Birds of the Day

East Ash Canyon

East Ash Canyon is one of the most reliably birdy spots on the Nebraska Pine Ridge. Over the years, I’ve seen some very “good” birds there, including my only gray flycatcher ever for the state.

Today’s haul may have been even better.

We started at dawn in Chadron, driving south in an attempt to beat the traffic on Table Road. We had one target species, and I’d almost given up on it when a flash of white in the ditch caught my eye. I think I was the only one in the vehicle to get a decent look at this sharp-tailed grouse before it flushed — but it landed not far away on the wheat stubble, and we all got excellent scope views of the sweet-faced bird. It quickly became apparent that “this” grouse was in fact “these” grouse, and we tallied eleven before the approach of a stock truck inspired us to move on.

The grouse was a life bird for most of the group, but it got better. At the switchback on East Ash Road, a different flash of white from the top of a burnt pine puzzled us for the moment it took me to stop the car, quickly resolving itself into a Clark’s nutcracker. I’d been dreaming for decades of seeing that species in Nebraska, and my first soon became a second, then a third, until we had a dozen or so nutcrackers milling around the steep canyon walls, where they were mercilessly and inexplicably harried by American robins.

Clark's nutcracker, Dawes Co., Nebraska

We found another gang of four birds a couple of hours later at the bottom of the canyon, and a single individual bade us farewell as we left late in the morning.

Clark's nutcracker, Dawes Co., Nebraska

Things are afoot, as the large numbers of red crossbills and pine siskins also suggested. It could be a very interesting winter out here on the western plains.

East Ash was full of red-headed woodpeckers and northern flickers of all colors, too. Noisy Nelson’s white-breasted nuthatches gave us the best views yet, and were joined by smaller numbers of red-breasted and pygmy nuthatches in the pines. An eastern phoebe haunted the creek while a Townsend’s solitaire fluttered in the brush and spotted towhees mewled and whined from every thicket and brush pile. While most of the bluebirds on our way in had been ethereally blue mountain bluebirds, down in the canyon they were all easterns, flocking with the robins and siskins.

Flush with success, we drove over to West Ash to see if there were nutcrackers there, too. It was very quiet, a surprising contrast to the scene just five miles downstream, so we took a short walk in the delightful cool of the late morning and set out for the highway.

Cassin's kingbird

Our progress was halting, as it always is for birders. A fine Cassin’s kingbird posed for its portrait; as expected, this has been the only common kingbird — indeed, nearly the only kingbird at all — on the trip, with most western kingbirds well on their way south already.

As we approached the highway, two big raptors overhead revealed themselves to be neither turkey vultures nor red-tailed hawks, both species that were increasingly common as the day warmed. These two, though, were different: an adult and a juvenile golden eagle, soaring close to each other and wheeling repeatedly to give us unexcelled views. We’d seen an adult in Sowbelly Canyon a few days ago, but the sight of these birds, low against the bright blue skies of autumn, the adult’s golden nape flashing nearly as bright as the juvenile’s wing and tail patches, is likely to be one of the finest and most enduring memories of the entire trip.

After lunch in Hay Springs (our second mid-day meal at the Bar J, home of the best steaks in the panhandle), we moved south along the very western edge of the Sandhills. Hardly had we left town when two big bobcat kittens appeared on the roadside. There’s a certain injustice in the way mammals immediately push thoughts of even the rarest and most dashing birds from our minds.

The big lakes had a good selection of ducks, including the first redheads of the week, but shorebirding was a disappointment: killdeer, stilt sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs, and Baird’s sandpipers were all present in just small numbers. The only common wader was the American avocet, with 172 on one lake; a juvenile peregrine falcon, a scarcish bird out this way, kept them wary. That same lake gave us our first white-faced ibis and Franklin’s gulls, both birds I’d expected to see much earlier and neither the less welcome for the tardiness of its appearance.

Tomorrow: the Wildcat Hills. I can’t wait.

red-tailed hawk, Dawes Co, Nebraska

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The Spice of Birding Life

Roughlock Falls

American dippers have a decided eye for the most beautiful real estate around. Roughlock Falls, high in the northern Black Hills, would be delightful even without its famous cinclids — the combination of the two is downright enchanting.

American dipper

We watched this immature snooze and preen and stretch in the freezing air, then suddenly start feeding frenetically atop mossy rocks and in shallow water. I’d been hoping for a quick flyby or maybe two, but this one stayed with us for half an hour, winking and blinking as it bobbed and splashed.

Mount Rushmore

Still grateful for our good luck, we moved on to cast a glance at the stone faces of Mount Rushmore, then to a quick lunch in Hot Springs before moving south to Four-Mile Draw in Custer State Park. It was almost birdless there (how quickly red-shafted flickers and mountain bluebirds have become routine!), a circumstance due at least as much to the cloudy skies as to the merlin, American kestrel, and unidentified big falcon we saw flashing around.

Instead of rare woodpeckers, Custer delivered a good mammal show. American bison kept me on high alert, black-tailed prairie-dogs kept all of us in stitches. White-tailed and mule deer and pronghorns were loafing on the roadsides, and two coyotes gave us two kinds of equally evocative views — one in full and glorious lope through a dog town, the other little more than a set of sensitive ears moving through the grass.

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Thanks to the lack of birds at Custer, we had a little extra time to stop in at the badlands of Toadstool Park on the way to Chadron. I had predicted two species, but an errant turkey vulture made three. A Say’s phoebe hunted from the mushroomy erosional remnants, and at least three rock wrens bounced around on the rocks and into and out again of impossibly tiny crevices; one was quite an expert flycatcher, leaping several feet into the air to take insects.

The skies clouded as we reached Chadron, and there was a brief but heavy shower while we had our early dinner. Undeterred, most of us set out afterwards in the sunset for Chadron State Park. It didn’t take long to find common poorwills, four of which granted the kind of views we’d been hoping for earlier this week. The species was a lifer for several in our group, and even those of us more familiar with this cute nightjar relished the great looks we had at birds sitting on the road and hunting in our headlights. Great ending to a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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East on the Pine Ridge

Chadron State Park morning

It was a good plan, nearly a failsafe plan, to hit Chadron State Park pre-dawn to look for poorwills on the roads. What I hadn’t counted on was light rain, heavy fog, and a marathon. We did manage to see one common poorwill come up off the gravel, but when the sun came up and failed to come out, I urged breakfast and a museum visit to while away the rainy hours.

Black Hills Overlook, Chadron State Park

I hadn’t been to the Museum of the Fur Trade for many years, and was impressed by how well the many, many, many objects were displayed. I was less impressed, or at least less favorably impressed, by a short and placatory video claiming that the fur trade served to harmonize racial differences on the nineteenth-century frontier. But we saw some neat stuff, including, bizarrely enough, Haitian army surplus buttons once used in the trade.

phoenix buttons for fur trade

By the time we stepped out of the museum, the rain had stopped, and there were hints of blue above. We headed back to the state park, where the truly marathon marathon was still going on, dozens of pheidippidoids of various ages (mostly advanced) and physical conditions trudging the trails. All the same, we had good looks at mountain and eastern bluebirds, spotted towhees, red crossbills, pine siskins, a western tanager, hairy and downy woodpeckers, pygmy nuthatches, chipping and clay-colored sparrows, and other common species before deciding to head for lunch and a site even farther east.

Lunch at the J-Bar in Hay Springs was outstanding as usual, and the weather and the birds continued to smile on us as we moved on to Walgren Lake.

birders birding Walgren Lake

The roadsides were covered with vesper sparrows; scattered through the flocks were clay-colored, chipping, and Savannah sparrows, too, and one little assembly also included three blue grosbeaks. A scrubby ranch yard was watched over by a merlin, looking smug and chubby with sparrow on the breath.

By the time we arrived at the lake, skies were blue and spirits were high. A flock of a couple score ruddy ducks and a dozen western grebes was accompanied by a few eared grebes, a ring-necked duck, and a canvasback. Goodly flocks of barn swallows were passing through, and we finally got good looks at a bank swallow that hugged the far shore for several minutes. Three common nighthawks joined in the insect feast, while closer to the ground we saw more bluebirds, sparrows, Audubon’s warblers, another western tanager, and a slightly westerly Baltimore oriole.

Walgren Lake

We have an early morning to look forward to tomorrow, so I pushed us a bit to leave the lake and get back to Chadron. There was plenty of time, though, to stop at yet another prairie dog town for a scan — and for several minutes’ watching three burrowing owls bobbing out on the mounds. A full and varied day indeed.

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Western Western Nebraska

birders birding Sowbelly Canyon

You can’t get any farther west than we did today and not be in Wyoming. We left Scottsbluff after a somewhat more leisurely breakfast than hoped, then turned north to bird the little bit of terrestrial heaven that is the Henry Road.

Henry Road

Much of the time, dust and traffic kept us in the vehicle, which proved a good blind for watching the hundreds of horned larks and vesper sparrows on the roadside. I’d expected good longspur watching here, but we saw only small numbers — fewer than ten McCown’s, a few more than ten chestnut-collareds.

chestnut-collared longspur

After playing a fluttery flittery game of hard-to-get, one of the little flocks of chestnut-collareds deigned to start feeding on the road in front of us; a little patience let us walk up on them for outstanding scope views of a bird that is almost always skittish and hard to see on the ground. At one point, we had a McCown’s and a chestnut-collared longspur perched nearly alula to alula on the fence, a comparison that I always find informative.

Plus, you could really see those long spurs.

chestnut-collared longspur

Almost as captivating was the first ferruginous hawk for the trip, a splendid light bird turning circles low over the short grass as, some 60 miles from leaving our hotel, we approached pavement again. This bird, flashing white tail and wing bands, ran away with the prize for day’s best raptor, handily beating out the two prairie falcons and the golden eagle we would see later on.

We moved on to one of the great sites in Nebraska birding and ornithological history, Sowbelly Canyon.

Sowbelly Canyon

On the way down to a quick picnic at Coffee Park, we stopped to watch three pink-sided juncos, newly arrived from the breeding grounds to the northwest. Coffee Park itself was unusually quiet, with just downy and hairy woodpeckers, spotted towhees, and a wood duck to break the stillness. So we drove a little ways down the road to take advantage of the inside scoop Alice, Kathy, and Lee had given us over supper last night. A few flickers, a couple of red-headed woodpeckers, a flock or two of pine siskins, and then the scanning of the treetops paid off.

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Lewis’s woodpeckers aren’t common in Nebraska, but lower Sowbelly has been a fairly reliable site for a while now. This bird — barely visible in my phonescoped image, I’m afraid — was taking it easy in the mid-afternoon warmth, swooping out only once while we watched, otherwise keeping to its inconspicuous and rather distant perch high in a willow. Not only was this a life bird for some of the group, it was the number-one target species for at least one of us. Tick!

We needed to make it to Chadron to check in to our hotel and to find some supper, so we pressed on from Sowbelly to the icehouse ponds at Fort Robinson, site of many a fine birding afternoon. It looked pretty bleak at first: an eastern phoebe, a couple of wood ducks, some barn swallows. On the way out, though, we heard chickadees, and soon were watching a small mixed flock of black-capped chickadees, orange-crowned and Wilson’s warblers, and a latish yellow warbler working the willows and boxelders.

birders birding Fort Robinson

A song sparrow in the brush lining Soldier Creek was a bonus; the default Melospiza sparrow on passage here is the Lincoln’s, a species we haven’t picked up yet but expect to see tomorrow, when we get to spend more time on the Pine Ridge (and less time in the van!). Weather willing, we’re planning on making a pre-dawn run for poorwills. Wish us caprimulgid luck.

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Good Birds, Good Birding

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I never sleep well on the first night of a field trip: too preoccupied, too excited, too ready to go. This first night of our Linnaean Society visit to the western Great Plains was no exception. I was still awake at 1:00 am local time, and finally just gave up when the clock said 4:45. I fueled the vehicle, parked it out front, showered, finished packing, had a not overly wonderful hotel breakfast, and wrestled our suitcases into the van. And we were off.

Our first stop was the beautiful Wyoming Hereford Ranch, where the heat and the strong winds managed to depress activity. All the same, we enjoyed our first encounters with lots of the species we can expect to see again this trip, including Townsend’s solitaires, Audubon’s and orange-crowned warblers, and Swainson’s hawks. Our very best bird of the stop, and of the day, and quite possibly of the entire week ahead, was a more typically eastern species, a neat crisp juvenile broad-winged hawk that was sticking to the willows along the creek. Naturally, I forgot to try to take photos when the bird was closest and most obliging, but still came up with a couple of identifiable images.

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Identifiable, that is, if you know what the picture is supposed to be of.

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A dusky flycatcher was a good find, too. But the heat and the wind and the clock drove us on to Pine Bluffs, where we had a good lunch at the 307 before birding the rest area. Traditionally a good spot, today it produced a total bird list of one species, and that not even native (guess). We cut our losses and crossed over to the Nebraska side, where our luck continued: a lark sparrow, a handful of mountain bluebirds, and that was disappointingly it for what is often one of the most exciting little birding corners in the state.

Rather than give up completely and hightail it to Scottsbluff, we decided to drive north on Stateline Road, a good decision. Soon we started seeing sparrows, vesper sparrows by the hundreds along with smaller numbers of clay-colored sparrows; common, even humdrum out here at this season, those are birds that I see only a couple of times a year in New Jersey. And they’re heartbreakingly beautiful to boot. It was challenging, as usual, to get everyone equally good views from the confines of the van, but there were enough birds that eventually they got sloppy, perching on fences and sunflowers and roadsides to let all of us enjoy them.

The most abundant bird, as expected, was another species I tend to see in only smallish numbers in New Jersey. Horned larks flushed 50 and 100 at a time from the roadsides, and finally one little gang feeding on the newly graded gravel had with it half a dozen smaller birds with big, fat bills, chestnut shoulders, and stunningly white tails. I firmly expected to see McCown’s longspurs this week, but maybe not on our first full day of birding, and maybe not in such great close views right away. Numbers were small — a dozen, perhaps a few more — but we should make up for that tomorrow and the days after.

Where there are longspurs, there are usually ferruginous hawks, but that fine plains buteo eluded us today. Instead we made do with three prairie falcons, two in flight together and the sweet little creature in the photo at the top of this entry; it would have been a lifer for some in our group had it been the first of the three, but in any case was exactly the close and lingering view all of our group were hoping for.

As we turned east to return to pavement, I spied a tiny bit of sheetwater at an intersection, where longspurs were coming in to drink and bathe. One of them obligingly perched on a fence next to the van, confirming that the flock was mostly chestnut-collareds, one of the species I had warned everyone not to expect to see. There’s a special pleasure sometimes in being wrong.

We’d had a surprisingly good afternoon’s car birding, but there was one more place I wanted to check on the way to Scottsbluff. The nature center at the Wildcat Hills almost always has a bird or two to look at, so we pulled in to see if we might pad the list somehow or other. It worked. The most abundant birds in the pines around the building were red crossbills; spotted towhees more or less covered the ground under the feeders, joined by my first Gambel’s sparrow of the autumn. And there were two surprises.

The first was provided by Brian, who showed me a picture on his camera of the big gray finch with white wing patches he had just photographed — evening grosbeak! And the second was provided by a big gray finch with white wing patches — the real thing. It had been years since I’d seen one in Nebraska, and this bird’s presence raises my hopes even higher for tomorrow. If it’s half as good as today, we’re in for some fun.

 

 

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