Jude and I spent the July 4 week in South Dakota. It's one of our favorite places to bird, partly because you can get there with two days of reasonable driving. Mostly we like it for its prairies. Birding is good on this side of the Missouri River; Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Aberdeen is a fine place to visit. We favor the land west of the river, though. Once you cross the Missouri the landscape changes. You enter ranch land, leaving most agriculture behind. Much of the grazing land is short-grass prairie covering gently rolling hills. We did the Badlands east of Rapid City, then spent one day in the Black Hills, and went into the northwest corner (Harding County) for some serious bird work.

Harding County has a few very large ranches and one town, Buffalo. And many, many birds. Lark Buntings, Western Meadowlarks, Horned Larks, and Grasshopper Sparrows are there by the thousands, maybe millions, or so it seems. As we drove the gravel roads -- excellent roads, by the way, capable of allowing safe passage at 50 miles per hour -- we were rarely out of sight or sound of one of those species. We found Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Marbled Godwits, Long-billed Curlews, Upland Sandpipers, various sparrows, Golden Eagles, and Wilson's Phalaropes. Those were the highlight birds. There were other species as well. Those include many ducks. It's perfect there for ducks this year.

Both North and South Dakota are very wet and very green. They've had rain way beyond normal. Every dip and low spot that can hold water has water. Lakes are beyond their shorelines. Cabins are flooded. Rivers are out of their banks. We crossed the James River as we came home via Highway 12. You couldn't tell where in a vast expanse of water the river ran. Only the highway bridge offered a clue. The Aberdeen area received 2.5 inches of rain the night of July 5. On the way east from that city we saw a graveyard under water, a small blue lake dotted with tombstones. That was a first for us. Gave me the willies.

With puddle and potholes and flooded fields available, ducks are having a great year. They're everywhere, hens leading strings of ducklings away from inquisitive photographers.

We didn't find as many raptors as we expected. I flushed a Great Horned Owl one morning. It was roosting in a tree along a county road, 10 feet from my elbow out the van window and about that high from the ground. In the prairie, roosting places are in short supply; birds use what they can find. The bird flew to a nearby power pole, giving me wonderful looks as it glared at Red-winged Blackbirds cautiously expressing their dismay at the owl in their neighborhood. We saw several Swainson's Hawks, a few Kestrels, two Golden Eagles, and a half dozen Harriers. If there had been more hawks and eagles, we would have seen them: 90 percent of the world out there is sky.

Several photos follow.

Long-billed Curlew

Great Horned Owl and Red-winged Blackbird

A pair of Lark Buntings

Red-tailed Hawk with captured snake