Northwestern South Dakota Grasslands – 22 New State Birds, May 2014

Each year I take an extended birding vacation somewhere to work on my various statelists, and hopefully move a step closer to my lifelong goal of reaching the old ABA reportable goals in each of the lower 48 states and DC.  Way back in February when I started to think about where to go this year, my thoughts kept coming back to MT and ND because those were my last 2 states where I had very small lists.  And then when I realized that several possible birding locations would put me only a short drive from SD, I considered a short extension to work on that list as well.  I had a respectable 181 in SD, though had never birded the northwest corner of the state where many of the grassland species breed, so I had a fair potential there as well.

There was no SD birdfinding guide to consult, so I reached out to the SD listserve for advice.  I got several very helpful replies, including one from Dave Swanson who was in the process of writing a guide for SD.  He sent me drafts of siteguides for two sites in the area which were most helpful.  I also was able to connect with Charlie Miller who was the local expert for birds in the area.  In addition to his excellent local knowledge, he was also known for the Saw-whet Owl nesting boxes he had constructed and mounted to trees in the Custer National Forest.  He offered to bird with me in the area, and take me to see the owls.  So I set up a plan for a short trek into SD consisting of two half days, with a goal of adding at least 15 birds to my statelist. 

Day 8 – PM – Custer National Forest and Locations en Route to Lemmon

I entered SD after a successful morning in Rhame Prairie in ND, and soon met up with Charlie.  Our first stop was in the Picnic Spring and Cave Hills portion of the Custer National Forest.  This area is an elevated island of ponderosas and deciduous trees that rises out of the prairie.  Soon after we arrived we had a Say’s Phoebe perched on a cliff edge (statebird #1), and a singing Lazuli Bunting (#2).  We then hiked around in the area a bit and I was lucky enough to spot a soaring Golden Eagle (#3 – and the only one on my trip), and then a cooperative Mountain Bluebird (#4).  I added Mountain Bluebird to all 3 states on my trip, so I have now seen this species throughout most all of its regular range (see my statebird map below).

Birding was a bit slow – it was a hot afternoon – so we got in the cars and headed a bit south and were surprised to spot a lone Avocet (#5) in a small pond.  Charlie then took me to a cliff where Prairie Falcons had nested last year.  And sure enough, they were back again this year (#6).  Couldn’t have gotten these without Charlie’s local knowledge. 

We were then headed to Gardner Lake, principally to try for Brewer’s Sparrow in the sage along the lake entrance road.  But I mentioned to Charlie that I needed some shorebirds for my SD list, so along the way he took me to a small pond where he had seen some recent shorebirds including Avocets that morning.  The Avocets were gone (good thing we saw that one earlier), but we had a few distant shorebirds that had not been there that morning.  In with the Stilt Sandpipers was a Semi Sand (#7) and a Pectoral (#8).  We then headed to Gardner Lake and started to play some tape in the sage area.  It took a while, but eventually we noticed a small sparrow fly in just a short distance away.  And then the Brewer’s Sparrow popped up for a quick view (#9).  Charlie suggested a quick stop at the lake just to see what might be around.  In addition to the regular dabblers, there were 8 Aechmophorus grebes.  The first seven were Westerns, and the 8^th kept diving and didn’t give me good views.  I told Charlie that it was most unlikely that this would be a Clark’s but I wanted to be sure.  And just then it surfaced and stayed up long enough to give me a good scope view – it was indeed a Clark’s Grebe (#10).  That was a surprise.  Along with my sighting in MT, I now have pretty good coverage for this species.

We then headed to the Slim Buttes portion of the Custer NF, which is where Charlie had his Saw-whet boxes.  By far the highlight of the SD part of the trip was when Charlie took me to 2 boxes with active Saw-whet nests.  In each case the female was poking her head from the box when we arrived (#11). 

Charlie needed to monitor the status of the young, and when he opened the box the female would fly out and sit just a short distance away while the box was opened as in this photo taken with my iPhone.

The last new statebird was a not so cooperative Rock Wren that only called once (#12) from some seemingly nice cliff habitat.  Other notable birds were the only 2 Western Tanagers of the trip and a colony of White-throated Swifts (also the only ones for the trip). 

I thanked Charlie for all his help and started the drive northeast to my motel in Lemmon.  Along the way I was driving through some nice cropland and flushed a pair of Gray Partridges and then another one (#13).  That was only my 5^th state for this species that has been elusive for me in the past, though I saw it several times on this trip.

And later I passed by a flooded field with several Marbled Godwits acting like shorebirds instead of prairie nesters (#14).  It was another excellent end of the day.

Day 9 – Morning in the Grand River National Grasslands

When I came out to the car at dawn the ground was wet from a little rain overnight.  Plus the sky to the west and north was extremely dark and I could see numerous lightning strikes.  I didn’t know it at the time but just 8 hours earlier a rare tornado had hit the town of Watford City just about 150 miles northwest of Lemmon.  The clouds I was seeing were undoubtedly part of the same storm system that caused the tornado.

My first quick stop was to check Flat Creek Lake along SR73 for waterfowl and I found a pair of Buffleheads (#15) along with the normal dabblers.  I then headed east into the grasslands at Pasture 7, and as soon as I crossed into the National Grasslands there were numerous Chestnut-collared Longspurs right in the road as if to greet me (#16).  And a short distance farther I stopped and heard the first of many Baird’s Sparrows I had that morning (#17).  Baird’s was a key target of mine on this trip and I heard and/or saw it numerous times in all 3 states.  Although SD was only my 4th state for this species, I’ve now seen it in virtually all of its regular breeding and wintering range in the US.

It was also amazing how many Upland Sandpipers there were – 5 or more per mile.  With two key grassland targets out of the way I headed to a spot where a Sharp-tailed Grouse lek was supposed to be located.  Along the way I stopped briefly at a wet grassy area where a Sedge Wren was singing (#18).  And on the other side of the road was a singing Dickcissel which was a good bird for this location, though not a statebird.  I eventually got to the lek spot and sure enough there was 1 Sharp-tailed Grouse sitting on the crest of the hill (#19). 

Next stop was Lemmon Lake on the east side of the Grassland to try for my last missing waterfowl – Canvasback.  As I was getting closer to the lake I looked back to the west and the clouds were getting more ominous, and the lightning more frequent.  Plus there was this odd low white cloud that was in front of the dark clouds called a roll cloud. 

In any case, the lake was at least 8 miles from paved roads, and I didn’t want to be too far out on the dirt roads if a rain storm should hit.  So I only made a quick stop at the lake and left as soon as I spotted 2 male Canvasbacks (#20).  On the way back to the main road I had one singing Sprague’s Pipit (#21), heard more Baird’s Sparrows, found another Sharp-tailed Grouse lek, had numerous Upland Sandpipers, a few Marbled Godwits, and many longspurs.  It was quite a spot for prairie birds.  I now have Sprague’s in all 3 of its nesting states and 2 states where it is a winterer or migrant.

 

The last stops were to the west to Shadehill Reservoir and the campground at the Hugh Glass Recreation Area.  With one brief stop there didn’t appear to be much on the lake, so I headed directly to the campground.  Migration was pretty much over by now, so I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t have many migrants in the woods and brush around the campground.  Though eventually I ran into a small group of Empids which looked like Willows.  Then one started to sing a good Alder Flycatcher song (#22) which is pretty far west of its normal migration route.  I reported the others as “Traill’s” Flycatchers as who knows which species these silent birds were.  My statebird map for Alder is pretty spotty at least partly due to the fact that these birds are frequently silent during migration.

  

As I was heading out of the campground I heard what I thought was a Lazuli Bunting singing.  It was close to the road so I made a quick stop to track it down and realized it was a Lazuli x Indigo hybrid.  The upper chest was blue instead of rusty red with just a couple rusty feathers on the sides, and the belly was white.  Pretty neat bird on my last stop in SD before heading back into ND.

I tallied 111 species in two half days of birding in SD, including 22 new statebirds.  That gives me 203 for my SD statelist - my 46th state over 200.  And of course I’m closing in on the ABA threshold of 216.  I still need a number of eastern birds in SD, so I’m thinking that a trip to the eastern edge of the state in spring migration might be enough to reach and then exceed the reporting threshold.

Great Plains May 2014 Birding Trip to North Dakota, Montana, and South Dakota

Each year I take an extended birding vacation somewhere to work on my various statelists, and hopefully move a step closer to my lifelong goal of reaching the old ABA reportable goals in each of the lower 48 states and DC.  Way back in February when I started to think about where to go this year, my thoughts kept coming back to MT and ND because those were my last 2 states where I had very small lists.  With statelists of only 78 in ND and 69 in MT, I would have lots of statebirding potential.  Plus I would really like to see Baird’s Sparrow.  Although it was already on my life list, that was based on one sighting decades ago in winter in Arizona which I’m now unsure of.  And then when I realized that several possible birding locations would put me only a short drive from SD, I considered a short extension to work on that list as well.  I had a respectable 181 in SD, though had never birded the northwest corner of the state where many of the grassland species breed, so I had a fair potential there as well.

Now came the hard part – planning the trip.  With no recent history birding in those states, and no contacts out there, I was truly starting from scratch.  I found out that there was a relatively recent birdfinding guide for ND and one a bit older for MT, and eventually got copies of both books which were no longer in print.  I also reached out to the listserves and got excellent input from birders in all 3 states, including making arrangements to bird with local experts in several key areas.  I also gathered some information from e-bird, though there aren’t many birders in most of the areas I was heading to so there wasn’t much e-bird data to review.  After hundreds of hours of planning I set an itinerary with the following objectives –

• North Dakota – 4 days in western and central ND to add at least 100 statebirds, concentrating on those birds most likely to be in the western part of the state.  Eventually I would need to come back to eastern ND to look for the species more typical of the eastern US in order to reach the ABA threshold (or so I thought).
• Montana – 3 days in eastern MT to add at least 100 statebirds, especially aiming for those species only seen in the eastern portion of the state.  Later I would need to make a trip to the mountains in western MT to add those species and reach the threshold.
• SD – add at least 15 birds in a short trip to northwestern SD, with a future trip to eastern SD still needed to reach the threshold.

Summaries of my sightings from each state are in subsequent posts on my blog.  One common theme no manner where I went on the trip was great success with the prairie birds.  For instance I saw and/or heard many Baird’s Sparrow in each state, including this phonescoped bird in MT that was most cooperative.

Sprague’s Pipits were reasonably easy to find once I understood their rather unique habitat of a prairie with short grass similar to Baird’s preference, but the area also needed to be hilly.  I heard Sprague’s in all 3 states as they sang overhead, but was only able to see 2 birds that were so high in the air that they were little more than specks even with 10x binoculars.

Other key prairie targets seen in all 3 states were Chestnut-collared Longspurs that were very common, Sharp-tailed Grouse including a lek of 18 birds in ND, and Marbled Godwits some of which were on territory in the prairie while others acted like shorebirds like this one in a small puddle at the side of the road.

 

Another notable sighting was not of a rarity of any kind, but was associated with buffalo at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in ND.  The buffalo have been introduced there, are free roaming, and appear to be doing quite well.  The interesting part of all this was that most individual buffalos that were feeding had 1 or 2 Cowbirds associating with them.  It made me think about what it must have been like before the late 1800s when the buffalo roamed the plains, and cowbirds were in their natural habitat feeding with them.  If the buffalo were still around today would we be calling these birds “buffalobirds” now?

 Now on to a few specific birding highlights in each state (see my state-specific posts on my blog for more details) –

• North Dakota.  The first day featured stops at Wakopa WMA, International Peace Gardens, and Willow Lake in north-central ND.  Day 2 was in northwestern ND highlighted by birding the Lostwood NWR.  A third day was in southwestern ND at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Ponderosa Pines area.  And then portions of later days were at Rhame Prairie and in the greater Bismarck area.  I saw 201 species, adding 126 to my statelist - much better than I ever expected.  That gives me 204 for my ND statelist – 5 over reportable.  ND is now my 44th reportable state, and the 46th state with at least 200 species.  Included in my totals were several rarities – a female MacGillivray’s Warbler during a major passerine fallout at Willow Lake, a male Black-throated Gray Warbler at Lostwood NWR, and a remarkable albeit brief sighting of a Tringa shorebird that just might have been an alternate plumaged Spotted Redshank during a big fallout of shorebirds across northern ND.

•  Montana.  My stops included wetlands north of Westby, migrant hotspots in Plentywood, and excellent birding at Medicine Lake NWR in the northeast corner of ND.  Farther west I spent a day in the grasslands west of Glasgow and riparian areas around Fort Peck.  Last stops were in riparian woodlands along the Yellowstone River at Severn Sisters and Elk River WMAs, and ponderosa pines east of Miles City.  I saw 161 species in MT, adding 106 to my statelist giving me 175 on my MT list.  I was lucky enough to find 2 rarities on this part of the trip, both at the same spot – a Broad-winged Hawk and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in the Wildwood Park migrant trap in Plentywood.

• South Dakota.  I spent 2 half-days of birding in northwestern SD in the ponderosas and woodlands of Custer National Forest, and in the Grand River National Grassland.  My best birding highlight was seeing Saw-whet Owls nesting in boxes built by local birder Charley Miller.  I saw 111 species, adding 22 to my statelist.  My new total is now 203, just 13 shy of reportable, and my 45th state over 200.

And while birding along the northern tier of ND I realized I was very close to Manitoba one day and Saskatchewan on another day.  Since I had never birded in either province, I decided to make brief 1-hour stops in both locations.  Maybe my 40 species in MB and 48 in SK will help me increase my interest in listing in Canadian provinces which until now has not been a priority (I have only 352 ticks in 5 provinces and 233 species throughout Canada). 

By all measures my Great Plains trip was a great success, meeting or exceeding each of my statebirding objectives.  I ended up with 222 species overall while adding 342 total ticks in 8 days of birding – not too shabby.  And now I have more than 13,000 total ticks per the ABA definition.  Many thanks to those great local birders whose birdfinding help was invaluable.  Plus I even got a lifebird assuming I count the Redshank. 

I’m already thinking about future trips to these states.  Even though I’m now reportable in ND, I prefer to be at least 15 over the old ABA threshold to make sure I stay over the threshold in the future, so I still have 10 more to go.  So the one future trip would be to eastern ND and SD, likely including western IA (33 short of reportable), eastern NE (7 over threshold) and western MN (8 over threshold).  A second trip would be to western MT to clean up on the montane species (41 short of reportable), likely combined with the mountains of ID where I’m reportable but just by 2 birds. 

7 Statebirds in WV and 1 More in PA, May 2014

Since early in 2014 my work has required me take several trips to Pittsburgh which is a location I haven’t traveled to in quite some time.  Pittsburgh is only about a 90 minute drive from some good birding areas in northern WV, and since I’ve needed to work on my WV state list, of course I’ve squeezed in a bit of WV birding time on these trips.  I started 2014 right at the old ABA reportable threshold for WV.  And then with a trip in March, I added 8 new waterfowl even though I had just 1 hour of birding time.  Then with a late afternoon in April I added 3 more – putting me 11 over the old threshold.  My somewhat arbitrary goal is to be 15 over threshold in each state (to stay above that limit hopefully forever), so only 4 more to go.  My next trip was in early May quite well timed during passerine migration.  So I connected with my Morgantown, WV birding friend Terry Bronson and he developed a plan to help me find some of my possible statebirds.  I had a couple hours in the evening and much of the next morning for birding time, so I was hopeful that I could get maybe 2-3 new statebirds.

I met Terry near dinner time of the first day and he greeted me with his list from that morning – it had been a major fallout in Morgantown with 8 birds that would have been new for my statelist.  Unfortunately I was 12 hours too late.  But maybe some would stick around.  We went right to Core Arboretum where Terry had all his birds that morning, and began to retrace his tracks.  The first area was where he had had a Cape May, several Swainson’s Thrushes, and a Least Flycatcher, but we dipped on all three.  We did have the first of several Nashville Warblers there though - new statebird #1.  We continued to bird the park, finding a reasonable number of migrant warblers, but still missing all those great birds Terry had that morning.  We eventually made our way down to the river where Terry had his best bird of the morning – a Forster’s Tern – a nice bird for WV.  We hiked to the buoy in the river where it had perched that morning, and amazingly it was still there (#2).  I’ve now seen Forster’s throughout most of the country (see my statebird map below).

A little later we finally found one of the several Spotted Sandpipers Terry had had along the streambank (#3).  We ended the day with another unsuccessful try for Great Horned Owl (my nemesis bird in WV).  So although the 3 new statebirds were already what I had hoped for during the trip, we still missed 5 birds Terry had earlier in the day.

We started early the next morning to ominous skies, and decided to try Core Arboretum again to see if it had been another good migration night.  There were less birds there than the day before, but there were some migrants so we didn’t give up hope.  Then I noticed a large bird fly in – it was a Black-billed Cuckoo (#4).  WV was the last “hole” in the northeast part of my statebird map for Black-billed.

And a few minutes later we found a Swainson’s Thrush (#5) in the same area where Terry had them the day before.  We were still birding the park when it started to rain, and when a bolt of lightning hit the ground close nearby we headed back to the safety of the car.

We decided to make our way south to get away from the rain, and we headed to Pritchett Fort State Park.  There were almost no migrants there at all, but there was a nice collection of breeding species including great looks at Yellow-throated Warbler.

With just a couple more hours available before heading back to work, we decided to go to Little Indian Creek WMA, which is a reclaimed coal mine revegetated in grasses and some small emergent trees.  One of the targets Terry was hoping for here was Palm Warbler, and soon after reaching the park we found our target.  I had a brief glimpse of a warbler in the distance in some grasses flicking its tail, and after a little searching, we found not 1 but 2 western Palm Warblers (#6).  WV was my last eastern state for this species.

 

As we continued walking through this very birdy park, we noticed many tent caterpillar nests.  And soon we began to see and hear Black-billed Cuckoos.  Several times we watched them chowing down on big hairy caterpillars.  We conservatively estimated that we saw 3 birds, and along with the 4^th one at the arboretum, that was very likely more Black-billed Cuckoos than I’ve ever seen in one day.  Two different times we also saw female Prairie Warblers fly into a caterpillar nest, and gather the silk from the web for nesting material.  Very cool.

Our time was almost up so we headed back toward the car.  Although we were chatting along the way I faintly heard a brief call that sounded like Least Flycatcher.  But this area certainly is not a typical heavily wooded located for Least Fly.  Nonetheless, we stopped to listen, and both of us heard it call several more times (#7).  That was quite a surprise.  My statebird map for Least Flycatcher shows some big gaps in the southeast, though otherwise pretty good coverage across the country.

 

We ended our WV birding with 87 species, including 19 warblers, and most importantly, 8 new birds for my WV state list.  Way over my hoped for 2 or 3.  And with 196, my WV state list is 18 over the old ABA threshold an in theory secure for a long time to come.

As I was heading back to Pittsburgh I started to wonder if there might be any migrants I might need for my PA list.  I’ve got a pretty good list for PA since I lived there for 4 years, but after checking my lists I remembered that I still needed Nashville Warbler for PA.  And since we heard and saw several in WV, maybe that one might be feasible to try for in PA.  However, the first problem was that at most I could only squeeze in an hour or two of birding starting at dawn the next day.  Plus, since I had never birded in Pittsburgh, I’d have to find a good spot for migrants.  I looked on the map and found a small suburban park called Robin Hill Park that seemed nice and was nearby.  So I had a plan.

I arrived at Robin Hill Park just after dawn and was greeted with a singing Hooded Warbler – a nice start.  I then noticed some warblers feeding at the top of an oak tree, and after wading through some Yellow-rumps and Black-throated Greens I picked out a Nashville Warbler – success!  I ended up with 2 other Nashville’s over the next hour.  Now that I’ve seen Nashville in WV and PA, my statebird map pretty well matches the typical range map for this species, which is common in much of the country except the heart of the Rockies and the southeast.

I also got several warblers we didn’t have in WV, including a Bay-breasted that I didn’t need in PA but did need in WV.  Ugh!  I also got an Orange-crowned, which is a good spring bird in PA though not a new one for me.  That gives me 239 for my PA list.

Common Loon, Red-necked Grebe, and Woodcock in West Virginia, April 2014

With another business trip to Pittsburgh I was able to take an afternoon off to head down into northern WV to work on my local statelist.  I had finally gotten my WV list over the old ABA reportable threshold with my last trip.  But I was just 8 over threshold, so I needed 7 more to get to my somewhat arbitrary goal of 15 over reportable.  I contacted local birder Terry Bronson and we came up with a plan to hit some local hotspots to search for my targets.

The first stop was Cheat Lake to try for waterfowl.  The first couple stops were pretty slow, picking up just a few dabblers and divers.  But on the next stop we simultaneously noticed a distant large diver – a Common Loon – statebird #187.  Common Loon is certainly not a rare species most anywhere in the northeast, but it’s not an easy bird for WV with the limited number of deep lakes in the state.  And WV fills a big gap in my statebird map below.

A couple stops later we were at a different part of Cheat Lake especially in search of wintering Red-necked Grebes.  Although this is typically a quite rare species in WV, there had been significant numbers in WV this winter presumably because their normal wintering area in the Great Lakes was frozen.  So this was a key target of mine that day, even though April was getting quite late for this species.  Soon after we arrived at the spot we noticed a bird dive just a short distance offshore.  And a minute later it popped up – it was a Red-necked Grebe.  We later saw a second bird at this same spot, and another at a different location.  I was able to get a couple distant phone-scoped photos of the first bird, which was starting to come into breeding plumage.

As shown in my statebird map below, I have seen Red-necked Grebe in many of its normal wintering areas on the coasts and on the Great Lakes, plus several western and Midwestern states where it is a breeder.

 

As the afternoon progressed we made several other stops looking for some less likely statebirds with no luck.  Eventually that left me with one more realistic statebird possibility at the end of the day – American Woodcock.  Terry took me to Little Indian Creek WMA where he had had numerous Woodcocks in the past.  As I was killing time waiting for dusk, I noticed two very distant birds flying north.  They were loons migrating north, but they seemed to have deep wingbeats.  I wish I had brought my scope as they were just too far away to ID for sure with binocs, but they could have been Red-throateds.  Oh well.  Finally, as dusk approached, I had two Woodcocks calling just as Terry had predicted.  That fills in a big gap in my statebird map below, though I still need this species in several of its normal eastern breeding area.

Woodcock was my third statebird of the day, giving me 189 in WV and 11 over reportable.  Just 4 more to go to reach my goal.