What's in South Dakota?

Bighorn Ram, Badlands National Park

 When I went out west in 2010, our first real stop was South Dakota. DJ and I spent about 8 days there. We were impressed. In 2016, when Laurie and I were planning our next vacation, I suggested South Dakota. It didn't take much convincing.

While we were in the planning stage, Laurie told a coworker about our trip, her coworkers response was "What's in South Dakota?" It seems like anyone I talked to would ask a similar question, usually it was "Why do you want to go to South Dakota?

    Believe it or not, South Dakota is a perfect place for a summer vacation. It was mountains, hiking trails, great camping, fun tourist traps, caves, fishing, museums, history, and amazing wildlife. The list goes on and on. Oh ya, there's Mt Rushmore and the Badlands.  Not to mention, the best ice cream I have ever had.

Logistically South Dakota is tough to get to. It is ideal for the Great American Roadtrip because 1-90 goes right through it. But it is far from major cities. In 2016, we drove up from the Denver Airport. The drive was six hours. However, since our flight was early and SD is on Mountain time, we made it to the park with light to spare and even got a burger before turning in for the night.

I did multiple posts about my trip in 2016 so this post is an overview. I'll link them at the bottom if you want more detail.

  Since I had been to South Dakota before, I knew what the Badlands looked like. I had been stuck in a "Buffalo Jam" because a herd was blocking the road. I'd been to Mt Rushmore and I visited museums in Rapid City. My biggest goal was to get photos of wildlife and enjoy the animals (not really much of a surprise there, huh?). Laurie wanted to hit up some of the tourist spots along with seeing animals. So obviously, I had to compromise. But in that compromise, I got to spend a night camping out in the prairie at Wind Cave National Park.

Mt Rushmore

In a conversation I had at work after I got home I told a friend that I went to Mt Rushmore three times while on vacation, and she asked "Why?" I thought this was an odd question. I mean, how many times has she seen A Wonderful Life? Anyway, some people are disappointed by the monument. The reason is in every calendar you have ever seen the faces take up the entire picture. The reality is, the faces only take u a fraction of the mountain. None the less, I was awed. I  have walked the trail under the faces a dozen times at this point. I have taken hundreds of photos from every angle, but I could go back and sit for hours.  THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU IS TO GO INTO THE FOOD COURT AND GET THE PRAIRIE PRALINE ICE CREAM. It is the best ice cream I have ever eaten. For some reason, this was the only national park I have been to that has it. It is amazing.

Badlands

Truth be told most people only spend a couple hours in the Badlands. You can get off of I-90 do a loop around the park and get back on the highway about thirty miles later. I spent three days in 2010 and two full days in 2016. Needless to say I love the Badlands. The scenery in the park is phenomenal. The formations are other worldly.  There aren't many hiking trails, but the ones that are there are fun.

Near the place the loop heads north back towards the highway is a road to the left that heads towards Sage Creek Campground. It is my favorite road in the country. It's about ten miles long. It ends at a free campground. The road has more wildlife than any ten mile stretch I've been on except for the possible exception of Lamar Valley in Yellowstone. There are Prairie Dogs, Burrowing Owls, Mule Deer, Pronghorn, Bison, and Bighorn Sheep on that road. You are pretty much guaranteed to see all of those animals while driving down it.

Nanny Mountain Goat
Custer State Park

Custer State Park

  If you look up any list of the top ten state parks in the country, Custer is on it. Custer has everything, open prairie, pine woods, tons of hiking, great campgrounds, and tons of wildlife.  There are restaurants in the park (buffalo is on the menu). There is even a playhouse. The main draw for most people is the wild buffalo herd. The park maintains a large herd. It can and will clog the roads. There is other wildlife and a ton of it. We saw elk, mountain goats, coyote, deer and pronghorn along with tons of small animals and birds. Custer is close enough to Rushmore that you can make it your home base for that trip.

Summary-

I barely even started on whats in the state. So here is a quick sentence or two about some of the other stuff

Wind Cave National Park- cave tours are well worth it. Huge prairie, lots of wildlife. This is where we slept in the backcountry. We woke up surrounded by a huge buffalo herd.

At Wind Cave, we had to go off trail half a dozen times
to avoid big bull bison including this one.

  Museum of Geology-  there are awesome dinosaur bones and an amazing rock collection including huge pieces of gold and platinum

Reptile Gardens- a zoo dedicated to reptiles. Pretty much any dangerous snake you have heard of is in there.

Presidential Wax Museum- pretty much what you would expect

Alpine Slide- there is an alpine slide in Keystone, it is the town under Mount Rushmore. We didn't do the slide, but we wanted to.

Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary- hundreds of wild horses that had been captured and mistreated found a home at this 60,000 acre sanctuary

Mammoth Site -a few thousand years ago Woolly Mammoths would drink at a watering hole. It was steep and many fell in and drowned. The watering hole filled with sediment. The bones fossilized. Someone found the site, now they are excavating the bones. Well worth a couple hours of your vacation.

Deadwood- in the northern Black Hills is the historic town of Deadwood. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried in the historic cemetery.

Mt Harney- the highest point between the Rockies and Spain is Mt Harney. The view is awesome and the hike isn't that bad.

Cosmos Mystery Area- this place is the epitome of a tourist trap, but it was also really fun. Things don't seem to follow the laws of physics. Water runs uphill. You feel like your sideways. Measurements aren't accurate. I'm sure its all an illusion but it was really fun. We allowed us to act like kids.


In case you can't tell I highly recommend a trip to South Dakota if you get a chance. As many people are saying, when this is all over, many U.S. companies will be hurting. A vacation in the states will help a lot of people. Unless the only vacation you enjoy is drinking a pina colada on the beach, there is too much to do in South Dakota not to have fun.

I didn't write a ten paragraph section on the wildlife but I could have, Between Custer, Badlands NP, and Wind Cave you'll see tons of it. It was almost all of the fauna of Yellowstone with far less people. The only large animals Yellowstone has over SD are wolves and bears. Wolves are pretty unlikely to be seen even in Yellowstone, but if you need to see a grizz, then you'll have to keep driving west.

Below are some links to posts I've done on South Dakota. They go into a lot of detail and there's a ton of pictures. You can see the name of the post at the end of each link, for instance the second to last link is about Wind Cave (f you only read one, read that one). If you want to see more photos go to my Facebook page and go to my Albums. You can see more photos of the incredible state.

Yeah, Prairie Dogs are adorable

https://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/07/south-dakota-posts-are-coming-overview.html

https://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/07/tourist-traps.html

https://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/07/birds-that-i-saw-in-south-dakota.html

https://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/07/custer-state-park-sd.html

https://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/07/wind-cave-national-park.html

https://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/07/badlands-national-park.html

Some normalcy

I've seen a bunch of Black Headed Gulls before, but this is
the first I've seen in breeding plumage with a full hood.

I'm not going to use this blog to talk about the events going on in the world. I'm pretty sure we have been bombarded with too much of it everywhere. I'm going to use it as a way to escape from it by writing and hopefully reading it will be an escape as well.

With that said, I have written very little over the last six weeks. That is because I had very little to write about. I started January like a buzzsaw hoping to get a hundred birds for the month but getting 125 by January 31. The problem with getting almost all of the winter birds means you have to wait for early spring for new birds to arrive. For all of February and the first twenty days of March, I'd go out on my days off. Usually it would rain on one or both of them, and I'd bird between showers. I'd chase the harder birds I missed occasionally picking up one here or there. What I learned during those six weeks is, in a normal year, it would be a great time to take a vacation. But other than getting the very rare for Rhode Island, Wilson's Plover, there wasn't anything to write about.
 
   Then spring arrived. At first it was tough to tell because the winter was so mild anyway. But my daffodils are flowering. The majority of birds don't come through until May, but the earliest migrants start showing up in late March. True to form, birding got fun again.

The last two weeks I have been birding hard and having fun. I have birded with friends and we certainly practice social distancing. Since I like being in my bubble anyway, this is not hard for me at all. I have seen some really good birds.

Last week, I met my friend Jan at Fisherville. We were looking for three birds. I needed Red-Shouldered Hawk and Eastern Phoebe, while she needed to see a Brown Creeper. We got my birds fairly easily the hawk was circling us in the sky while calling, while the Phoebe was singing across a field. Unfortunately, I also saw the Brown Creeper (which I had actually seen the day before, and why Jan wanted to go back). However Jan didn't see it despite the both of us looking for an hour after I saw it, but it never showed itself again.

Also that week, I saw Marsh Wrens and Piping Plovers. Although Piping Plovers are endangered, Marsh Wren is the much harder bird in Rhode Island.

If you read my blog a lot, you will see that birders are dependent on each other for reports. As a working person I spend a lot of time chasing down birds my retired friends have seen and found. That isn't always a good feeling. It is nice to contribute and repay the favor. On Wednesday night I found by far the best bird I've gotten myself this year, the bird is an Eastern Screech Owl. I didn't see or hear one last year. I have friends that saw over 295 species last year but didn't get Screech Owl. So it was awesome to post it to the group, not to brag, but to repay and contribute. We struck out tonight listening for it, but hopefully it calls again and my friends can hear it.

Thursday, I left early to see Purple Finches that were reported (me chasing reports again, thanks Matt) off of Exit 6 on I-95. Purple Finch was my biggest miss last year. It was the "easiest" bird I didn't see. I spent the entire month of December looking for them in known spots. That is after looking for them where the breed in June and where I saw them in migration the previous October. Yet, even going through all of that trouble, I never saw them in 2019. The empty box next to Purple Finch became a running joke the second half of the year.

Bad photo of female Purple Finch

I was hopeful I would see them on Thursday. Jan joined me again hoping for a better look than she had gotten previously and because she was still looking for  Brown Creeper. Because many birders were there before we got there, seeing them wasn't as dramatic as I expected. We heard the male and saw it fly across the sky. We had a much better look at the female where I got some crappy photos.

Here is where it got tricky yesterday. After we spent half an hour looking for a Brown Creeper, Jan decided to go chase a Red Headed Woodpecker at the Grill's Preserve in Westerly. She asked me if I wanted to go. It had been seen a couple days prior. Many birders including Jan had looked but never relocated it. I, along with others, assumed it took off. I declined Jan's offer and went on my own. I went to Scarborough Beach to see if I could get photo upgrades of birds I'd seen there. From the beach I was to head south along the coast to look for birds I hoped had shown up.

I got some good pics of the Black Headed Gull that already molted into breeding plumage.  After I left the beach, I had just gotten on Route 4 when I got a text from Jan, she found the bird along with Sue and Jess. I was only a 17 minute drive away but they were a 20 minute walk into the woods. When I got there I ran/walked sweated and caught my breath. I got out there in 14 minutes. Luckily all three were still there. They let me go ahead of where they had seen it last. I  saw it low to the ground perched on a tree branch. Not close enough for a photo (I didn't carry my camera anyway) but I enjoyed it in the binos for quite some time.

Friday I went to Great Swamp in the morning. I was hoping for Blue Winged Teal, but the only new bird I saw were Pine Warblers. I ran into a friend named Carlos and birded a couple more spots. We didn't see much, but it was a beautiful day to be outside. Later in the evening, as I mentioned above, we didn't hear the Screech Owl.

As long as I'm allowed to, I'm going to keep birding. I keep my distance from everyone. I think most parks will be closed down shortly. This sucks for people that need to be outside. I am having a great beginning of the year. I've seen 156 species. I didn't see that many until April 17 last year, so I am three weeks ahead of my pace. The crazy thing is, I'm not trying to beat my personal best. I've only chased two birds after work this year (Wilson's Plover and White Pelican). All of the other birds I saw on days I was taking day trips anyway.

I will be writing more. If for no other reason than to keep busy. Normally I don't post links to my blog on Facebook unless there is a big accomplishment or I want to thank somebody but I am going to post the link for now on. Even though I know only a few people care enough to read my post, if it takes their mind off of whats happening around them for five minutes, then I did something good for the world.

In case you are keeping score at home,  Jan did see a Brown Creeper yesterday.

Below are some photos from the last few days

Bam! Song Sparrow

Sanderling

American Pipit

Eastern Phoebe

Another look at the Black Headed Gull

Wilson's Plover

 

 Yesterday a Wilson's Plover was seen at Scarborough Beach. This is a very rare bird, only the third ever seen in Rhode Island. Ironically I saw one of the other two on the mudflats of Charlestown last year. When it was seen yesterday, I was working.

  There was no doubt that hordes of birders be at the beach at first light hoping it would still be there. I had to work again today, but knew that if it were there, I could get out with enough time to drive there before dark. It was still there. My phone blew up with reports of it all day long. It was encouraging but also frustrating because I had to finish work first.

   I got out in the afternoon and drove down. I didn't have to look hard. There were four birders at the beach looking at it. Besides the Wilson's Plover, for some reason multiple other rarities were seen from the spot near the jetty. There was an American Pipit, Black Headed Gull (which has been there all winter), and a Palm Warbler. None are anywhere as rare as the plover, but it made birding easy and fun. 

Long Tailed Duck

I went birding in South County today. Days off from work have become a rarity since it seems like everyone I work with wants a vacation. Oh well, more money for Florida in November I guess. When I get a day off they are more precious. So I was pretty disappointed that the wind was howling near the ocean today. It was so bad, I was home by 1 pm. I got one new bird for the day, a Killdeer. However, the highlight of the day was being close to this female Long Tailed Duck. LTDs aren't rare by any means, but it isn't too often they are right next to you at the edge of the Breachway.

Pileated Woodpecker

Lincoln Woods
Feb 22, 2029
Cropped

Winne the Pooh

   I was on the phone with my son this morning whom is living in Cambodia. He had just come back from a weekend trip to Angkor Wat. This was a bucket list destination for him for a couple of years. He didn't get there on his around the world trip in 2019. Living in Cambodia for the last couple of months, I'm surprised it took this long.

   We talked for fifteen minutes which was mostly him talking and me asking questions. After a telling me about his weekend he asked what I was up to. I told him not much because I am working a lot right now because my coworker is on vacation. I told him I might go birding in New Jersey in March. After that, I complained that I just found out  have to work for the muffin guy n mid-April. So for five days in my favorite part of the year I will be getting out of work too late to fish or go birding. As I was telling him this he started giving me crap that I have my plans already planned out.

The truth is he is half right. I don't have every weekend planned out but there are some things I want to do that  I have to go by the calendar. For instance, I want to go back to New Hampshire to see waterfalls gushing from snowmelt. I obviously can't do that in July. Nor can I look at autumn foliage in June. I have to take those trips n April and October respectively.

I do have a list of things I really want to do. Mostly, they are either getaways or boat trips (such as whale watches and pelagic birding). They are written down based in order of the first one I could do (seeing whales at Race Point) to  the last one catch a kokanee salmon in late October. Again some are very time specific where as others like a whale watch I just hope to get to sometime during the summer.

You're probably asking yourself why and when I'm going to get to Winnie the Pooh. My son doesn't plan much of anything. He just goes with the flow. In fact, he tries to model his life like Winnie the Pooh. Yes, you read that correctly. Pooh Bear goes through life just happy as can be knowing that whatever happens things will work out in the end. That's pretty much how we goes about his business.

Even when we travel we are very different. For example, I want to do to specific destinations and see specific things. I hate wasting my money on things, I don't plan on doing. He would much prefer just to go anywhere and stay there as long as he can. He will choose the cheapest option if he can stay there the longest. Though Laurie and I cut corners where we could, Florida was not a cheap vacation for us, but it was a bucket list vacation where we did amazing things. DJ wouldn't go to Florida because for the same money I spent in 11 days, he could camp out west for a few weeks.

Despite my son travelling around the world and now living in Cambodia other than a couple places, I really don't ever plan on doing much international travel, even if I win Powerball. Two of the very few places at the top of my bucket list are Paris and an African Safari. My kid would never do either because of cost. My world travelling child avoids Europe like the plague (there is a pun there if you understand history) because of cost. He would much rather spend a month in southeast Asia. Basically, he would choose quantity where as I would choose quality.

In the end it doesn't matter. We just have differences of style. I want to see animals, birds, and wilderness. Those things make me happy. That is my idea of adventure. I know where I want to go and what I want t see. Pooh Bear (my kid) would rather see where the day or night takes him. Not having a plan is the adventure. Figuring out as he goes and making last minute decisions are his idea of fun.  Deciding and making spontaneous decisions and plans is the rush he is looking for.

I couldn't do that. I don't plan every day of a vacation. There are too many variables, the most notorious is the weather of course. But somethings you need to know in advance like what day you're going to Disney or to make sure you get a site at Yellowstone you reserve it in advance. Though I don't plan every day out, I do try to research my destination knowing where I want to go and what I want to see. DJ researches very little. Can you imagine going to Florida and not knowing there is a place where you can swim with wild manatees and not knowing and just driving by? I can't.  However,  Pooh Bear would just be like "Oh well, Piglet, there will be something better and more fun up the road, you'll see". And in many cases, my son is right.

An Odd Duck

 

 A few weeks ago I photographed a Wood Duck in a small pond in Tiverton. Wood Ducks are very spooky so I was excited to get a lot of photos of this duck in a tiny area. Wood Ducks are notoriously afraid of people. I can't tell you how many times I'd go for hikes and they would fly off long before I would have even known they were there.  It turned out the reason why this duck wasn't afraid of humans is that it was once owned by them. A birder named John Magil got a photo of its leg and it has a band around it. Because of the band, I can't count it on my year list. Only wild birds can be counted.

It is odd to see a once domesticated Wood Duck. I have raised my own chickens, ducks, and turkeys for years. I have many hatchery catalogs. Never once have I seen Wood Ducks for sale. I assume some places must because of this one, but I have never heard of it.

None the less, he is living in the wild now. Every day he faces the same challenges of finding food and evading foxes and eagles as other ducks.

As if it weren't odd enough to have this once domesticated Wood Duck now living in the wild, it also has a girlfriend! You would think that his girlfriend were a female Wood Duck but it isn't. This handsome fellow is smitten with a female Mallard. I went back to get more photos of him yesterday afternoon and I was talking to a guy that has photographing it a lot. The Woody as been in love with the female Mallard for quite some time. Wherever she goes he is right along side of her. If she gets out of the water so does he, if she decided to go for a swim, he is right next to her. He will chase away Mallards that attempt to get close to her even though they are almost twice his size.

While I was there yesterday, he was "courting" the female with his song and whistles. Even to a human, it was clear she didn't understand the language and she was confused. However, from what I can gather, she seems to like his company. She seemed to more than tolerate his presence right by her side.  He is a very interesting odd duck indeed.

They do make an attractive pair even if they are not meant to be.