Thursday, March 27, 2008

PAID TO BIRD....AT RAIL SIDINGS!! WHATS NEXT? AN ECONOMIC STIMULUS CHECK?

I am having a great time! There was hundreds of thousands of Snow Geese in the sky's of South Dakota today! Every bit of water was packed with ducks also. Scaups, ringnecks, mallards, redheads, pintails and probably many more. Hawks everywhere as well, including a pair of red-tails at a nest. I saw a harrier scavenging on a "blue-morph" snow goose near the side of a gravel road out in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately one of the many adrenaline junkie Horned Larks didn't make it past the windshield today. They are everywhere and it seems like they are trying to see how close they can get without getting hit. It sure put a sinking feeling in my gut and made me want to never drive a car again. I don't know if I mentioned it but last week in ND I saw a dead Great-horned Owl on the side of the highway...that was heart breaking to see. I almost forgot! I saw a Prairie Falcon harassed briefly by a red-tail and also got to see a Swainson's Hawk, swooping down on prey no less! The birding has definitely picked up now that we are headed south. Tons of Western Meadowlarks here too, with a few Killdeer around. I may have seen Vesper Sparrows today but am not certain...I was just far enough away so that I couldn't get a really good look. OH! And Bohemian Waxwings with a bunch of Ceder Waxwings yesterday! Sorry about the picture quality of the ducks and geese. They were taken through my binocular. I edited out the dark rounded edges as good as I could. Click on pics to view full size.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

OK! A check will do!!