Spring has come to the Northern Great Plains and large numbers of migratory birds are returning to South Dakota or passing through on their way to summer nesting grounds. Kent KC Jensen, Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Management at South Dakota State University, describes some of the birds and offers tips on where to see them during springtime.
Transcription
KC Jensen:
"We're right at the beginning of the migratory season and the birds that first show up here usually are the waterbirds and we're really seeing that this year. The ducks and geese of course, there's a few swans in the area and so it's a great time to get out to any place where there's some water in the landscape and see what's there. I was out just yesterday. Lots of geese, five different species actually. Canada geese, cackling geese, snow geese and Ros' geese and white-fronted geese and then all sorts of ducks. The other water birds that eat fish are starting to show up. The herons, I saw great blue herons and the grebes that dive under the water to catch fish. So it's like new things are showing up every day."
A lot of backyard birds can be seen year round in South Dakota, but the way they look and the way they behave changes in the spring.
KC Jensen:
"They're certainly getting ready to get into the breeding season. In fact, I'm just looking out my window over here and I've got about five or six American goldfinches sitting on my feeder, and of course in the winter time, they're all kind of all olive drab color. But right now the males are starting to change color into that bright yellow that we associate with goldfinches."
KC Jensen:
"They're going to start singing as the days get longer. The urge to sing really starts coming on with these birds. And so yes, I've heard Cardinals singing, house finches are singing, the goldfinches are singing. I heard the chickadees singing their little song, nuthatches. So yes, certainly that's what's going on."
There's no need to travel far in South Dakota to see the most common migratory birds. There's not much difference between East River and West River in terms of bird species. Sandhill Cranes are among the larger and noisier birds passing through South Dakota. Cranes that winter in Mexico and the Southwestern United States tend to congregate on the Platte River in Nebraska, but their northward migration route runs through some fairly specific corridors in South Dakota.
KC Jensen:
"In South Dakota, generally from highway 281 which runs, well, from Aberdeen down south through Redfield and Wolsey and just west of Huron, that corridor from highway 281 to the Missouri River seems to be a real hot spot for crane migration in the spring. And then there's another group of birds that are coming from a different population that tend to skirt the Western side of the state along the Black Hills and up through Fall River, Custor, Pennington, Butte, Harding County. And so those are the best places in the state to see cranes."
South Dakota is home to a significant population of bald eagles. They're somewhat particular about where they choose to nest and hunt, but they're not too hard to find.
KC Jensen:
"I would just stick to the river courses. I go out nearly every day here. I live just west of Brookings and the Big Sioux River runs just a couple of miles from my house. If I go down along the river and take the township or county roads that kind of are adjacent to the river, I see eagles every day. And that would be my recommendation is stay close to the rivers. Number one, there's food there for them. They're eating fish or waterfall or whatever they can get ahold of. And two, there's really large trees, those big cottonwood trees that they like to roost in all along the rivers."
KC Jensen:
"And so that'd be the best place to see them. And for us now in South Dakota, this has really been a great year for both migratory eagles, the ones that are moving through and for birds that are actually nesting here. In just the past few years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of eagle nests just along the Big Sioux River, the James River or Jim River, a little bit farther west. It's been really exciting to see."
Many more bird species will return to South Dakota once the weather warms and insects begin to hatch and flourish.
