Category Archives: Big Day

When Montana Birders Collide, Great Birds Can Happen (Report from Braden)

There was no Snowy Owl in the field. Someone had reported the owl from the field this morning, but there was nothing white in sight aside from the post office where we’d parked—not even a plastic bag pretending to be a Snowy Owl! I turned to Miles. “I thought Snowy Owls were supposed to be easy in Maine. What do you wanna do now? There was a Gray Kingbird reported from York County, Maine, yesterday. Although that’s a three hour drive…” I suggested, sure that was out of the question.

To my surprise, Miles looked at me. “Well, we missed the owl. Might as well go big or go home!” We piled into the car and headed south!

Miles Scheuering had contacted me a few weeks ago about the fact that he would be in Maine as part of a going-on-three-month road trip he’d been on this fall. I’d run into him a few times in Missoula when he’d attended the University of Montana, but never really gotten the chance to talk to him, so I jumped at the chance of birding together! He’d picked me up at my dorm that morning, neither of us with specific birding targets in mind. Now we were driving towards southern Maine on a whim, hoping that the Caribbean bird that had randomly showed up in a coastal neighborhood would still be there when we arrived. Along the drive, we began filling in our lists for the counties we passed through as I learned about how Miles’s road trip had gone. He’d struck out from Portland, Oregon in September, driving through Colorado up to Montana, and then straight down to the Salton Sea in southern California. He then had shot east through the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, around the Gulf of Mexico, and up through New England until arriving in Orono to pick me up.

**Having fellow Montana birder Miles Scheuering show up in Maine was a welcome surprise—and led to some BIG BIRDING!** **Thank you Miles!**

And now he found himself again driving south with me in tow to chase what appeared to be only Maine’s fourth ever eBird record of a Gray Kingbird, a Caribbean bird that shouldn’t have been within 1500 miles of Maine but had an unusual habit of straying north in late fall. Ironically, I had been in Florida a few weeks ago for Thanksgiving but had not even dreamed of seeing this bird then.

Driving south, we passed small, coastal towns including Biddeford and Kennebunk that had become familiar to me during the last few months, especially because I’d made friends who lived there. A few miles south of Biddeford, we hung a left, and the Atlantic Ocean soon came into view. So, too, did a large number of cars and people wearing binoculars and cameras walking along a single road bordered by a rocky breakwater. We parked, then headed toward the commotion. Almost immediately, someone pointed a small bird out to us several dozen meters away. It was actively flycatching and landing on the rocks, stopping periodically to admire the large crowd that had gathered to watch it. The flycatcher was slate gray, with a dark, raccoon-like mask and a hefty, Eastern Kingbird-esque bill. It was definitely a Gray Kingbird!

**Maine is the last place I expected to nab my lifer Gray Kingbird—a bird that shouldn’t have been within 1,500 miles of Maine!**

As Miles and I watched the flycatcher sally back and forth across the breakwater, a lady approached us.

“Hey, I know that it’s not the star of the show, but there’s a Snowy Owl on that roof over there.”

I looked up, and sure enough, spotted a large white ball perched on a chimney several hundred meters behind the Gray Kingbird. “No way! I wonder if anyone has ever had Gray Kingbird and Snowy Owl on the same list before today?” I said to Miles as he began scoping the ocean for sea ducks.

**It wasn’t the Snowy Owl we’d set out to find, but we’d take it!**

“I doubt it…got some Black Scoters though!”

Soon enough we’d picked up all three scoter species (my second time doing that in a day in Maine and my first time doing it in one spot) and Long-tailed Duck. After snapping photos of both the kingbird and the owl, which were both incredibly cooperative, and scanning a large gull flock for anything interesting, we headed out. We probably should have turned around to begin the long drive north again, but instead we continued south to investigate a report of a Black-headed Gull in the town of York, half an hour away. We pulled up at a large sandy beach—a rare sight in Maine—and immediately picked out several flocks of gulls standing beside the rolling tide. Sure enough, I soon observed a dainty gull with bright red legs, a red bill and a dusky ear spot hiding among the larger Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. Black-headed Gull was a lifer for Miles and an ABA lifer for me, and we watched it loiter on the beach as its American counterpart, a Bonaparte’s Gull, dove into the surf behind it.

**Can you find the Black-headed Gull here?**

Hungry for more, we drove to a nearby lighthouse to check for Purple Sandpipers and Harlequin Ducks. No sandpipers showed themselves but Miles quickly found two groups of mostly male Harlequins hugging the rocky coastline. It was really cool to see these in their wintering habitat as compared to the fast-flowing streams I’d usually seen them in in Glacier National Park.

**Not the best photo, but this was the first time I’d ever seen Harlequin Ducks outside of Montana!**

We decided to head back towards Orono, briefly stopping to look for a Clay-colored Sparrow in a cemetery in Portland to no avail. Miles dropped me back at UMaine at around 5 pm, and we made sure to exchange information about birding Maine and Oregon. In fact, Miles will be back in Oregon when my family heads over there for Christmas, so you may see his name pop up on another blog in the near future! It had been an epic, rarity-filled day, and I went to bed dreaming of owls on rooftops and flycatchers by the sea.

Rare Bird Hat Trick!

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In my last blog, My Accidental Big Year, I recounted my fun birding adventures with some of Houston’s top birders in my quest to “accidentally” break my Big Year record of 336 ABA species. Even as I posted that blog, I harbored serious doubts if I could do it. However, after this week’s—dare I call them shocking?—events, I am more optimistic. It all started when I got a great email from Will Sebern, who had read my last blog and asked if I had gotten an Anna’s Hummingbird for the year and, if not, would I like to come over and see the one visiting his feeder. The answer: No and a resounding Yes! Less than 24 hours later, I was pleasantly chatting with Will on his porch admiring a gorgeous beauty sipping at his feeder. Ka-ching! My year count rose to 328—only nine short of my goal! Thank you, Will! (Note, I picked up number 327—Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay— during a daddy-daughter trip to Salt Lake City last week!)

**Anna’s Hummingbirds sweep through western Montana every year, but Braden nor I had ever seen one—until my surprise invitation from Will Sebern!**

That said, nine new Year Birds in Montana—in winter—was not a small number. For one thing, I was not willing to race everywhere across the state to chase birds. Burning up gasoline to see birds, birds that are directly harmed by carbon dioxide emissions, has become more and more of a concern for me and other birders. I was willing, though, to travel an hour or two, especially if I could carpool with others. “Maybe,” I thought, “I might be able to run into two or three rarities fairly close to Missoula,” and began eyeing eBird rare bird alerts. During my trip to Texas, I missed quite a few opportunities, but then, a few days ago, Montana eBirder Sharon Dewart-Hansen posted a picture of a Long-tailed Duck at Brown’s Lake only an hour from Missoula! I couldn’t go that day or the next, but called Braden and asked, “Do you think it will still be there tomorrow?” He answered, “Well, ducks often stick around for a while. I’ll bet it will.”

**One of the delights of our day was the first sightings of so many of Montana’s western winter birds—including this immature Northern Shrike!**

I fired off a text to several local birders to see if they wanted to join me—and no one could make it. “That’s okay,” I thought. “I’ll take the dog and we’ll have a good time whether or not we see anything.” The next morning, though, Steve Flood texted that he could make it after all. We rendezvoused at the truck stop in Bonner and merrily headed up Highway 200.

Arriving at Brown’s Lake, a surprise flock of Common Redpolls greeted us, but though we saw some cool grebes and ducks, THE duck was nowhere in sight at our first stop. We kept circling the lake, though, and spotted a suspicious critter near the campground. I hit the brakes. “Is that it?” Steve answered, “I think it is!” Sure enough, the Long-tailed Duck paddled only fifty feet offshore. The duck, however, was just the beginning. At the campground, Steve found three distant Pacific Loons while I spotted two gulls that turned out to be Bonaparte’s Gulls. A pair of American Tree Swallows—the first of winter—put an accent on our finds.

**Seeing only my second Long-tailed Duck ever will long lodge itself in my memory banks. Never did I suspect it would be the first of three Big Year birds Steve Flood and I would see that day!**

Elated with our finds, we headed out along the backroads behind Brown’s Lake, which I had never birded, but Steve knew well. More surprises greeted us including a bevy of other new winter arrivals including my first Rough-legged Hawks, Bohemian Waxwings, and Northern Shrikes of the season! Since we were on a roll, I asked, “Hey Steve, you want to take a quick run up to Seeley Lake on our way home?” Steve was game. We turned right at Clearwater Junction and twenty minutes later pulled into the River Point picnic area on the lake’s west side. I had few expectations, but we saw Common Loons, Western Grebes, Hooded Mergansers, and another surprise flock of Common Redpolls. Then, looking through his scope, Steve said, “I have a present for you.” I peered into the eyepiece and saw . . . A beautiful Pacific Loon! Er, check that . . .

**Birding with top-notch birder Steve Flood proved not only a way to learn a lot and help reduce our carbon footprints, it was a great way to make a new friend!**

It was the same Red-throated Loon Steve had discovered a couple of weeks before! Neither of us had any idea it would still be around, and it capped a remarkable day, one that not only netted me three new Big Year birds, but almost every winter bird that Braden and I work hard to find every year. Well, okay, except for Snowy Owls, Great Gray Owls, Lapland Longspurs, and Snow Buntings. You’ve got to save something for later, right? Even better, I felt like I’d made a new friend in Steve, who is not only an excellent birder, but a pretty darned good guy! Once again, it brings up the adage, “In birding, you just never know—but you won’t unless you keep getting out there!”

Ptarmigan Party in Glacier National Park

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(by Braden) By the time our posse of eleven reached Logan Pass at 6 in the morning, the parking lot was already full, though that did not hamper the views. Nick Ramsey and I rushed over to the bathrooms, admiring a view we had not experienced for years (despite having been to the lower-altitude parts of Glacier Park every year since 2017) and nabbing Cassin’s Finch and White-crowned Sparrow, then hopped back into Joshua Wade Covill’s car and headed for the Piegan Pass trailhead.

Nick and I had arrived at Josh’s house in Columbia Falls late the night before after a helping of early-summer shorebirds south of Kalispell and were greeted by not only Josh, one of Montana’s birding mammoths, but also by an assortment of the country’s top birders: Tom Forwood Jr., a southern Montana-based birder well-known for the Big Day records he had set across Montana (some of which had been with Josh) and working at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park; Marky Mutchler, a recent graduate of Louisiana State University who had been the ABA young birder of the year a few years back and whose six-out-of-five star photos decorated every part of eBird’s website; four field techs currently studying nesting birds like Lazuli Buntings and Spotted Towhees on MPG Ranch, and two more birders, who along with Marky, currently spent their time researching grassland birds like Long-billed Curlews and Sprague’s Pipits out on the American Prairie Reserve. Several of the people I had already met through Facebook, while I was excited to meet others for the first time. I knew I was in the presence of greatness the minute I stepped out of the mini-van and onto Josh’s lawn, where I pitched my tent.

We were all here for one reason: to see Glacier National Park and its birds under the guidance of Josh, who knew the park like a Black Swift knows the underside of a waterfall, and who had, in fact, just started a Glacier-based guiding company! While several of us had been here before, others (including many of the field techs) had never seen this part of the country before, and we were prepared to assist in blowing their minds.

We woke up on Saturday morning at 5, getting into the park before the ticket period started, and were up and over Logan Pass by 6. A MacGillivray’s Warbler sang downslope of us as we bug-sprayed up in the Piegan Pass trail parking lot, and then set off into the forest of Engelmann Spruce and Subalpine Fir. Almost immediately Josh halted the group to point out several White-winged Crossbills singing from treetops, their complex trills a new sound for me. This habitat made much more sense than the cemetery in which I’d gotten my lifers earlier in the year.

**My dad and I usually see Pine Grosbeaks at lower elevations during winter, so it was very special to see them at their breeding altitudes.**

In a clearing several miles up the trail Josh called in a Varied Thrush for the photographers of the group (several people including Marky, had brought giant lenses) and a pair of Pine Grosbeaks, not wanting to be left out, had decided to forage in the grass and shrubs at eye-level about ten feet from us.

As we hiked, I learned about the individual research projects that each of the field techs were looking at on the APR, which included Long-billed Curlew migration patterns and parasitism on grassland birds by Brown-headed Cowbirds. We talked about top birding spots everywhere from New Mexico to Missouri and exchanged stories about how everyone had gotten into birds. It was particularly fun visiting with Tom and Josh, as they seemingly had an answer to everything I wondered about along the trail. Tom didn’t just know the birds—he identified every flower and butterfly we came across, and he and Josh pointed out the glaciers and peaks around us as we rose in altitude, many of which they had individually hiked to. They also had a wealth of knowledge of birding Latin America, specifically Costa Rica, something I was incredibly interested in.

After about three miles we rose above the stunted forest marking the end of the subalpine zone and were hiking along scree fields and across lingering snow patches. A Golden Eagle soaring high above welcomed us to the alpine zone as pikas mewed at us from their rocky burrows, and the bird community changed abruptly. Rather than crossbills and grosbeaks, Gray-crowned Rosy-finches filled the finch role up here, and all of us were shocked to encounter a Brewer’s Sparrow belting out a song from a patch of young trees! A rare subspecies of Brewer’s Sparrow, known as the Timberline Sparrow, lived above the tree line in Glacier Park and in mountain ranges farther north, a rather strange change from the normal sagebrush habitat the species used elsewhere in its range. No one in the group had ever seen one before, including Tom and Josh, which meant that everyone had gotten at least one new bird out of the hike!

**This surprise Timberline Sparrow (a subspecies of Brewer’s Sparrow) was a Lifer for our entire group!**

Speaking of new birds, I was here for my Montana life bird #299: White-tailed Ptarmigan. These cryptic, high-altitude game birds only lived in the northwest part of the state, and only in Glacier were they easily-accessible. As we reached Piegan Pass, Josh pointed out a large snowfield. We would be walking around the base of the field after a quick lunch, as it was perfect ptarmigan habitat: it turns out that most alpine habitat was unsuitable for ptarmigan. These picky birds require access to water, shade (i.e. low cliffs) to hide from the sun, and vegetation (i.e. moss) for food. If a site does not have one of these three things, it’s unlikely to contain ptarmigan.

After a lunch full of various mammals from Least Chipmunks to Hoary Marmots trying to steal our food, we set off in a large search line to try to find ptarmigan as an American Pipit displayed in the air high above us, an activity shared with the Sprague’s Pipits my dad and I had found earlier this year. After about fifteen minutes, Skyler Bol, one of the MPG Ranch field techs, yelled, “Got one!”. We all maneuvered across the rocks over to where he stood, and sure enough, there sat a surprisingly small game bird, half-white and half-brown, curiously staring up at us.

**It had taken me more than seven years for me to finally see a White-tailed Ptarmigan, but I couldn’t have asked for a better experience—or company—in finding my 299th Montana bird species!**

Everyone whipped out their cameras and settled around the fairly unconcerned bird, and soon Skyler spotted another one sitting on a small waterfall nearby! We basked in the ptarmigan glory for at least an hour, then wished the small birds good luck and cold temperatures, and headed back down the trail.

Once we were firmly in the subalpine forest again, we began stopping periodically and playing for Boreal Chickadee. It was great habitat for them, and several members of the group had never seen them before. You might call it “pushing our luck”, but hey, it worked! About two miles from the parking lot after hearing a Mountain Chickadee and several Canada Jays impersonating Yellow-throated Toucans, Josh decided to play for them and a pair of Boreal Chickadees showed up! I had not expected to see them again this year after nabbing my lifer in May and it was great to watch them from a distance as other people took photos of their very first of these boreal birds.

**Though our goal was to see White-tailed Ptarmigan, the day facilitated several epic QUACHs as well!**

After spying a trio of Golden Eagles again at the parking lot, we headed back to Josh’s house, stopping briefly for a Chestnut-backed Chickadee (there would be several QUACHs completed today) at Avalanche Campground. I had to head home but many of the others stayed another day, and I would soon hear stories of Black Swift, Spruce Grouse and American Three-toed Woodpecker.

As we left the Piegan Pass trailhead, Josh mentioned that he thought it had been his best day of birding in the park, and I would have to agree. And not just because of the great and cooperative birds we saw—because of the people. I had learned so much from everyone as we hiked, and had really gotten to experience what the community I would soon be immersed in would be like. Everyone was so knowledgeable, yet humble and kind, and I was honored to be a part of the first annual “Camp Montana”, even if it was only for a day.

However, seeing the ptarmigan was also a bit sad—who knew how long these alpine birds would be here? With temperatures already breaking record highs within the park, the birds living at the tops of mountains barely had anywhere to go, and snow was disappearing fast. I am very fortunate that I got to experience the birds while they are still here, and hope that somehow, they can adapt to whatever climate change throws at them.

Ptarmigan are a poster bird for how climate change is negatively impacting our planet. As permanent snow fields disappear, habitat for these birds is rapidly shrinking—a call to action to drastically and rapidly reduce the CO2 emissions we as humans produce.

Another problem was posed by seeing the ptarmigan: What will my 300th Montana bird be? Now that I’d nabbed #299, I had no choice but to get to 300, but my options were few and far between, and my days in the state are running out…stay tuned to see what it will be! (I don’t have it yet).

10,000 Views—and Time for Reflection

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During our Birding Therapy Week posts, FatherSonBirding achieved the milestone of receiving our ten thousandth view! To celebrate, we’d first like to thank all of you who have been following our adventures and other stories about our favorite non-human animals (including our dog, Lola,). We know that everyone has an avalanche of blogs, news, posts—and yes, even books and magazines—competing for reading attention, and we greatly appreciate each and every one of you. It also, though, seems like a good time to reflect and re-evaluate.

**Our Lifer Snowy Owl—from our very first blog post on March 13, 2018**

It seems hard to believe, but we launched FatherSonBirding more than three years ago with our post A Quest for Snowy Owls. Since that time, we’ve posted 81 times, and garnered 65 subscribers (there were actually more, but we lost several dozen while getting hacked by suspected Russian provocateurs). On average, about a hundred people read each post. Which is all good, but like a certain ex-president’s approval ratings, our numbers don’t really budge much. On top of that, Braden will be heading off to the University of Maine soon to begin his college career, highlighting the bittersweet fact that we will not have nearly as many birding adventures together as we’ve enjoyed the past few years.

That said, we could shift the focus of the blog from our birding exploits to bird conservation, bird education, or something else. In fact, if you are reading this, we ask that you send us your thoughts on where we might take this forum going forward—including just chugging along as we are, posting occasionally about something that strikes our fancy. Honestly, I (Sneed) have so many mixed feelings about social media that we will probably never do what it takes to build a huge following. I mean, we probably should have launched a blog about watching MineCraft videos or breaking plates over our heads or cooking Julia Childs’ recipes, but we didn’t. Still, we have enjoyed sharing with you and would love it if you’d take time to send us your honest thoughts about what might come next.

Just a few of the birds we saw during our Montana Big Day on May 18, 2021. Clockwise from upper left: Black-necked Stilt, American Avocet, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, American Redstart, Lincoln’s Sparrow.

As you ponder those, we’d like to leave you with some photos from our best Montana Big Day ever last week, during which we drove 500 miles and found 114 species—the first time we’d ever seen more than 100 different birds in a day in Montana. Ironically, our Bird of the Day was one that we didn’t even see—an American Bittern that we heard calling in the Swan River National Wildlife Refuge! We’d gone looking for AMBIs at least seven or eight times the past two seasons, so it was a real thrill to finally hear one. We hope that you all are having great birding adventures this spring, whether it’s watching your backyard feeder or planning your own Big Day, Big Week, or Big Life!

—Sneed and Braden

Quarrying Species: Birding Therapy Day Six

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Saturday, Day 6 of my Birding Therapy Week, I arrived at Fort Missoula at 7:45 a.m. with my daughter for the first of her two soccer games that day. While she warmed up with her team, I took Lola back over to the gravel quarry hoping to catch some magical morning birding. I didn’t have to wait long to kick off a great session. Even before leaving the soccer fields parking lot, my first Barn Swallow of the year flew past me, and once I reached my first stop at the northward quarry pond, I found myself struggling to keep up with all of the species I saw and heard. On the ponds themselves, I ID’ed eight species of ducks, Canada Geese, a Horned Grebe, and a Common Loon—perhaps the same one I’d seen two days before.

**I had to play hide-and-seek with this loon even to get this poor shot, but I didn’t mind. Was just thrilled it stopped by the quarry on its way to its breeding grounds.**

As I walked along the fence line, a sparrow popped up with a bold face pattern and pale “moustache”—the year’s first Vesper’s Sparrow! Nearby landed a Savannah Sparrow while a Western Meadowlark serenaded us. At the cliff edge above the river, Northern Roughed-Winged and Tree Swallows swarmed while a Red-tailed Hawk, Osprey, and Great Blue Heron sauntered by.

**Meadowlarks always make me pause to ooh and ah, especially when they perch and sing in full view!**

The hits kept on coming: two Red-naped Sapsuckers, a pair of Wood Ducks flushing from beside the river, a Yellow-rumped Warbler. As before, I made a special effort to find unusual sparrows. In one of our favorite spots, I located a couple of White-crowneds and then I saw something that really got my heart thumping: a bold bird with a peaked crown and distinct gray and brown facial lines. Even more exciting, I thought I detected a bit of yellow on the sides of the breasts—sure signs of a Lincoln’s Sparrow. Unfortunately, the bird was facing away from me and I was just moving in for a better look when two good-natured women walked up behind me and loudly shouted “Good morning!” I turned around and smiled, putting my finger to my lips, but it was too late. The sparrow fled.

Sigh.

Still, it was an amazing morning, with 36 species and delightful experiences. Even better, my daughter’s team won her soccer game. I’ll get you next time, Mr. Lincoln.

Here is my complete checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S86803129