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. Here it is again. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At my usual spot for fall Sprague’s Pipits, a prairie dog colony in the Fort Pierre National Grassland. These birds respond well to playback during fall migration. They will fly right in and land. Another Sprague’s Pipit, in the same area. While I was looking for the pipits, a Ferruginous Hawk flew overhead. It was almost two weeks ago when I got into a nice flock of migrants, there were two Blue-headed Vireos in it. All I could get were photos of this bird straight overhead. This Black-and-White Warbler was almost overhead too. I have seen quite a few of these but they are always difficult to photograph. Another new one for the year, a Ruddy Turnstone. It was on a Missouri River sand bar maybe 400 yards from the road. I had good views through the spotting scope but it was too far away for a good photo. I tried anyway and got lucky with this take-off shot, clearly showing the black and white wing and tail pattern of a Ruddy Turnstone. This is the first Ruddy Turnstone I’ve seen in many years. A juvenile Caspian Tern. I rarely see the species in this plumage. Here’s an unusual sight, for two reasons. One, this Great Blue Heron is swimming in deep water, at least 8 ft. deep. I don’t recall ever seeing that before. The second reason is it has caught a paddlefish! I wish I had seen this entire event, but this is all I got and I can verify that it was able to fly away with the paddlefish. I see this too often. Gulls (and other birds) with fishing lures caught in their beaks, or wrapped up in fishing line. I have a collection of photos like this.
Yesterday afternoon, there were several thunderstorms that went through the area, with lots of lightning but little rain. The National Weather Service had issued a red flag warning and it was a good warning. It was almost sundown when I saw smoke to my south and more smoke to my west. The smoke to the south was more worrisome, there was lots of it and it was hard to tell how far away it was.
This is what it looked like from my camp. I decided I needed to investigate before getting too worried about it. Could be 5 miles away or 20 miles or more. I drove up Mann Road to the highway, where there is a good view to the south. At 400mm focal length this is what it looked like. I still wasn’t sure how far away it was but I felt like I was in no danger unless the wind started blowing hard from the south. As it turned it, on the news this morning I learned this is the Red Canyon Fire and it is about 20 miles south of my camp. This is the smoke from the other fire, rising up over the Elk Mountains to my west and no threat to me. A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher has just caught a stink bug. Lost Spring. There seems to be a bumper crop of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers in this area. I finally got the Pinyon Jays in Ferguson Canyon. I’ve been checking for them every time I go to Newcastle for groceries, this time it paid off. Species number 334 for the year. Not a very good photo, but a very good bird for South Dakota. An Ash-throated Flycatcher, only the second record for South Dakota. This was at Lost Spring. I thought maybe some other birders would come to look for it but no one else ever showed up. I have so many photos of Townsend’s Solitaire that I wonder why bother to take more. I guess this is why, I really like this one! Same for the Western Wood-Pewee. As you will notice, it is on the same perch. This is at Baldwin Spring, my favorite bird photography spot in the Black Hills (don’t tell anyone!). A Red Squirrel, also at Baldwin Spring.
I left Pierre last week and headed for my quiet spot, near Jewel Cave. It is much cooler here and I have shade now, a big plus! It has been a very hot summer so far. I’ve just been up to my usual activities, birding, hiking, photography.
While still in Pierre, I spent a morning watching Caspian Terns fishing on the river. I’ve tried to get a good shot of one in a dive but so far, I’ve had no luck with that. It is easy enough to catch them after the dive though!Also while still at Pierre, I got into a few Buff-breasted Sandpipers. I never got very close to them, this is about as good as the photography gets. It is nice to have a Killdeer in the frame for a size comparison. Species number 333 for the year, it is getting harder to find new ones!While photographing birds at Baldwin Spring, I saw this Common Gartersnake at the water. Some still call this the Red-sided Gartersnake. It appeared to be waiting for some prey to show up but I never saw any action like that. A Red-shafted (Northern) Flicker at Baldwin Spring. This is my favorite spring to sit at for bird photography!A female Spotted Towhee in for a drink, right where the gartersnake was. It was a big gartersnake but I don’t know if it could have taken a bird of this size. A Black-capped Chickadee tossing down some kind of insect. It’s that time of year, when the Common Wood-Nymphs come out and fly around. And the Robber Flies too. This is a species known as the Hanging Thieves, known for hanging from a perch instead of landing on it.
I was looking around the area by the camper when I found two Vesper Sparrows obviously agitated about something other than me. I searched the ground near where they seemed to be focusing their attention. And this is what I found. An Eastern Racer had captured one of their nestlings and was in the process of swallowing it. Although the Latin name for this species is Coluber constrictor, Eastern Racers are not a true constrictor, usually swallowing their prey alive. In this case, I think the bird was suffocated first. I watched it for a long time but it finally took the bird into some tall grass where I couldn’t get photos. One afternoon I found this Rufous Hummingbird at the feeder, two days later it is still here and another one has joined it. I took a hike in Hell Canyon this morning and saw two more! This one is an immature female. Here’s one of the Rufous Hummingbirds in Hell Canyon, an immature male. And now a few flowers and butterflies: Richardson’s Geranium, in Hell Canyon. A Reakirt’s Blue on Dalea. And another Juniper Hairstreak, also on Dalea.
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. And here is the male. While hiking out from the photo spot, I got this Juniper Hairstreak on a coneflower.
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.
