Rare Songbirds from Western MN: June 1 & 2

With the sombering news over the weekend about fellow storm chasers Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras and Carl Young dying in what they did best: Storm chasing; we took a break and headed west and reflected our time with Nature.

We were able to capture some amazing rare birds! Some were at Amanda's parent's bird feeders, and others were along groves and woods. Below are some pictures of are rare birds we spotted that day.

American Pelican

 

 Merganser Momma with babies (Lac Qui Parle State Park)

Whitetail Deer

Baltimore Oriole

 Ringneck Pheasant

 Yellow Head Blackbird doing its call

 Yellow Head Blackbird in flight

Yellow Head Blackbird

 Teal sitting on the nest. I thought this shot was awesome with the reflection in the water.

 A healthy brood of goslings! Papa on the left, Momma on the right. The goslings this year have been a more rare sight to see.

 
Scarlet Tanager

Cat Bird

American Robin

Yellow Finch

Female Grosbeak

Johnny Jump Ups growing at my parent's place

May 25 - May 27th: South Dakota Chase

Saturday, May 25th

Memorial Day Weekend.  Nick and I planned for a Target of west of Pierre, SD. We started out the day early traveling from the Twin Cities arriving for a pit stop final chase target pick in Pierre, SD around 8am.

We headed west of Pierre towards White Owl, and stopped west of Union Center. Along the way we stopped at our favorite spot that looks over a steep hill. It contains prickly pear catcus along side of the road and a spectacular view in all directions.

We then proceeded to head west. We watched as the storm grew and produced many wall clouds to our west. At times the rain shrouded it, but then the wall cloud would appear again. The storm itself had so much rotation in it that the wall cloud seemed to go from the backside of the storm to the front side of the storm.

The picture above shows a nice feeder inflow going into the storm.

 Above is a picture Nick took of me on the phone with the weather service reporting a wall cloud on the storm we are watching. You can see the view of the storm via our radar on the laptop in the car.

We caught this brief needle funnel cloud just to the left of our car while watching the bigger storm to the west. 

 

The storm finally started to move to the south east and we headed back east and then south to reposition ourselves in front of the storm again. Below are some shots when we were sitting near the interstate on a county road.

 

Here we are directly east of the Rapid City NWS Radar site watching the storm move east.

As the sun started to set, the storm lost its energy, so we went east and grabbed the storm and colors of the sky with the setting sun.

A shot of the car with the awesome storm in the background.

What a great way to end the day!

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Sunday, May 26th

We looked at and watch the prediction from the SPC. We knew the big show would be down in Kansas, and later in the afternoon. We were hoping the storms would fire back in the same area as they were the day before, but unfortunately they fired way west in Wyoming.

So we did some "tourist" stops this day instead.

First stop - Wall Drug!

 This train was sitting on the tracks just next to the parking lot for Wall Drug.

From Wall we headed to the entrance of the Badlands. We went in at the Pinnancles Entrance and followed the Badlands Scenic Roadway through the park. Here are a few shots from the day.

A shot of Amanda taking a picture of the landscape.

A shot from the scenic byway drive.

 Wild Antelope running in the park. If you look very closely you can see the baby near one of the adults.

We were treated to a rare sight - Bighorn sheep on the side of the badlands itself. Momma and Baby!

 

 We then left the park and stopped at the Prairie Dog Gift Shop and feeding area along Highway 240.  We bought the prairie dog food from the gift shop (unsalted peanuts) along with a road trip souvenir and chase mascot for SD, and went to feed the Prairie Dogs. I had fun enjoying watching Nick feed the guys. We also were treated to priarie dog babies!

 Prairie Dog Babies in the hole

We then headed east towards Mitchell, SD to spend the night.

Monday, Memorial Day, we headed back home as all the risk was way south of us and out of our reach for the last long weekend chase weekend. 

 
 

5/17-5/19 South Dakota & Minnesota Chase

Nick & I had a great three day chase across the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest over the past weekend. 

We encountered many severe storms and lots of wonderful people along our way! Although we did not make it further south where the more intense action was, and the bigger crowds, 

 But sometimes its just about sticking to a target area and pulling the best from what the skies and surroundings bless you with.

Here is some pictures from the past weekend of our chase.

 Shelf Cloud moving closer to Hughes County northwest of Pierre.

 

 Pancake Stack shelf just west Lake Oahe just as the sun fades into the Dakota skies. We measured and reported a high peak wind gust of 61MPH with the gust front on this storm as it overtook our location.

  

TCU trying to organize and GO! on the South Dakota/Nebraska line near Valentine.

 

 

Storms rapidly getting organized over the open county of Ziebach County South Dakota.

 

Finally one of the cells attempts to do it as it interacts with a occluded frontal boundary draped over Ziebach and Meade counties. This wall cloud had visible rotation for a time shown here near Cherry Creek South Dakota 5/18.

Darkening skies over the Badlands of South Dakota near Wall.

  The Badlands greening up!

Well developed wall cloud along along the Minnesota/Iowa border south of Kiester MN. This wall cloud had fair rotation before the inflow became quickly cut off east of Kiester.

Nice Mammatus clouds greeted us on arrival, just North of Murdo in Jones County South Dakota.

 

Late evening severe warned storm rolling over the endless grasslands of central Stanley County in western South Dakota.

Shelf cloud getting better organized as the storm approaches the Missouri River and Lake Oahe northwest of the city of Pierre in Stanley County.