Dele ALU Oe BON iB oUt be Naty IN ual 
Birding Enroute 
By C. O. DECKER 
WHEN ONE is driving it is not always possible, because of traffic, narrow 
roadway, or other conditions, to stop and examine a bird which starts up 
along the roadside or is perched on a pole or fence post. In many cases only 
a general identification can be made, and this must be checked later against 
museum specimens or bird books. This we have done in so far as we could, 
and if “impossibles” appear they are still our ideas of what we saw. With 
this mental reservation we, Mrs. Decker and I, started westward from 
Chicago early in the month of July. 
Nesting activities were generally over and young birds of strange 
species mixed with the others did not help at all, but watching for strange 
birds helped much in places where the way became monotonous. Our 
familiar roads through northern Illinois produced the usual run of robins, 
grackles, kingbirds, meadowlarks, brown thrashers, redwings, swallows, 
prairie horned larks, and occasional sparrow and marsh hawks. As we 
approached the Mississippi and into Iowa we began to notice a difference in 
the song of the meadowlark, the eastern faded out, and the western was 
with us well into the mountains of Wyoming, and even beyond. 
As we rode along in the flat lands of South Dakota we began to see 
more and more small, almost black birds with a prominent white patch in 
the wing, lark buntings, and they were very common from there into the 
mountains which are a barrier to so many of the eastern species. Through 
the Black Hills our attention was taken up by the fine scenery and a visit 
to the Mt. Rushmore Memorial, where giant heads of Washington, Jefferson, 
Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt are being carved from the mountainside. 
They are being magnificently done, and our personal and definitely minority 
opinion as to the appropriateness of the project does not detract from their 
grandeur. 
Into Wyoming we passed, and some of the old acquaintances were there 
to greet us. Mourning doves and meadowlarks were everywhere, and the 
yellow-headed blackbird is not such a rarity there as it is with us. Sharp- 
tailed grouse began to be seen, once in a while a pheasant would cross ahead 
of us, and redwings were nearly always in sight. But the flashy, showy 
black and white of the magpie that we began to see here did not grow old 
though we were to see it almost continually for weeks. The Big Horns 
brought the first real mountain scenery, with narrow roadways and no 
guard rails, and taking us up to 8,650 feet elevation in the pass on rather 
steep grades. The views were beautiful, but not so splendid as some that 
we were to see later. Adjectives fail and comparisons are not possible when 
one sees so much variety and all is on so grand a scale. The Cody Road 
along the Shoshone Canyon and to Yellowstone National Park is worth a 
trip in itself, with its roadway and tunnels cut in the solid rock of the 
mountainside, the river below sometimes confined to a narrow canyon and 
again spreading to almost a lake. 
Entering Yellowstone, we made our way to Canyon, and it was along 
the river here that we first saw the white pelicans which are so common in 
