Where East Meets West: The Birds of Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park sits where prairie meets forest, and that blend makes it a bird-watching hotspot. Over 100 species make the park their permanent home, and many more pass through during spring and fall migration.

Yellow-breasted chats are vocal visitors to the park each summer and can be heard singing at night (NPS photo).

East meets west

The Black Hills lie in the middle of the United States, so birds usually seen on the east or the west side of the country can both be found here. A visitor from the west coast might find an eastern bluebird or a red-headed woodpecker unusual; one from the east coast might notice a black-billed magpie or a golden eagle.

The northern flicker, a woodpecker found across much of the United States and Canada, shows the meeting best, because it looks different on the two sides of the country. Western males have a red "mustache stripe" and red wing and tail feathers; eastern males have a black stripe and yellow wing and tail feathers. At Wind Cave, males usually have the black mustache stripe of an eastern bird and the orange or red feathers of a western one.

Northern flickers in Wind Cave have the head markings of eastern birds but the wing and tail coloring of western birds (NPS photo / N. Lewis).

From the prairie

Much of the park's 33,000 acres is prairie, a mix of eastern tallgrass and western shortgrass. Western meadowlarks are a common sight and sound in summer, singing from tall perches. Eastern and mountain bluebirds are often seen catching insects near fence lines, and wild turkeys and the elusive sharp-tailed grouse may wander through the grass in flocks.

The cryptic plumage of the sharp-tailed grouse lets it blend in with its surroundings (NPS photo).

Prairie dog colonies feed and shelter many of the park's birds. Prairie dogs are a favorite food of golden eagles and red-tailed hawks, and scavengers such as turkey vultures and magpies visit prairie dog towns to feed on dead animals. Burrowing owls return to the park each year and raise their chicks in prairie dog burrows, tiny owls that blend in well with their four-legged neighbors.

To the forest

The ponderosa pine forests that define the Black Hills hold birds not usually found on the prairie. Great horned, long-eared and northern saw-whet owls nest in trees and hunt at night; brightly colored western tanagers, sometimes called "flying flames," stay for the summer and feed on insects and fruit; and cedar waxwings are common all year. The forest is also a haven for woodpeckers, including the red-headed and hairy woodpeckers and, with luck, the black-backed woodpecker, which is mostly found in Canada but has a small isolated population in the Black Hills.

Great horned owls vary in color from gray to brown and cinnamon (NPS photo / Neal Herbert).

In between

The area around the Elk Mountain Campground and the visitor center has more shrubs and underbrush than most of the park, which draws songbirds in large numbers: warblers such as the common yellowthroat, the yellow warbler and the very vocal yellow-breasted chat, and also wrens and colorful orioles near the visitor center.

House wrens are tiny summer visitors (NPS photo / Larry Putnam).

With no large bodies of water, the park has few water birds. In wet years, though, a seasonal pond near the intersection of Highway 385 and the southern end of the visitor center road can hold water for days, weeks or even months, and becomes a rest stop for ducks, geese and other migrating birds. By preserving and managing habitats, the park works to keep its bird community diverse.

Sources

• National Park Service, Wind Cave Birds, Wind Cave National Park; the page's embedded species-list tool and its definitions are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.