This post was written by Mary Parr, one of our Hubbard Conservation Fellows. Mary is an excellent botanist and land steward and very interested in the field of ecological restoration. She (along with Chelsea) is entering the final month of her Fellowship, which seems hard to believe.

Over the years, I have tried to foster an interest in birds, but have had little success. I prefer my deeply rooted photosynthetic friends that don’t flee from me when I slowly sieve through a field guide identifying them. While my relationship with birds has been strained by their elusiveness, I am beginning to understand why they receive praise from millions of bird lovers. Living on the Platte River Prairies, we are located directly in the continent’s central fly-way for migratory birds and water fowl. Since beginning the fellowship, I have seen and experienced the most birds (possibly) in my entire life. As a result, I have begun to develop curiosities about a specific behavior and one that I have now experienced by the thousands: flocking.

I can recall the first time I experienced a central fly way migration. One blue-skied spring morning, I woke up to a cacophony of honking. I went out the front door in my pajamas to view a river of Snow Geese in the sky. The continuous stream of birds’ silhouettes directly overhead stretched form horizon to horizon. Their movements reminded me of water flowing through a delta as their V’s were converging, diverging, and re-emerging. As I researched further why migration occurs in large flocks, I found there were many beneficial reasons. A big one is for safety. Many eyes provide many alarms when a predator is nearby. Additionally, it is more difficult for a predator to focus in and single out an individual – this is especially beneficial for young and old birds that may be more vulnerable. The V’s are an efficient form of travel reducing drag from the wind like bicyclists in the Tour de France. The front bird creates an updraft of air for the bird behind it, and the pattern continues down the V. This enables the group to use less energy and reduce fatigue. When the leader tires, they all alternate positions. The honking can be related to several communications, but my favorite is encouragement. Individuals from the back of the group will honk in support of the birds in the front to continue the pace. I like to think of a nervous young adult goose finally getting their big chance as the leader and their friends and parents cheering them on.

The Sandhill cranes migrate with similar behavior, but slightly different physics. Their bodies are shaped like an intercontinental airbus – perfect for gliding. By waiting patiently for the predominant winds to go the direction of their travel, they can travel long distances and expend little energy. My favorite group display of the Sandhill cranes was their angelic thermal rising during their departure from the Platte River this spring.  The group takes advantage of thermal cells, pockets of rising warm air that are heated at the earth’s surface from the sun’s radiation. As the air rises (as warm things do because they are less dense) the cranes catch the updraft with their large wings. The slow rising occurs as a group in a long spiral and continues until they are hundreds of feet high and nearly out of sight. Once they reach the predominant winds above they are carried north to complete their journey to Canada, Alaska, and for some Siberia.  

Although non-native, one of my favorite displays is from the European Starling – a species introduced from Europe in the 1880s. Every fall growing up I would sit utterly mesmerized as I watched the large swarming mass of hundreds of birds expanding and contracting, twisting and pulsating in perfect coordination. These starlings are widely known for their fluid flocking displays known as murmurations. This mass avian aerial stunt occurs every fall, primarily in urban areas and cities where the starlings predominately live. They gather for many reasons including: to share information, body heat, and avoid predators – the primary one being Peregrine falcons. The presence of a predator in the sky results in even wilder displays as the group twists and diverts the path of the raptor. These birds are not led by a determined leader, but governed collectively by all the members. Among all bird species, starlings flocks are particularly recognized for their excellent communication and collective response. When one individual changes speed or direction, its immediate flock mates will respond to the change almost simultaneously. Some research has found that an individual in the flock can continuously monitor up to 7 of its nearest neighbor’s movements and react respectively. The swooning flocks in Denmark are so dense they actually block out the sun in a display known as “Black Sun”.  The largest flock recorded had over 6 million individuals!

While birds are not the champion of my interests, I can respect a good show when I see one. Happy flying, my friends.

Kim and I didn’t make it up to the Niobrara Valley Preserve last week, as originally planned, but I made a quick trip this week. The area received around 7 inches of snow, which blew up into big drifts on the leeward side of the hills (and road banks). I waited until the roads cleared enough to travel safely and then drove up in time to catch the late Tuesday afternoon light. I hopped on my ATV and headed out into the snow, hoping to find scattered bunches of bison.

The first 15 to 20 minutes of driving consisted of me carefully scanning ahead to avoid jamming the ATV into deep snow. It was hard to tell where the snow was or wasn’t deep because vegetation height varied enough to camouflage snow depth. I was working really hard to scan for deep snow, bison, and other nice photo opportunities all at the same time. For the most part, I failed in all three efforts.

Eventually, I started finding bison tracks and guessed that if I followed their paths, I’d avoid the deeper pockets of snow. My hypothesis was that the bison knew the terrain better than I did, and would stick to shallow snow as much as possible. That hypothesis proved mostly accurate. In only a few cases did the bison tracks venture into deep snow. I figured that was due either to bison that got distracted, were looking for a challenge, or had discovered my plan to follow them and were pranking me. It might well have been all three.

After a half hour or so, including some time following bison tracks, I realized my mind had started unconsciously picking out routes that avoided deep snow. As a result, I was able to relax and scan for photos and bison without worrying about burying the front end of the ATV in a drift. I was reminded of Mark Twain (I think?) writing about the ease with which riverboat captains could read the Mississippi River in the old days, piloting their boats effortlessly around snags and shallows. Feeling an odd (and undeserved) kinship to those captains, I relaxed, increased my speed a little, and started making better progress across the vast landscape. Soon after, I spotted my first group of bison in the distance and navigated a winding path across the snow-covered prairie dunes in their direction.

I spent the next hour or so quietly observing and photographing a couple different small bunches of bison. In both cases, I pulled my ATV slowly up close to where they were grazing, turned the engine off, and soaked in the silent snowy landscape around me, the stillness broken only by occasional gentle grunts by the bison. They seemed completely unperturbed by me and were intently focused on eating. That suited me just fine.

Before the sun dropped too low, I also wanted to test out the new drone we’d recently purchased. I had picked out the DJI Mavic 2 Zoom because of its relatively small size (transportability!) and the zoom capability of its camera. I’d taken it out for a couple quick test flights around home, but I was really hoping it was going to be good for photographing bison from the air. The smaller size and (related) quietness of the rotors, I hoped, would let me get close to the bison without disturbing them. In addition, I wanted to test the ability of the zoom lens to get even closer, at least optically, so the bison didn’t just look like little dark spots in a big horizon. My previous drones had such wide-angle lenses that they were great for capturing big landscapes, but not so great with bison.

I had the drone approach very slowly, watching from a distant hilltop to gauge the reaction of the bison. They were definitely aware of the drone’s presence, but didn’t seem particularly worried about it. Some of them lifted their heads to find and track the drone’s progress, but others kept their heads down and grazed on. I gradually moved the drone lower and closer, constantly watching for any kind of nervousness or shying away by the bison. Eventually, I stopped and had the drone hover, maybe 30 feet or so from the herd. (I’m guessing on that distance because I was several hundred yards away at the time.) I zoomed in with the lens and was satisfied with the results.

Pleased with the test run of the drone, I flew it back to me, packed it into its pleasingly small carrying case, and stowed it on the ATV rack. Then I started the long meandering ride back to headquarters as the sun dropped below the horizon. The total lack of clouds in the sky took away any chance of a colorful sunrise, but apart from that mild disappointment, I felt like the four hour drive had already paid off – and I didn’t have to leave until late morning the following day. I hoped there would be plenty more opportunity for both ground-based and aerial photography before I had to drive home. (I was right – but you’ll have to wait a little longer to see those images.)