Tweeters,

In April we invested in airfare for a late July visit to Leora's sons
who are living in the Black Hills of Dakota. Big tourist destination
that it is, Rapid City is big bucks this time of year, so we were to
only fly as far as beautiful Billings.

This summer the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory was wanting to check
out Wyoming waterfalls for nesting Black Swifts, which have never been
documented. I figured we could make a token contribution by dropping
down into Wyoming and evaluating a couple of the waterfalls in the
Northern Big Horn Mountains that were kind of on the way. Might as
well also take a look at the waterfalls in the Black Hills, if there
are any. That's almost Wyoming.

A bit of Goggle research produces two obvious prospects. Bridal Veil
and Roughlock Falls are both roadside, and very much on the way.
Looks like they are only 6-7 miles apart on the Spearfish Canyon
Scenic Byway. Neither are jaw droppers but they're the best the hills
has to offer.

Shortly after confirming my reservations an Orange-billed Nightingale
thrush must have gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd and went with
them far north of where he should migrate. He finally decided enough
of this, and put the brakes on at a nice looking place. It was Iron
Creek in the Black Hills of South Dakota, half way between Bridal Veil
and Roughlock Falls.

The species had only been documented in the ABA NA area twice before,
and one of those was a window strike kill. This individual was
calling often and loudly. One could imagine his message of "Hey girls
I'm here", soon included "And I'm not picky".

We beat the sun to Iron Creek and could hear the thrush on arrival.
It took well over an hour for any of the dozen birders to finally get
a definitive look. Neither of the Schwitters were the first to pull
that off, and as expected, the primary emotional response was relief.

I'll bet that bird is still there, desperate to find another of his
kind.

Hope he knows what direction to head come September.

Larry/Leora Schwitters
Issaquah