Monthly Archives: May 2021

Soccer Ball Birding: Birding Therapy Week Day Three

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Day 3 of Birding Week Therapy proved an easy task thanks to my daughter’s regular Wednesday night soccer practice out at Fort Missoula—a location that happens to sit next to what may be Missoula’s best birding location, affectionately known as “the gravel quarry.” Over the past years, Braden and I have birded the quarry dozens of times and counted about 130 different species there, including a number of rarities such as Long-tailed Duck, Pacific Loon, and Eurasian Wigeon that swing by during spring and fall migrations. This time of year, I was especially keen on finding some cool sparrows, which can also drop in for a week or two at a time. I would have preferred a morning visit, but birders can’t always be choosers, so after dropping my daughter off, our dog Lola and I set off to see what we could find.

The late-season Merlin was a real treat, especially watching it in action hunting another bird!

Few ducks graced the pond and they were too far away to ID without a scope, so we hurried on to the river to look for sparrows. Alas, the action proved pretty slow, but as I was peering into one of my favorite sparrow spots, two larger birds dived into a patch of tansy. One flew off again before I could ID it, but the other extricated itself and perched on a nearby tree. Its behavior led me to believe it was a Sharp-tailed Hawk, but on closer inspection I saw that it was a Merlin! And quite late in the year for the location! I took my time studying it since I often have difficulty identifying these in the field.

Cooper’s Hawks are common at the quarry, but I wondered if this was a resident or just passing through.

Minutes later I saw another raptor circling and just assumed it was the Merlin, but no, it proved to be a Cooper’s Hawk! Braden later reminded me that raptor migration was in full swing so both sightings made sense, along with the lone Turkey Vulture I saw in the distance.

I never tire of watching Sandhill Cranes and it seems we’ve been finding them at this location more consistently the past couple of years.

Soon, I heard weird guttural calls that I have come to love—Sandhill Cranes. Three of them caught the gorgeous evening light and I am guessing they breed nearby since they’ve become a common sight out there. Alas, songbirds proved scarce but on our way back to the car, Lola and I finally dissected a White-crowned Sparrow from some brush. I’d had bigger days at the quarry—and better photos, too—but also much worse days. I knew, though, that I’d be returning for Day 6 of Birding Therapy Week—and in the morning!   

Peregrine Possibilities: Birding Therapy Day Two

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So after getting home from my Blue Mountain hike on Monday, I began planning Tuesday’s birding therapy outing to the Missoula Cemetery, a place I have monitored since the pandemic began last year. Almost immediately, however, I received a message from a friend of a friend (FOAF) about a putative Peregrine Falcon pair a few miles from our house. Peregrines are not uncommon in Montana with well over a hundred nesting pairs—a remarkable resurgence considering the DDT disaster that devastated dozens of bird species through the 1960s and 70s. However this possible nest site was one that neither Braden nor I had heard of, so instead of hitting the cemetery Tuesday morning, I convinced Braden to skip first period and go check it out by bike.

Braden and I never tire of seeing Red-naped Sapsuckers, especially in a new location!

It was a perfect morning for a bike ride and we spotted or heard Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and an assortment of other birds—Braden more than I thanks to his Bionic Ears of Youth! We were especially excited to find a nice boggy area with a couple of Red-naped Sapsuckers drumming on snags. Finally, we reached the area the FOAF had described and almost immediately thought that we heard the peregrines calling. We set up “camp” and watched, hoping to catch sight of them. No luck. Even worse, Braden had to leave to get back to school. “Well crap,” I thought. I didn’t want to see them without him, but also knew I might not head back to the spot anytime soon so decided to stay longer.

One of the benefits of hauling a camera with you is to “slow down” birds that are too fast and too far away to easily observe. Peregrine Falcons are a case in point!

I pulled out my phone to play a peregrine recording—not to attract them but to make sure what they sounded like. WHAM! Almost instantaneously a loud answering call hit me from above and I looked up to see the unmistakable shape of a falcon flying against the gray skies. That turned out to be just the opening salvo in an amazing twenty-minute aerial exhibition that the peregrine and his mate put on for me. I watched them chase off another raptor, skim forest treetops, and in a grand finale, copulate on the branch of a tree! Granted, the birds were far away, but I can’t recall a more exciting raptor experience—well, at least since seeing the Gyrfalcon with Braden earlier this year.

I got in touch with the Montana Peregrine Institute to see if they knew about this particular nest and it turns out that the pair was first discovered in 2020 and had apparently successfully fledged three young! My FOAF went even further and single-handedly convinced the Forest Service to delay a controlled burn that was supposed to happen this last week—right in the peregrines’ territory! Hopefully, the burn will go ahead in the fall—and give the birds a wonderful larder of new prey to raise their next batch of chicks.

Even though the birds were far away, it was thrilling to watch them mate—something that will hopefully ensure a new crop of peregrines this year!

A Week of Birding Therapy: Day One

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I know it’s hard to believe but even underpaid writers living in Montana can get to feeling down sometimes. Covid certainly has not helped the situation since it and the gut-wrenching economic and societal upheavals it has triggered make the future look blurry at best. In this kind of situation, however, birders have a distinct advantage over non-birders. Why? Because we can immediately step outside for a dose of birding therapy. Last weekend, in fact, I decided I needed not one day, but a week of birding to try to set things right. I began with a return to a place that in many ways inspired my and Braden’s journey into birding: the Blue Mountain Nature Trail just south of Missoula.

It’s always a good day when you see shooting stars in the wild. We tried planting them in our garden when we moved in 15 years ago and the deer loved them. Only one highly-protected plant survives!

The nature trail takes hikers through a twenty-year-old burn that in years past has been a birders’ paradise with plenty of snags for woodpeckers and a lush resurgence of native plant growth on the newly-sunlit forest floor. The trail, in fact, is where UM biologist Dick Hutto—an expert on the value of burns to birds—took me when I began researching my book Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests. At the time, Black-backed Woodpeckers still lived there, but I wondered what it would be like some eight years later. I was not disappointed.

Though the Black-backed Woodpeckers have long departed for blacker pastures, Northern Flickers still take full advantage of the burned forest twenty years after the blaze.

Though I arrived a week or two early for the crush of cavity nesters about to descend on the forest, seeing my first shooting stars and Pasque flowers of the year immediately cheered me up. And the birds, while not abundant, were of the highest quality. On my way up I saw a pair of Townsend’s Solitaires, and heard Cassin’s Finches and my year’s first Williamson’s Sapsucker, which I IDed both by its higher, forest-edge location and its almost halting, hesitant drum pattern. Moving on, I spent time with a Hairy Woodpecker and Northern Flicker, and at the forested saddle where I usually turn around, spotted my year’s first Cooper’s Hawk flying furtively and low to the ground.

Townsend’s Solitaires are hands-down one of our favorite Montana passerines and nest in the root balls of fallen trees. This makes them perfect burn birds.

I had hoped to hear an Orange-crowned Warbler, but alas, was probably a bit too early for those. Back near the road, however, I was rewarded by Red Crossbills and the year’s first look at a dazzling male Yellow-rumped Warbler. Satisfied with my thirteen species, I continued on to the car, planning my next day’s trip to the Missoula Cemetery to see what I could find. Unbeknownst to me, fate was about to deal Braden and me a radically different birding destination for Tuesday . . .