Waterfowl Up Close

Yesterday my family spent the day in Yankton, SD and Sioux Falls, SD. We stopped by a duck pond in Yankton that had a number of ducks, many of which appear to be wild. All of the pictures will get bigger if you click on them if you would like to see the finer details on the birds.
The first picture here is of a Snow Goose. It is not often that you see them up close because they are usually out in the fields during migration. The duck pond provided safe haven for injured geese who loved the food we brought them.
A couple Ross's Goose were there. They were so small and cute and had the brightest white feathers I have ever seen on a bird.

Wood Ducks were also there in numbers. I got great shots of both males and females. They are one of my favorite ducks to photograph since they are such pretty birds.A Mallard (possibly domestic) provided great photo opportunities as well. The lighting was perfect and made the green feathers on it's head shine.

Canada Geese were also there and came in with the other birds to check out what we brought for them to eat.

A Good Friday for Birding

My dad and I got up early today (Good Friday) in order to go visit a Greater Prairie Chicken Lek out in the fine state of Nebraska. When we showed up to the site it didn't take long to find displaying birds. We could see and hear them from the road but as you can tell from the picture below we couldn't manage to get a great photo. It was neat to see them inflate their neck sacs with air and dance around. One female in particular had three crazy male birds booming around her.
I have been out to these Leks before to see the chickens but the other two times I have been out there the winds were very strong, the birds were fewer in number, and you couldn't hear them. It was nice to view them on a nice calm morning when I could take it all in. We easily saw close to twenty birds on two Lek sites within an hour.

After we observed the prairie chickens for a while we decided to head out to Yankton to see what birds were around the lake and dam. I had a couple year birds including Pied-billed Grebe and Great Egret. There was a lot there just not much variety. I had some fun photographing the birds there and I got a very nice shot of a Ring-billed Gull that came down to check out our cinnamon rolls. The Bonaparte's Gulls however were not interested in what we had to offer.
The most common bird there was the American Coot. They were all over the place in the thousands. Some birds were out of the water feeding on the grass. During the summer there is one particular location where they are all over the road and it is like the parting of the Red Sea as they run to get out of the way of your car.
I really liked this picture. It is not the prettiest or the sharpest but I loved that the coots were side by side, one with the wings up and one with the wings down as they took off.

After our birdwatching around the lake we had to head home. We did howeverdo a little birdwatching when we stopped at a small city pond. It had a few "wild waterfowl" there including Wood Duck and Ross's Goose (pictured).It was a good Friday for birding indeed with three new year birds and nice weather!

Birding 'round the Lake

On Saturday the local Audubon group headed out to Yankton, SD to do some birding. A large reservoir called Lewis and Clark Lake was created along the Missouri River and it is a favorite birding spot of many avid birdwatchers

*FOY=first of the year

On the way there we saw some gulls including my FOY Franklin's Gull. When we got there it didn't take long to find birds. We stopped at a lake below the dam for birds first. Many waterfowl species were on the lake with 21 species present. Highlight birds around the lake included Cackling Goose, FOY Red-breasted Mergansers, FOY Horned Grebe, Great Blue Heron, FOY Bonaparte's Gull, and a Merlin. I got a picture of a not-so-shy Ruddy Duck that was swimming about 30 feet away from me at the time I took the picture.We also birded the river below the dam and saw Ring-billed and Herring Gulls but not much else. Roger, a local birdwatcher, took us out to a spot where there were several species of shorebirds present. Besides the ever annoying Killdeer we found Greater Yellowlegs, a FOY Dunlin, and over 40 FOY Baird's Sandpipers.

After a nice morning of birding we went and had lunch at a large cabin owned by an Audubon member that overlooks the lake. We saw a few birds there on the feeders including some Pine Siskins that posed for some pictures.

After we had a great lunch we headed over to a marina on the Nebraska side of the lake (the SD-NE border runs down the middle of the lake) to see an active Bald Eagle nest. Much to our delight a Bald Eagle was sitting on the nest when we showed up. That was the first time I have seen an active nest.
We saw a number of birds on the way back home. We cut through Nebraska and saw 16 American Kestrels (I saw more kestrels than I have ever seen in a day in the period of 1 1/2 hrs.), a FOY Swainson's Hawk, and a FOY Loggerhead Shrike.

Not a bad day with 74 species seen and a few year birds to put my year list at 118.

From the Hills to the Valley

Today was muggy and warm (it got up to almost 70 degrees F). It was cloudy all day long but there were birds out despite that.
The most interesting thing that I observed was a flight of 20-30 hawks over my house within a 15 minute period. The lighting was terrible and I didn't get my scope out in time to i.d. them all. Most were Red-tailed Hawk although there were probable some others in with them. I saw a kettle of 12 birds moving over at one time. They came in quickly and left quickly, giving me limited time to view them.
Late in the afternoon my dad and I went out and explored the hills south of our house. There weren't many birds, but there were a few interesting ones. I found a group of 18 Ring-necked Ducks in one pond together as well as a Turkey Vulture. The first vulture I saw this year flew over my house the day before spring. Here is a shot I got of it as it headed north.

We didn't see much more on our jaunt in the hills. I did however find a Mourning Cloak butterfly at a county owned nature area which was a pleasant surprise. We decided to head out of the hills and go down to the Missouri River valley. We checked a couple dairy ponds to check for migrant shorebirds and waterfowl. We found four species of shorebirds at the ponds three of which were year birds: Killdeer, Lesser Yellowlegs, Greater Yellowlegs, and Pectoral Sandpiper. A nice array of waterfowl were also at the ponds including a few Common Mergansers as well as the more common waterfowl. Snow Geese are getting scarce now so seeing one at the ponds was a treat.When we got home we were greeted by our dogs and a nice springtime thunderstorm.

It's that time of year again...

It's springtime again and the birds are on the move. The past couple days I have been out watching the waterfowl, looking for some new arrivals. Birds are literally all over the place around the wetlands. The skies are filled with many flocks of ducks and are almost always filled with something to see. Among the thousands of ducks and geese I picked out some year birds including American Wigeon, Blue-winged Teal, Canvasback, Northern Shoveler, and Ruddy Duck. Ring-billed Gulls were also migrating through but were only around for a short time. Killdeer and Common Grackles as well as the occasional Brown-headed Cowbird are back and are as annoying as usual. The warm weather the past few days has really pushed the birds north with the south winds. Today it got up to a beautiful 73 degrees Fahrenheit, the warmest it's been all year. At last, winter has released it's icy grip on our area that seemed to be colder than usual this year.

The Birds Are Moving (slowly)

As I type this the temps outside are in the single digits (5 degrees to be exact). As you may be able to guess we are still waiting for the waterfowl pour in. I have seen no divers or dabblers anywhere this spring except for Blue Lake, which is a ways to the south. The geese have been seen on and off but nothing sectacular.
Last week we had a warm-up allowing for some birds to make their way north. I had the first Killdeer of the year fly over my yard, as well as four species of geese. One thing that also caught my attention was a group of 22 American Crows flying over. Crows are certainly not unexpected here, but I have never seen that many in a group over my house.
I hope that warmer weather comes soon since this winter has been unusually long and cold. Looking back to last year waterfowl migration was at it's peak about now, but they just haven't come this far north yet. I remember seeing lots of birds migrating in late February last year but this year is different. I guess I will just have to wait.....

It's a Tundra!

With the excitement of the Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival behind me, it's hard to make my blog posts nearly as exciting as they were, since there just aren't as many neat birds to talk about. Even though I don't have as many birds to talk about there are still some things that may be of interest to you, like the fact that I got my lifer Tundra Swan today.

There was a secondhand report that a group of twenty swans had been seen at Blue Lake, about forty minutes from where I live. The report was verified by a well known birdwatcher. The flock found by the birdwatcher was much less than twenty, with only nine individuals at the lake. Among these nine was a lone Tundra Swan and the rest were Trumpeters. I had never seen a Tundra Swan before and they are hard to find anywhere in our area, so I decided to try to see the bird at Blue Lake.

When I went there today all nine swans were still present, and in with them was the Tundra Swan. I managed to get a distant photo of it as it swan around with the other swans. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the small yellow spot on the lores to show. Of course this didn't come as any surprise to me because of the fact that the bird was on the other side of the lake. Although the yellow lores are not evident, the overall smaller size than the nearby Trumpeter Swans and the bill shape gives away the identity. I sat there and watched as they swam around the lake together. They took off for a while, probably to get food, but came back soon after. The Tundra Swan, besides being a beautiful bird was my 304th life bird.
The weather has been fair the past couple days which has made it possible for some ducks and geese to inch their way north a bit. A number of other birds were on the lake along with the swans. I found ten other species of waterfowl there with Wood Duck and Redhead being my personal favorites. A lone American Coot was also on the lake, which kind of surprised me. With all these birds migrating it looks like this colder than average winter is finally making its way out of here!

Birding in the Snow

Looking out the window early in the morning I noticed big, fluffy snowflakes falling from the sky. I was to go birding in an hour or so and it was snowing fairly hard. Despite this I got dressed and ready and my dad and I were headed out the door. The reason I got up so early was the fact that a strange duck had been found at the Port Neal Flyash Ponds. The bird of note was a possible Mottled Duck that was seen there. I drove with Paul, a local birder, and we headed out to get there very early. We met up with two other birders there, also in search of the bird. After getting clearance to get in we drove into the area and started scoping the many ducks that were there.
After a couple hours of searching we found Ross's, Snow, Canada, Cackling and Greater White-fronted Goose, American Wigeon, Northern Pintail, Wood Duck, Common Goldeneye, Mallard, and more out in the water but nothing like a Mottled Duck was there. A few Ring-billed Gulls flew around there as well adding to the show. One unexpected sight was that of a Least Sandpiper that was foraging on the ice! After searching there for sometime we decided to go down to the river where we found few birds, with Great Blue Heron being the most interesting. After our fruitless search we headed over the Owego Wetlands. Birds of interest included eight Rough-legged Hawks and several Northern Harriers but not much else was out and about.

We then made our way up into the hills to look for sparrows and other interesting things that may be hanging out up there. We saw many of the usual birds as well as a few more Rough-legged Hawks, making our total for the day 12. After that we headed back to the river valley to finish our trip. Only a few birds were seen during this part of the trip. One interesting thing that we did see was a young Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree with one wing open and placed (or stuck) on a branch. I took this photo just before he flew off. The day then came to an end and I went back home after a nice (not weather wise) day of birding.