Blog #7. Nebraska!

    Hudsonian Godwit in flight with backlighting; white rump is obvious

I move camp 300 miles north to Smith Creek Recreation Area at Beaver Crossing, Nebraska, about 7 miles south of Utica, NE. Still solidly in cattle and rowcrop rural lands, mainly flat as a pancake, with the occasional undulation… This is east-central Nebraska.

    Two Hudsonian Godwit in flight; note the black wing-linings of the trailing bird

Recent eBird reports indicate that there have been migrant shorebirds in the area and give me a kick-start in exploring the environs. There is no national wildlife refuge here, just tiny towns, large farms and cattle pastures, and a few local waterfowl production areas.

    Two Hudsonian Godwits in water to right of flying Killdeer and with Blue-winged Teal in background. The seems to be         classic stop-over habitat for the species--flooded stubble fields.

As with before, I see my birds of interest in the human-managed landscape, not in the protected areas. The protected water impoundments are too deep for the shorebirds and are instead filled with Blue-winged Teal and Shovelers.

    Hudsonian Godwit in breeding plumage. Probably a female because of large size and plain rufous belly

North of Gresham, I visit a large expanse of flooded field that is busy with all sorts of birds. And lots and lots of shorebirds of various types… I learned of the site via an eBird report from Ruth Stearns, who earlier had reported 7 Hudsonian Godwits here. I visit this site on six occasions.  Every time I visit, morning or afternoon, it offers a distinct list of birds.

My first visit to the Gresham wetland produces 5 Hudsonian Godwits, 1 Marbled Godwit, many Wilson’s Phalaropes, and Pectoral, Semipalmated, Least, Stilt, and White-rumped Sandpipers, as well as 100 Yellow-headed Blackbirds, many Franklin’s Gulls, various duck species, and Black-bellied Plover. This was Barry Hybrink’s field until he recently sold it to a wetlands conservation trust (exact name not known). By 9 AM the gulls and godwits have moved elsewhere.

What I find over the next 3 mornings is that flocks of birds come and go all day long. Too bad I do not know where they go off too!

The morning of the 16^th May, I get to the flooded field north of Gresham by sunrise, about 0600. I immediately see a party of three Hudsonian Godwits foraging in the water alongside an American Avocet. By 0625 the godwits were gone. I did not see them depart.

    Buff-breasted Sandpiper showing how it blends in with the corn stubble, making the bird hard to locate

Adjacent to the wet field, on the other side the farm road where I am stopped, I scope the stubble field in hopes of some grasspipers… I am not disappointed. There are two parties of Buff-breasted Sandpipers, totaling 17 individuals as well as a single winter-plumage American Golden-Plover.

The Buffies are feeding actively, moving in a straight line through the stubble. 

    Another look at the same bird as above

They are not easy to see because of the stubble and the sun. But I am lucky enough to witness two cool things. First I see a bird do a single-wing display, where it raises one wing high up and flashes its bright white underwing. A minute or so later, I see a male do its mating display to three (presumed) females. In this display the male raises its two wings wide and puffs out its breast—quite something to see. There is a nice image of these two displays in the O’Brien shorebirds book (page 192 and 191). As with some of the birds of paradise, the Buff-breasted Sandpiper employs a lek mating system.

    Six Buff-breasted Sandpipers in flight. They are agile and graceful fliers

The parties of godwits and Buff-breasted Sandpipers and American Golden-Plovers that pass through here are like unseen aliens, touching down, feeding a few days, then moving on without being noticed. None of the informants I have spoken with in Nebraska have ever heard of a godwit…

    Orchard Oriole. Another common landbird in the open country of Nebraska

The landbirds here have an Eastern tone: Wild Turkey, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Baltimore Oriole, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Bluebird. The Baltimore Oriole is perhaps the most common songbird in the countryside. It is everywhere, often seen far from trees, in roadside hedges or even out sitting on the bare-earth of a plowed field. Here, this species behaves like an open-country species.

    Two male Baltimore Orioles tussling on the lawn at my campground; both survived the encounter...

My camp site is adjacent to a small reservoir with a large mowed field with picnic tables. It is popular with the people of Utica, who visit to swim or to walk the dog.

I share the tiny camping space with an interesting road-warrior, who has no fixed mailing address and lives out of his “camper.” Tony Sorensen has constructed a two-building home on wheels. The main house (which has clapboard siding, a screen porch, and windows) sits on the long flat bed of a large 6-cylinder diesel truck (1989 vintage). It is hand-constructed with unpainted wood, and looks a bit like an old cabin.

     Tony Sorensen's mobile lifestyle: truck-borne house, towed workshop, towed Nissan, and in foreground solar trike

The second (pulled) unit is his industrial workshop, filled with heavy-duty workshop equipment that allows him to repair or fashion just about anything he might need. Believe it or not, he also pulls a small Nissan flatbed utility at the end of this rig. Just to add to the picture, when Tony sets up camp, he brings out his hand-crafted solar-powered electric tricycle (a large solar panel sit over the trike, protecting Tony from the bright sun). Finally, Tony also sets up 2 small wind-mills to generate electricity for the batteries that run all his home appliances…. Most remarkable of all, Tony assures me that over the decade he has been driving this set-up around the country, he has not once been stopped by the police!

    Western Kingbirds love the power lines

One morning I visited the farm of Bob Romohr, who lives just east of the Gresham wetland. Bob plants 3,000 acres in seed corn and soy beans. He sells the seed corn to a nearby Monsanto facility (now owned by Bayer). He told me that his acreage is about the minimum a family can operate to generate a sustainable cash flow. He staunchly supports the President’s tariff battle with China.

Bob showed me his planter, which is state of the art. Hugely expensive, the planter uses cutting-edge GPS and computer technology to efficiently plant his fields. The farmers of America are firmly in the 21^st Century.

    Monsanto seed production facility, west of York, NE

Those not planting are running cattle operations. There is a lot of pasture land in this part of the country. Feedlots are a common site.

I should mention that Killdeers are everywhere. That species is the common breeding wader in this part of the heartland. They sit out in open fields, vocalizing. Also in these open fields I find mammals--Striped Skunk, Raccoon, and White-tailed Deer. 

    Skunk foraging out in stubble field. Skunks, Raccoons, and Deer show up out in open fields, doing their thing

Next stop, Aberdeen, South Dakota.