Date: 9/4/26 10:51 am From: N Drilling via groups.io <dril0008...> Subject: [sd-birds] Evening Grosbeaks, Rapid City
Not to steal the thunder from the weekly Outdoor Campus survey posting, but this morning we had a flock of 14 Evening Grosbeaks during the survey. They were in Wilderness Park and, after feeding for a bit on bugs in ash trees, they flew north into the surrounding neighborhoods. Formerly fairly common in Rapid City and Pennington County, they have been gone for at least two to three decades. I moved here in 2011 and these are the first I have ever seen in the county.
Although it was a delight to see these birds, it is also cause for concern. The past month has seen Evening Grosbeaks showing up earlier and in new places in the Black Hills, Clark's Nutcrackers out on the prairie, many scattered reports of Red Crossbills East River, and East River flocks of Pine Siskins. None of these birds should be here until late Fall. This suggests that something is amiss in their boreal forest habitats (in the Rocky Mountains, northern Minnesota, Canada) that is forcing them to wander sooner and farther than normal.
