Birding South Dakota
South Dakota is a study in habitat variety: large reservoirs from the Missouri River, mountains of the Black Hills, and tallgrass prairie and farmland. A visit to the 109-mile Mickelson Trail, located in the western section of South Dakota’s Black Hills region, provides excellent terrain diversity, where 176 of South Dakota’s 438 birds can potentially be observed. This area contains many pothole lakes as well as mixed-grass native prairie, ideally suited to nesting waterfowl and songbirds, respectively. As such, optimal times for visitors to bird the Mickelson Trail range from April through October.