover. I got the longspurs but saw no plovers. With a few other new birds for the year, I’m now up to 250 species. Tonight, I’m in the Cabelas RV park in Sidney, NE.

Cassin’s Sparrow on cholla. Early morning light and a nice background, I like it!

A closer look at a Cassin’s Sparrow. They aren’t much to look at but they make up for it with their song, given in flight.

Timpas is right by a railroad, but there are few trains. The only trains I’ve seen are the Amtrak. One went by last night and another this morning. I was out birding when this one came by so I got a photo with the Scamp in front.

Birding Herps

Bosque del Apache NWR

I’m in the Bosque del Apache Birders RV park again. I paid for two nights. I’m doing pretty good on the birds I wanted to get here. I investigated a new place, Water Canyon in the Cibola National Forest about 15 miles west of Socorro. I’ve always wanted to check it out but I’m always towing the camper when I go by and I never want to explore strange Forest Service roads with the Scamp following me. It is actually OK for small campers, there is a campground and there are several dispersed camping sites. Located fairly high in the Magdalena Mountains (almost 7000 ft. elevation), it would be cool place to spend the summer sometime. It is pine forest with some spruce, and lower down juniper and pinyon pine. A small stream runs in the canyon.