South Dakota: Black Hills and Badlands

American Dipper © Rick Wright

This new tour brings us to a fascinating island of montane habitat rising high above the prairies of the Great Plains, where eastern and western birds, mammals, and plants meet against the stunning natural and historical backdrop of the Black Hills, the sacred mountains of the Lakota.

The craggy mountains known as Pahá Sápa, or the Black Hills, tower over the endless prairie of the Great Plains, their pine-clad slopes and stony summits home to a glorious and sometimes startling mixture of eastern and western birds, mammals, and plants. The region’s rich human history is captured in such staggering monuments as Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial, crafted on a scale rivaled only by the work of nature in carving the more than 200 miles of underground passages that make up sparkling Jewel Cave.

Virtually at the center point of the northern plains, the granite peaks, red shale canyons, grassy mountain meadows, rushing streams, and pine-spruce forests of these mountains draw organisms from all directions. Here the observant visitor may meet up with Pinyon Jays from the southwest, Blue Jays from the east, and Canada Jays from the Rockies. American Three-toed, Red-headed, and Lewis’s woodpeckers all nest within a few miles of each other, and Gray Catbirds, Bullock’s and Orchard orioles, and American Dippers share the lush canyon woodlands and rushing mountain streams. Eastern and Western kingbirds, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Red Crossbills, and Indigo and Lazuli buntings are just some of the fascinating juxtapositions of east and west, north and south, that we can hope to encounter.

The impressive range of nesting raptors is equally appealing, with Golden Eagles, Broad-winged Hawks, and American Goshawks all good possibilities, while the high plains surrounding the mountains are the hunting grounds of Prairie Falcons and Ferruginous Hawks. Burrowing and Short-eared owls can both be found on the shortgrass prairies, where they share an abundance of small mammal and insect prey with American Kestrels and the most elegant of grassland birds of prey, the Swainson’s Hawk.

A very special excursion will take us into the otherworldly landscapes of Badlands National Park, a vast wilderness carved over the ages into jagged buttes and spires of red and green rock. Eerily quiet today, with little but the whistles of Say’s Phoebes and the trills of Rock Wrens to break the silence, this area teemed with large mammals and other wildlife in the Miocene. Abundant fossils of oreodonts, brontotheres, and ancient camels make this the richest paleontological site in the world, and we may have a chance to watch scientists at work in the field and the preparation lab.

As we enjoy the birds and the breathtaking scenery, we will have plenty of opportunity to admire the many iconic mammals still common in these environments. Custer State Park is rightly famous for its thriving populations of American Bison, Mule Deer, Pronghorn, and Black-tailed Prairie Dog, and there is always the chance of coming across a Bobcat or American Badger, too. June is also wildflower season on the northern Great Plains. By visiting at what is at these elevations still the height of spring, we will find everything from harebells and prairie roses to sego lilies in glorious bloom.

Good to very good accommodations; good food; walks of no more than a mile on level paths, with occasional steeper stretches; typically cool nights and comfortably warm days; usually dry, with a chance of spring thunderstorms.

Ferruginous Hawk © Michael O'Brien