I really didn’t wake up this morning thinking I would be out taking pictures of bluebirds… but to be honest, even if wasn’t a snow day, I would have likely found a way to wriggle out of work and go shooting. It was simply breath taking outside.

They called a winter weather warning last night, which I instantly shrugged off. I was certain that because I was so sick of snow, it was just going to… not snow. But apparently my desire for the contrary wasn’t enough and the snow gods decided to give us one more dose of the white stuff. It dumped nearly 9 inches while we slept and when we woke up we were gifted yet another snow day. Now, could we have gotten to work, yes, but you see, today was also my moms birthday and I believe she had a secret desire to spend the day at home too.

I did have to run to work for a bit to take care of some client needs and took that opportunity to grab my camera – I was delighted to pull up to the office to see the squirrel who must have taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Instead of heading back up to the house, I took a quick lap down Skyline Drive and found a very photogenic blue bird who was kind enough to make sure I got a shot of every side of him, even his good side.

On the way back down the hill I saw the robins again… I mean, how can you NOT see the robins. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! I spent a little time with them again and am still baffled by their numbers. I’m hoping to get an understanding of their numbers soon, but for now I’ll just take delight in the anomaly. I did read last night though, that the high niumbers of robins may correspond directly to a low number of ceder wax wings – which would be a very sad reality if it is indeed true. I assume we will know soon enough.

For now, I’m back up at moms, I cant really think of a better way to spend earth day than celebrate the birth of one of the best, most amazing people on the planet; my mom with my brother, my daughter, the pups and seinor snowman.

Its snowing again… Its April 21st… I’m over it.

Yesterday though, was a gift. It was supposed to rain but it held off long enough for the sun to come out and melt off a majority of what we were given earlier in the week. Signs of spring are everywhere, but no where more than with in the mysterious dances of our feathered friends. I took a drive with my mom through the back roads to the north east of us and then a second trip into the woods with my cousin to find the blue birds.

I’m not sure why its all about birds right now, but it seems to be regardless of intent. I’m enjoying my time with them though. They are truly magnificent creatures. I’m patiently waiting and passing the time until the hills ready themselves for exploration. For now though, I’m just glad these guys are willing to wait around for me to find them.

Once again, the question arose; “Do I want to go hills or plains?” this time though, the sky made the decision for me. Usually when I’m facing this decision I am trying to figure out which way to head out of town, but yesterday I was trying to decide which way to drive home from Spearfish. I looked towards the Black Hills and they were covered with grey flat clouds, to the east the sky was broken, brightly contrasted between the deep thick dark blue storm clouds and the bright white where the sun was trying to break through. You could just tell that was where the cool stuff was.

I used the GPS on my phone to suggest a few routes home and decided to take Look Out Mountain Road out of Spearfish and then tried to stay on dirt roads and to the east of I-90 while still heading south. The roads were muddy, the wind was blowing and it was really really cold but that didn’t seem to keep the critters away.

I was delighted the first time Bear Butte showed itself. I love Bear Butte – It’s like a beacon, like Harney Peak, I know I’m not lost as long as I know where they are. Once I had the Bear in my sights I didn’t need the phone to find my way anymore – I just drove towards the mountain.

During the week, we had a rather substantial snow storm (see my earlier post about snowboarding down M Hill) and it was really windy out there. Occasionally the sound of my tires on the gravel would stir up the birds who were combing the recently revealed earth next to the road. Inevitably, I would disturb what they were doing and they would try to fly away but were always caught in the wind and thrown back with great force. I saw several different kind of birds who were treated the same way by the wind. Mostly meadowlarks and robins, but I did get to spend a little time with a beautiful American kestrel. I also found a frantic field mouse, some brand new cows and had a hilarious encounter with a prairie chicken on a fence.

I found myself on a great road.  I believe it was called Big Horn Road, I remember because it made me smile because of my recent quest to find and photograph animals by that very name. I decided the best way to document my location was to take out my iPhone and turn on the My-Fitness app. It cracked me up; the lady kept coming on every 3 miles or so to tell me how far I had traveled. She would say things like “time elapsed, 24 minutes. Miles gone: 9. Average speed: 4.7 miles per hour” (I’m too lazy to actually do the math, but what I really remember is that she told me it had taken me about 58 minutes to go 14 miles – it made me smile)

I spent a total of about 4 hours out there crawling along the back roads and I had called it a day several of times. I even had a failed attempt to head home when I tried to take the Alkali Creek cut off from Bear Butte to I-90 but I was forced to turn around when I reached a closed gate. A famous spring flurry had clouded the air but in the distance you could see Bear Butte glowing as the sun hit it behind the freak storm. I raced back to try to capture it but by the time I had reached a point where the whole mountain was visible, the storm had passed and everything was clear again. I turned left onto a road to turn back  but decided to see where it went instead.

It was on this road that I found the prairie chicken. It was so awkwardly perched up there that I wasn’t sure what it was at first. I thought it might have been a piece of plastic stuck to the barbed wire, it wasn’t until I got closer I realized it was a bird. But I still couldn’t tell what kind, I even thought it might be a duck for a second. Like I said before, the wind was really howling and was doing its best to get that goofy bird off that fence but it was downright determined to stay there. So much so that my pulling up, parking, backing up and pulling up closer to get a better shot didn’t disturb it. It just sat there and held on as tightly as it could with its over-sized feet.  Eventually it popped off the line and into the grass where it did what they do best and blended in among the brush until it disappeared completely. Just then my phone alerted me that I had a text message. It was from my mom. “Are you home yet?” it said. I responded with “no”.  She replied back “why not?” I smiled, turned the car on and drove home.

My adventure didn’t end when I got back to town. The sky called me up to Skyline Drive but this time it was passing in front of the sun casting great shafts of light all over the earth below. I raced up the winding road and was stopped by a magnificent crow who was checking out the view from the top of a dead twisted tree. I was so taken that I stopped in the middle of the road and grabbed my camera. I blocked traffic as long as I could before I headed onto the look out. It was a sight to behold but less impressive on camera than I had hoped. On my way back, I said to myself “If that crow is still there, I’ll take a few more pictures.” Not only was he still up there but he had called up a couple friends. I finished out my day with that crew and as I pulled into my driveway I realized; The journey decides when it’s over and if you keep your eyes peeled it will continue to be rewarding several times after you thought you were already done.

As my dog Tuesday ran the shoreline with me, I paddled away from our whole group, into the peacefully silence of a just waking ecosystem. For the most part it was all pretty effortless with the exception of a few places where I had to break the ice with my paddle to keep going. Where there was ice it was pretty thin and manageable. But then all of a sudden it changed into what I can only refer to as “Magic Ice” – the best way I can think to describe it is that it was like millions of pencil shaped ice crystals floating in water. That might not sound that cool, but when you hit the ice with your paddle the singular ice crystals would pop up out of the water and create super awesome towers. It was simply one of the coolest things I had ever seen. I went back and got Jaci and we spent hours whacking the ice and delighting in the results. It was like kayaking through a giant slushy.

Now, throughout the year, I would tell the story of the magic ice to people, and I would whip out my phone and show them the video of it and they would almost always say the same thing “I wonder if that’s something that normally occurs or if it was something truly unique?” Which, I have to admit, I thought to myself at the time of discovery. I mean, how cool would it be if we were the only ones who had ever seen that phenomena before?!?  The naturalist/scientists/discoverer in me had a solution to this. Why, we’ll just go back again a year later and see if it happens again. So, we did….

Unfortunately, This year’s trip up wasn’t as rewarding. After getting stuck in the snow on the way we finally reached the lake only to be greeted by nothing but ice. We knew it was much colder this Spring and we budgeted in an extra week before we went back, but sadly the lake and the magic ice still wasn’t ready. We arrived to a solid lake, frozen (almost) all the way to the shore. There was no way to get a boat into the water. That didn’t stop us from spending some time exploring along the shore line and witnessing a new phenomenon that was pretty cool… behold:

My theory is that even though the layer of ice was the size of the lake, it was free from the shore line and therefore floating on top of the water. The entire sheet of ice was bobbing up and down very subtly and creating the illusion that the water was draining out of the lake and then filling up again. It really did look like the lake was breathing and was completely hypnotizing.

Our quest to find the magic ice wasn’t a total failure though. We did discover that the ice crystals were there, they were just still too frozen together to create the magic pop. I think a couple more weeks and we’ll be in business.

I’ll be sure to let you know the results.

Until next time!

I dont know about you but I am ready for spring. Its not to say I’m not thoroughly enjoying my adventures out into the elements, but today we had a pretty close brush with vulnerability I could have done with out.

When Amy got in the van I simply said, “Hills or Prairie?” To which she replied “prairie.” We decided the best route would be south on HWY 79 and then east on Lower Spring Creek Road. The occasional snow drift across the road didn’t get to bad until we were pretty much all the way out into Nowhere. You see, out there there is not much to block the wind or anything that might get caught up in it. Last week it was dust, this week… snow.

We were only a few miles short of completing our loop and connecting with HWY 44 when all of the sudden the road turned to the right and just sort of disappeared .. and I’m not exaggerating… It was just gone. You couldn’t tell where the road ended and the prairie began. It was just snow. Although I knew better; I let the van slow to a stop as I tried to figure out where we were supposed to go. As soon as forward momentum stopped I said out loud  “oh shit, I shouldn’t have stopped” and I was right. Under the thick layer of drifting of snow lie a thick layer of ice. (Amy found that out the hard way). Finally, after I spun the tires all ways; forwards and backwards, left and right, I was finally able to find enough traction to back out and then pulled an “Austin Powers” (as Amy so eloquently put it). Once turned around we decided it was best to just turn it around and head back to town. Now, all this isnt to say that I’m not fully capable of finding trouble when the weather is good, and the roads are clear, I just look forward to not freezing to death while I’m standing around scratching my head trying to figure out how to get out of it.

Here’s a couple I was able to capture today, enjoy!