Post #108 - South Dakota - Landscapes, birds, wildlife, and loads of roadside fun!

Quick, what's the first thing that you think of when I say 'South Dakota'? It's kind of tough, right? Yes, the state has Mount Rushmore, but South Dakota doesn't elicit the strong and stereotypical images that states like California, New York, or Texas instantly do. South Dakota instead flies a bit off radar as a sparsely populated, unspoiled, and beautiful part of the Upper Midwest. My recent and inaugural visit to South Dakota was made as part of a weeklong road trip from Minnesota to California. We generally followed I-90 west, but we made some really fun detours along the way. This post will therefore be a mix of birding, more general wildlife, landscapes, and entertaining roadside fun.

Our route from Minnesota to California.
We flew for a wedding and drove back over 6 days.

Our South Dakota leg, in a bit more detail.

Our first day took us from Minneapolis to Chamberlain. The eastern portion of South Dakota is incredibly flat, all of the land being used for agriculture or ranching. We didn't make any birding stops along that easternmost stretch, but we did make a brief detour to experience the world famous Corn Palace in Mitchell. It was super fun, a must-do for anyone in the area. The palace is a giant commemoration to the region's corn industry, the highlight being the huge corn murals that adorn the inside and outside of the building. During the summer months, 'corny' tours of are offered, and a pop-up gift shop attracts all sorts of visitors. Once the tourist season ends, the facility converts back to the town's recreation hall and basketball arena. Our visit was made extra interesting by a passing storm front and associated tornado warning that kept us hunkered down for over an hour. It was the true Midwest experience, quite exciting for us Californians! Since the weather was so bad, I pulled a couple shot from online to give you an idea of the palace.

Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD 

Corn Willie Nelson and Corn Elvis murals visible

Bison mural made of corn

Summer gift shop

Recreation hall and basketball arena rest of year

Angry skies during our visit

Radar during our Corn Palace visit.

The storm dropped gold ball-sized hail in places,

thankfully not on us.

Nervous moments as the town's tornado sirens sounded!

Killing time while waiting for the storm to pass

The storm front passed early enough for us to camp at the American Creek Campground on the Missouri River at Chamberlain that night. It was really pretty and held quite a few birds, notably both Eastern and Western Kingbirds. We packed up early the next day and made miles towards Badlands National Park, but before we reached that point, we made 2 roadside stops. The first was at the 1880 Town between Stamford and Belvidere. Basically, someone has salvaged a whole bunch of vintage buildings from around the American West and reassembled them into a complete town right off of I-90. Many of the buildings are filled with period furniture, decor, and possessions, and together they really give a sense of what frontier life might have felt like. There is also a fairly extensive homage to the Oscar-winning movie "Dances with Wolves", a beautiful epic filmed entirely within South Dakota.

Locked up in the 1880 town

Our second stop was at a The Ranch Store on Highway 240 as one heads into the Badlands from I-90. This is another roadside tourist trap, albeit of the best sort. Adjacent to the gift shop one finds a colony of very tame White-tailed prairie dogs. For $1, a back of peanuts can be purchased to feed these animals, and, let me tell you, its worth every penny! If you're patient, they'll even eat right out of your hand. The sun was a bit steep compared to how I usually like it, but I squeezed out a few fun shots despite the harsh light and admittedly manipulated conditions.

Sonia feeding prairie dogs

After the prairie dog nonsense, we made it into the Badlands National Park. I had no idea what to expect but was thoroughly impressed with the scenery. There is an extensive auto tour, and we drove the whole thing as we made miles west.

Badlands National Park

Bighorn Sheep at Badlands National Park

This one with a radio transmitter ran right in front of our car

From the Badlands we continued west where we made the obligatory stop at Mount Rushmore. Some people think it's kind of cheesy. I personally though it was really cool, particularly from a design and engineering standpoint. Gutzon and Lincoln Borglum only got one shot at it, right? It wasn't as though they could glue Washington's nose back on if they made some critical mistake.

Clowning it up at Mount Rushmore

We spent that night, our second in the state, at Sylvan Lake Campground in Custer State Park in the same Black Hills where Mount Rushmore is located. There the birding was very good, feeling as much like Colorado as anywhere else. Around our campground I found Hairy Woodpecker, Swainson's Thrush, Gray Jay, Cordilleran Flycatcher, Red Crossbill, and Pine Siskin. Hikes on trails in other parts of the huge park further yielded Northern Flicker, Western Wood-Pewee, Plumbeous Vireo, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, and Mountain Bluebird. Beyond birds, Yellow-bellied Marmots and American Bison showed nicely. The State Park was an amazing place, a place where we could have easily spent a few more days just exploring hiking and exploring.

Sylvan Lake in nice morning light

Black Hills vista

View of Black Hills formations

A quiet horse trail that we hiked - no one else on it

Yellow-bellied Marmot

Roadside American Bison (in terribly midday light!)

Bison calf, chillaxin'

Adult bison with curious calf

Roody staying warm at the campsite.

And, yes, we are totally ridiculous with our dog, I know.

What I hope you can see is that there is lots of cool stuff to see and do in South Dakota. It might not have quite the number of specialty birds as other, more peripheral areas of the US, but the birding experience is absolutely fantastic. At many places we were the only people for miles, a nice break from our familiar but admittedly overcrowded Bay Area surrounds. So, if your travels take you to the center of the country for any reason, please do think about either a pass through or an extended stay in South Dakota. It really is a fun place! 

Post #107 - My first time visiting and birding Minnesota!

I'm so sorry to have two full weeks between posts. Between logistics surrounding our move from LA to SF and a 10-day road trip, writing has fallen temporary casualty to other responsibilities. That will all change with this post as I had on that road trip some wonderful birding experiences that will provide great fodder for this blog. Without going into too much detail, Sonia and I spent 4 days in Minnesota before driving from there back to California. Along that arc we did a fair amount of birding (notably in MN, SD, and UT), and I'll use a series of 3 posts to share my experiences from this recent journey.

Our route from Minnesota to California

Prior to this trip, I had visited 43 of the 50 states, the outliers being Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. That I didn't visit any part of the Midwest on my 2014 Biking for Birds adventure was probably my biggest regret of the entire endeavor, but a visit to that geography simply didn't make sense given the distribution of species and the physical limits of my body. So, when Sonia and I were invited to a wedding in Alexandria, MN, I was stoked for my inaugural visit to the Gopher State!

My 2014 Biking for Birds Route. I completely missed the midwest.

In my last post, I wrote a bit about birding during the nesting season, and, while birding around my Bay Area home is admittedly a bit slow during those summer months, nothing could be further from the truth in Minnesota. Warblers, vireos, and orioles were everywhere in great abundance. Particularly striking was the presence and diversity of flycatchers. Least Flycatchers, Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Phoebes, and Eastern Wood-Pewees were everywhere. I also, and finally(!), saw my lifer Alder Flycatcher for ABA-seen #717. I know, it's totally crazy that it took me so long to add such a relatively common bird to my life list. Alder Flycatcher was just a species that I figured I'd run into at some point but never did, even on my bicycle Big Year (they migrate late and don't call on the Texas Coast for ID anyway). Once photography came to rival birding for my fullest attentions, it is understandable that I instead focused on other, more photogenic species. Anyway, Alder Flycatcher is finally a done deal, a loudly calling individual begging for my attention at Fort Snelling State Park just outside Minneapolis.

A typical Minnesota summer scene

Though I only spent a few days in Minnesota, I can say that the birding seems to get better as as one moves north. This isn't shocking as population also thins in that same direction. I only wish that I had more time to visit farther reaches than I did. I didn't, for instance, make it to true boreal forest on this trip. Interestingly, it seems as though summer and winter are the best birding times to visit Minnesota. This contrasts with many other areas where it is the spring and falls migrations that make for the most exciting birding. So, when things near your home are slower between those migrations, head to Minnesota for non-stop birding action. I'd love to make it to the Sax-Zim bog in the northern part of the state in winter to photograph owls at some point, but that will have to wait for another trip.  For those thinking of visiting in Spring or summer to avoid those frigid winter temperatures, may I suggest the Festival of Birds in Detroit Lakes each May. It looks like a really cool event. David Sibley was this year's keynote speaker, so the event clearly attracts some notable birding names.

More Minnesota scenery

As a a last note, I want to mention a particularly wonderful morning that I spent in Minnesota. In the weeks leading up to the trip, I put a post up on the Minnesota Birders Facebook page asking if there was anyone who owned a boat who might be willing to take me out on the water to photograph loons, grebes, and terns. Detroit Lakes birder Beau Shroyer saw my request and contacted me saying he'd be happy to take Sonia and I out for a morning.

Captain Beau at the helm!

We met Beau east of Detroit Lakes at 5:45am on a Saturday morning. In his small boat he toured us around Round Lake, a body where he and his family spend at least some time each summer. Though he is now a real estate agent, Beau knows a ton about the ecology and natural history of Minnesota. His personality was warm and his commentary informative, and our time with him highlighted exactly the sort of personal connections that are so often made through the common interest of birding. I managed a few nice shots that morning, but my time with Beau will certainly be the most memorable part of my entire Minnesota experience.

Red-necked grebe - Podiceps grisegena

Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2

1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 1250

Common Loon - Gavia immer

Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Common Loon - Gavia immer

Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2

1/2500 at f/5.6, ISO 1000

Common Loon - Gavia immer

Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/1600 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Black Tern - Chlidonias niger

Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2

1/2500 at f/5.6, ISO 800

So that's what I have for you after a too quick trip to Minnesota. In the next installment I'll visit South Dakota, another new state for me! Please stay tuned for that post sometime next week!

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Post #106 - Nesting season is here: Collecting nesting data and photographing nesting birds!

Though Coastal California has some of the best birding in the country, summer around here is notoriously slow. Migrant species have returned to more northerly latitudes, species diversity is at its lowest point in the year, the possibility of rarities is painfully low, and good weather and associated summer crowds mean that natural areas are unusually crowded for the next few months. On the surface, it might look like birding might take a backseat to other activities for a few months. However, there are a couple of unique and really wonderful birding and photography opportunities that arise during nesting season irrespective wherever you live.

Northern Fulmars - Fulmaris glacialis

Whitless Bay, Newfoundland, Canada

Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/1000 at f/7.1, ISO 400, handheld

The first of these is the chance to view locally nesting species and, with the help of eBird, collect valuable data on those local breeders. While all habitat is important, it would be difficult to argue against breeding habitat as the most valuable to most species. I appreciate the value of Christmas Counts, but I have always though it would be really cool if a similar community-based effort was put into censusing nesting species. I suspect that if the holiday season fell in June we'd be doing exactly that, but as it is people have more time off in December. What this means is that the data that individuals generate with respect to locally nesting species is particularly valuable. So, while species diversity in areas such as Coastal California might be lower in summer, the data contained in eBird checklists from those months still has great value!

Pacific-slope Flycatcher - Empidonax difficilus

Huntington Beach, California

Canon 500mm f/4 IS on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/800 at f/11, ISO 800, bit of flash.

The second fun thing about the summer nesting season is finding actual nests. Once an active nest is located, its a blast to watch the parents go about their daily business as they raise their young. There is constant activity as the adults come and go, and depending on what species is being observed (particularly shorebirds) it quite possible to follow the chicks from hatching through fledging. There is a reason why there are so many of those 'nest-cam' things, right? Who doesn't want to see stuff like this?

American Oystercatcher - Haematopus palliatus

Winthrop, Massachusetts

Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 7D original

1/160 at f/11, ISO 320, handheld

One last thing about nesting season is that photographing nesting birds is really fun and productive. Nesting birds behave in a very predictable manner, particularly once the chicks hatch, so its possible to just set up shop ad wait for the particular behavior or shot that you want. The bigger the chicks get, the more the parents have to come and go to keep them fed. Setting up shop along the most popular supply routes or flight paths is a great way to get flight shots. That's exactly how I got this shot this weekend. This Cliff Swallow was nesting under a dock here on SF Bay. I watched the colony for an hour and figured out the best strategy. Once I got familiar with what was going on, getting this shot wasn't as difficult as it might seem. Nest photography gives a shooter a great opportunity to plan out and execute shots!

Cliff Swallow - Petrochelidon pyrrhonota

Palo Alto, California

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II on EOS 7D2

1/5000 at f/4, ISO 1000, handheld

All that being said, it's really important to respect the space of all birds, but particularly nesting birds. There are all sorts of procedural and ethical considerations, and I would point you to this article from Audubon rather than rehashing points that have already been stated nicely. The biggest thing is that nesting birds are tolerant of humans if humans take the time to establish trust with the birds. Walking straight up to a nest and scaring off the parents is not how to do this. Find a nest, observe it for an hour, and learn the birds' behavior. Let the birds additionally get used to your presence over the course of several hours or even several days. If you don't want to take the time to approach nests respectfully, then please consider not doing it at all. If the birds fly off and don't immediately return or they look agitated, back off! It's really that simple. Think of how you'd want your kids treated and return the favor to the birds.

I'm off to Minnesota for the first time on Friday! Will be fun to bird a new state (#44!). I'll also be spending a few days in South Dakota (#45!), so I'd love to hear from people about birding in those areas! After this trip I'll just be missing Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, and Oklahoma.

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Post #105 - The return of the bicycle and an intro to bike-birding!

Woo hoo! After two and half year hiatus from bike-birding, I today hit the trail for the first time since the conclusion of my 2014 Biking for Birds Big Year project! A number of different factors combined to keep me on the sidelines during that time, the most notable of which was the urban sprawl of Los Angeles where my wife and I lived for the past 2 years. Now that we've moved to Northern California and are comfortably settled right near the San Francisco Bayshore, I plan on doing a lot more bike-birding in the near future. Things will be a bit slow through the summer but will really heat up during fall migration. Winter will be dynamite as hundreds of thousands of waterfowl and shorebirds spend the cooler months in SF Bay and nearby Pacific Coast. I'm really looking forward to it!

My new backyard. Those trees dead center

are Coyote Point Park. There's a bike path 

basically as far as you can see (in either direction).

So, what the heck is this bike-birding thing all about anyway? Well, the general idea is to minimize one's petroleum consumption and more general environmental impact by doing one's birding using the bicycle as the primary mode of transportation. Bike-birding is often referred to as "green birding" because it doesn't generate any carbon emissions beyond the baseline metabolism of the participant. Green birding as a term also includes walking, kayaking, and other similarly self-powered endeavors such as running and canoeing, but the bicycle is generally the featured mode of transportation as it allows a lot of ground to be covered. 

Yesterday's route. I really have to ease back into 

this as I am just getting over a severely strained 

left calf muscle. I will use the park for start/end

 since I don't want a pin at my home.

Terminology and minimal environmental impact aside, bike-birding is an incredibly fun and healthy way to interact with birds and the environments they inhabit. Bicycles allow a window to the natural world that cars simply cannot match as it's possible to see, hear, and smell things from the bicycle that would be completely missed from a car. Granted it's possible to cover much more ground in a car than on a bike, but the riding experience - at least on nice days - more than makes up for the distance shortfall. Plus, its super healthy. Now you can go ahead and have that extra scoop of double fudge peanut butter moose tracks ice cream!

The highest pint to which I biked during

my 2014 bike-birding odyssey. That ride

was worth about a gallon of ice cream.

Here I can add a personal note and say from personal experience that when a person bike-birds, it really feels as though the ticked species have been earned. That's not to say species collected with motorized transport don't matter or count, but it feels really different on the bike. I'll still be doing much birding and photography with motorized transportation (more on this at the end), but I am going to do what everyday, local birding I can with my bike. I also fully understand that many people are simply not in the physical condition to make bike-birding a regular thing. Biking is also a much larger assumed physical risk than is driving, so someone with 3 small kids might opt for the car not only for convenience but also for the future well-being his family. So, there's no judgement from me on how anyone birds. I do, however, think think that those who bike-bird should be offered a friendly pat on the back for the efforts they are making.

One from my short ride yesterday. Nice and light

compared to what I carried on my Big Year!

I should probably here mention a few of the broadest rules/conventions of the bike-biding game, at least as they pertain to anything official. I don't yet think the ABA or other organization has set in stone any set of bike-birding rules/guidelines, so take what I write here just as general suggestions.

1) Generally, to be considered officially 'green', a day of bike-birding should start and end at the same place, usually a person's residence. That means that I will on almost every occasion be doing "out-and-back" type trips from my San Mateo apartment. If there's a sweet bird in Half Moon Bay, I've got to bike the 20 miles there AND the same miles back. None of this one way on the bike, one way in a car stuff!

2) The exceptions to the above are Big Days and Big Years where participants are free to pick the starting and ending points to their transects. As long as the bike-birder doesn't use motorized transport between those points, then everything is cool. This exception exists so that birders in less birdy areas aren't put at an immediate disadvantage. For example, the ABA bike Big Day record will almost always come from either Texas in spring or California in spring; A birder in Maine who wants to take a crack at that record should be free to fly to Texas or California for his/her effort. Likewise, if bike Big Years had to start and end in the same spot, anyone at northern latitudes would be royally screwed since they'd need to fight snow and ice twice, once at in Jan/Feb and again in Nov/Dec. Those in the sun belt live much closer to more prime birding spots and shouldn't automatically be afforded that advantage compared to their northern counterparts.

3) Ferries and other form of motorized assistance are not permitted at any point, Big Days and Big Years included. Technically, a rider can have a vehicle offer assistance as long as he still does the riding with all his gear. For example, if someone wants to cross particularly dangerous bridge on a bike Big Day, having a motorized escort (with flashing lights and such) over the bridge so as to stay safe is totally cool.

My 2014 Route, ~17,830 miles

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff but I just wanted to mention these most major guidelines. All of this is admittedly a bit silly as bike-birding accounts for such a small fraction of the total amount of birding done in the world. Even within bike-birders, there's only a select few of us who care about these particulars. The most important thing is that people give bike-birding a try. It need not be serious or competitive to be enjoyed!

I do also want to add a note about how my photographic interest will conflict with my bike-birding interest. To state it simply, the two are not even remotely compatible, even less so than are petroleum-based birding and proper bird photography. I shoot the 2-3 hours after sunrise, and the 2-3 hours before sunset - and that's it. The light is just too harsh/steep to make good photos during the rest of the day - at least at my latitude. I am not looking to bike several hours in the dark with gear that costs more than a car to reach a shooting location by sunrise. As I am trying to build a bit of a business around my photography, I need results from it, and those just aren't going to come from a bicycle. The pattern that is therefore likely to emerge in the next few months is that I will bike-bird on cloudy days and drive to shoot on sunny days. So, that will explain why you see my using both a car and a bicycle moving forward!

For any bike-birders reading this, I'd love to hear from you in the comments section. No specific information sought, just whatever is on your mind. Comments have been down recently so I'd really love to hear from anyone!

Ok, that's it for now. I will be providing all sorts of chronicles of my bike-birding adventures as they unfold, so please stayed tuned. Don't worry though, those bike-birding adventures won't completely take over the blog as I'll still be bringing you the more general sort of birding content that I've provided in the past, photographs included. Here's one from before my move since I shorted you on birds shots today!

 Marbled Godwit - Limosa fedoa

Orange County, California

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 7D2

1/2500 ay f/5.6, ISO 640, handheld lying in water

Post #104 - Let's give the most common birds some love!

Sorry for the long time between posts! Our LA > SF move complicated things a bit! Here we go!

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I am an unabashed ABA lister (or at least as unabashed as my budget and often conflicting photography interest permit!). Those playing similar listing games at the patch, county, or state levels certainly understand the premium that is placed on finding unusual species within your area of interest as that's what the listing game is all about. Rarities will always and understandably engender an excitement that more ubiquitous species like Mallards and Rock Doves will never - and that's OK.

Anyway, while it is difficult to get excited about super common birds from a purely birding perspective, I totally appreciate them from a photography standpoint. I think of it as a good challenge to present common birds in ways that people might not have have before seen. Take this shot for example. When was the last time you saw a Rock Dove in anything resembling a truly natural setting? This is a bit deceiving as it was taken at an urban park in Los Angeles, and I did have to maneuver my perspective around a bit so as to keep the branch but to avoid the cement edge to the man made pond. But, if you didn't know anything about the usually urban circumstances of this bird, you could totally imagine that this shot was taken on the edge of some real lake in some natural location.

Rock Dove - Columba livia

Los Angeles County, California, March 2017

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 2x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/2000 at f/8, ISO 800

Sometimes all it takes is a bit of personality to see a common bird in a new light. Such was the case with this particular Herring Gull. I actually headed Revere Beach in Boston to shoot Piping Plover chicks on that day. This bird appeared as soon as I set foot onto the sand. He walked directly towards me and just started cackling in my face, apparently in search of a handout. I thought he'd make a fun subject, so I cracked off this frame of him squawking at me. I think this result shows his assertive personality perfectly! Super detailed headshots are always a fantastic way to show common birds in new and interesting ways.

Herring Gull - Larus argentatus

Revere Beach, Boston, Massachusetts, July 2011

Canon 400mm f/5.6 on EOS 7D

1/4000 at f/5.6, ISO 400

Here's another common bird that I tried to present in a different light - literally. I took my dog to the dog park in Long Beach one evening when I saw this guy floating peacefully on the adjacent pond. My rig was in the car from a photo outing earlier in the day, so I grabbed it and went to work. I deliberately kept the view wide and underexposed the frame so as to generate a wide swath of dark water. Here it's the photographic technique more than anything else that renders the photograph of this common bird effectively dramatic!

Pied-billed Grebe - Podilymbus podiceps

Long Beach, California, April 2017

Canon 100-00mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2

1/1600 at f/8, ISO 640

Next up is this female Mallard that I photographed in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx in New York City a few years back. It too was in an urban pond. I would have ideally had a bit less lens (which would have let me capture even more of the water), but I was super stoked with the result nonetheless. I actually love how her golden-brown tones blend with the yellow water as reflected from the surrounding fall foliage. So, yeah, this a bird we often overlook, but, given the right attention and presentation, she can really shine!

Mallard (female) - Anus platyrhynchos

Bronx, New York City, October 2011

Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 7D

1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 640

Anyway, and without going into too much detail, I'm currently nursing another calf injury, albeit on the other leg this time. This not only complicated our move from LA to SF, but has kept me generally at home for the past two weeks. I did finally make it out to Half Moon Bay on Sunday for my first Bay Area birding/photography outing. My mobility is still a bit limited, so I decided I'd photograph whatever I could find within about 200 yards of the parking area. Despite much foot traffic on the trail, I did manage to approach this Song Sparrow for a few seconds. I was very happy with the result, a result which actually precipitated the idea for this entry. 

Song Sparrow - Melospiza melodia

Half Moon Bay, California, May 2017

Canon 500mm f/4 IS on EOS 7D2

1/1250 at f/9, ISO 800

*I closed down lens since I was very close 

and wanted more depth of field on the bird

One last note about common species; They're common for a reason. Most of them are incredibly adaptable generalists that can thrive in a wide range of situations and habitats. Like it or not, those species most able to adapt to human wrought environmental changes are best positioned thrive into the future. So, for that reason, common birds are at least deserving of an evolutionary nod from us.

That's it for now. I am scheduled for my first pelagic this weekend, so hopefully I'll have something exciting to report on that front. I've never done a spring pelagic up here before (minus the cruise ship from last year), so it will be interesting to see how unfolds!

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