Given we were on vacation for 2 weeks recently, and I was gone on travel for work last week, it's been a while since I've been out birding locally. With a great forecast temps, light winds, and partial cloud cover, it was shaping up to be a perfect day for bird photography! I left at dawn this morning with the intention of finding migrating shorebirds and other goodies.
I didn't want to commit to a long drive up to Lake Thompson where I was pretty much guaranteed of finding shorebird habitat somewhere. Given how wet our summer has been and the rain we had when I was gone last week, I thought there would likely be some standing water around locally…perfect habitat for migrating shorebirds. I was wrong! There were a few areas of standing water, but with crops at almost full height and other vegetation quite lush from the wet summer, most of those wet spots were hidden or surrounded by vegetation. Several did have a few shorebirds, but I never did get any photo opportunities.
The one great photo opportunity for today was a true rarity for me…something without feathers. Something without fur (a target of opportunity I always shoot when out birding). I was driving in western Minnehaha County about half an hour after sunrise, and saw an old…combine (?) in a partially cut wheat field. I say "combine" because it was so old, so simple a piece of farm equipment, that I don't know what else you'd call it. Curiously, it was sitting on the fence row right by the road, in a small area of cut wheat in a much bigger wheat field, and with a brightly painted "John Deere" sign facing the road. I couldn't have designed a better photo opportunity, and with the warm morning light, I spent a good 30 minutes getting various styles of photos of the scene.
With such a perfect scene, I do wonder if it WAS some kind of display that someone had set up, but regardless of why it was there, I thank the owner for providing the photo opportunity! It turned out to be a great photo day, despite few opportunities to actually shoot birds.
An old but brightly colored piece of farm equipment, sitting in a partially harvested wheat field. Too perfect a photo opportunity to have occurred without someone actually designing the scene!
Such a busy social calendar. Dress up in your summer finest. Find a home, try to settle down, find a good woman, chase her around incessantly, defend your territory against all comers…it's a busy life for a bird in the spring. Two things that probably don't help: 1) Being hopelessly lost and being the only one of your kind for a few hundred miles, and 2) being constantly interrupted by those pesky humans with the binoculars, cameras, and cell phones.
A male Western Tanager was found near Sioux Falls a couple of days ago. The closest Western Tanager should be 300+ miles to the west, in the Black Hills, so his appearance in eastern South Dakota caused a stir among the birding community. Heck, I too went to find him, as I haven't seen a Western Tanager in South Dakota, outside of the Hills. But after twice going to watch him, I was starting to feel a bit sorry for him. He's getting a lot of attention and visitors. His daily routine is also getting interrupted a lot.
I don't mind birders using electronic calls to see a bird, but it does bother me when it's done incessantly and it's clearly affecting a bird. When I'm trying to take photos, I rarely use any electronic call, as not only do I not like the impact on the bird, I don't like the unnatural look of photos of pissed off birds trying to figure out where that invisible "rival" is, and why he's singing so much. The first time I went yesterday, there was a young, 14-year old birder walking up looking for the bird. I did pull out my phone, played about 5 seconds of a call, and the Tanager made an appearance for us. We then watched him for a while as he flew around the forest clearing, chasing a female Scarlet Tanager, chasing other birds out of his territory, and doing a lot of "fly-catching" (flying out from a perch to grab insects).
I thought I'd try again later in the day to try to get a better photo. He was reliably stationed in one location, and with patience, I was sure I'd get better photos than I got earlier in the day. However, as I walked into the clearing, there were 3 birders, a couple, and another older gentleman. I heard them all before I saw them. Or should I say, I heard the electronic calls they were playing over…and over…and over…and over again.
I left, rather than watch the poor confused Tanager desperately trying to find and dispatch his unseen "rival". That was just one moment of the 2nd day after he was "found". I have no doubt there were many occasions over the last few days where birders have come into the area with electronic calls, trying to get the perfect photo of an eastern South Dakota rarity. I probably could have gotten closer photos of a pissed off Western Tanager had I joined them in the clearing. And heck, 10 years ago, I might have joined them.. But as I've gotten older, I find myself using my binoculars far more than my camera. I used to only worry about getting that great photo, to the point that if I saw a bird but didn't get a good photo, I was disappointed. Now I often find myself putting the camera down and just sitting and watching. The electronic call wasn't necessary to enjoy watching this beautiful, lost Western Tanager.
Western Tanagers aren't going extinct because of birders. Overall, the actions of birders with electronic calls aren't likely to dramatically impact a species. But I still can't help but feel a bit sorry for this one lost bird.
Photo of the Western Tanager near Sioux Falls. This was taken as he was flying from perch to perch, looking for insects and doing some "flycatching". Not the greatest pic in the world, but I didn't want to do what it would take to get that perfect Western Tanager photo.
I think every birder and every bird photographer has their "nemesis" birds, a species that has somehow eluded them over the years. Peregrine Falcons would be one of my nemesis birds. They're definitely not common here in South Dakota, but I have seen them on a few occasions However, it's always been a really quick glance, or a view from a very long distance.
One and sometimes even two Peregrine Falcons have occasionally hung around downtown Sioux Falls. Lately a lone bird has occasionally been sighted…almost always while perched on a true South Dakota "high-rise"!! The U.S. Bank building, at a TOWERING 9 stories or so, really is one of the tallest buildings in downtown Sioux Falls, and it's a favorite perch for this bird. Tonight on the advice of a birding friend who had seen it earlier in the day, I swung by and saw that yes, the bird was still perched on a ledge one floor from the top of the building.
A real treat! I pulled onto the top floor of a nearby parking garage and watched him for a good hour. Not the greatest photos in the world, but hey, I finally have SOME recognizable photos of a Peregrine Falcon! I won't check it off my "nemesis" list until I get some top-notch photos, but tonight was a blast nonetheless.