With all of our recent posts about Costa Rica, you’re probably wondering if we ever bird in Montana anymore! Never fear, we do—a lot! Today we report on an adventure that delivered some remarkable early migration surprises. If you’d like to support our work at FSB, please consider purchasing some of Sneed’s books shown to the right—and support a group such as Birdlife International or Audubon that is working hard to protect birds against climate change and many other perils. Remember: all of our posts are written and photographed by REAL PEOPLE!
I don’t know if it’s because of our recent trip to Costa Rica, my subsequent trip to California, or just the usual spring excitement, but I’ve felt especially eager to get out birding in Montana this spring. At least part of it has to with wanting to learn more about the timing of migration, especially in a year in which Montana hardly experienced winter. How would this impact the birds? I wondered. Would we see things showing up especially early? Fortunately, our friend Susan Snetsinger has felt just as eager to explore, so the past couple of weeks Susan and I have taken all-day adventures to some of our favorite western Montana birding locations. Two weeks ago, we visited Warm Springs and the impressively “remodeled” Lexington Street Pond and wetlands in downtown Butte. We were rewarded with a great variety of waterfowl, including Snow Geese at both locations. The highlight of the day was undoubtedly a great look at a Golden Eagle on the dirt road between Racetrack Pond and Warm Springs.
A few days ago, though, Susan and I had a different ambition: to post the season’s first eBird checklist for Browns Lake. This is one of Braden’s and my favorite birding locations, and I don’t think it has ever failed to disappoint. Not only is it a go-to place for breeding Red-necked Grebes and Black Terns, we have found a lot of uncommon species there including Long-tailed Ducks, Pacific Loons, and Ross’s Geese. Notably, this is where Braden made the astounding discovery of a Bay-breasted Warbler two years ago—one of just a handful of sightings ever recorded from western Montana.
One challenge with Browns Lake is that it stays frozen until relatively late in the season and I noticed on eBird that no one had yet birded it this year. I wasn’t sure if it had begun to thaw, but I asked Susan if she was game to check it out. She was—and even brought along yummy fried egg and cheese bagels to fuel our adventures.
On the drive up Highway 200, we were rewarded by two pairs of Sandhill Cranes and a glimpse of a Mountain Bluebird—perhaps a preview of things to come? We hoped so, and upon arriving at Browns Lake, were not disappointed. Right near where Braden had discovered the Bay-breasted Warbler, we got out of the car to find a delightful “finchy” mixed flock containing Red Crossbills, Pine Siskins, Evening Grosbeaks, and Cassin’s Finches.
As the lake came into view, we were relieved to see at least a third of it offered open water—and that the waterfowl were not shy about taking advantage! Within twenty minutes, we recorded fifteen species of ducks and geese, including the year’s first Montana Northern Pintails and a lone FOY Cinnamon Teal. A flock of 18-20 Snow Geese erupted out of the fields on the far side of the lake and settled in beneath a huge irrigation line. Even though a brisk wind dropped the wind chill into the teens, we looked hard through our scope for any Ross’s Geese, but came up empty.
As has become my new routine, I directed Susan out the far side of the lake toward the Ovando-Helmville dirt road, and we were rewarded by two Northern Shrikes (Susan is certain they were separate birds), and a couple more Mountain Bluebirds. After turning left toward Helmville, we hadn’t gone a mile when we saw a sizeable flock of birds badly backlit by the sun.
“Are they some kind of blackbirds?” Susan wondered, and they did look black because of the sun, but I didn’t know. Then, she said, “There are more bluebirds over here.” “There’s a couple over here, too,” I added, still thinking they had nothing to do with the flock we’d just seen.
The bottom line? The flock we had just observed consisted entirely of Mountain Bluebirds!
This blew both Susan and I away. Neither of us had ever seen more than three or four Mountain Bluebirds at a time, and had no inkling that they ever formed large flocks. Yet here was the evidence in front of us, and we spent a good fifteen minutes watching them forage and swirl around us. Once, a group of at least sixty took to the sky together, only to settle back into the grass a few moments later. Meanwhile, others kept crossing the road in front and back of us, occasionally landing on the fence next to our car.
We finally pulled ourselves away, wondering if local ranchers observed this kind of grouping every year. I later read up on MOBLs and found one or two mentions of them forming flocks in winter, but it didn’t seem like a well-known phenomenon. Susan and I both agreed that these cavity-nesting birds must be migrating. From here would they spread out into the surrounding mountains? Or did they still have a long way to go before trying to find their own breeding territories? As biologist Dick Hutto had taught me, Mountain Bluebirds especially love recent burn areas where woodpeckers carve out plenty of “condos” in the dead trees (see my book Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests). I wondered if, as a flock, they might be better at finding recent burn areas—or did flocking impart other benefits such as greater predator or food detection?
After the Browns Lake area, we headed toward Helena, hoping to find a recently reported Lesser Black-backed Gull. Though I’d seen this species in Israel and again in Oregon, this would be a Montana lifer for me and an outright lifer for Susan.
It was not to be.
At the Helena Regulating Reservoir, we saw plenty of gulls, but many were too far away for our scope, and the ones we did see did not have the dark wings we were looking for. The trip wasn’t a waste, however, as we observed more than sixty Common Mergansers and at least ten Red-breasted Mergansers, also clearly in migration. In fact, the window to see RBMEs is quite tight in Montana, so it was nice to pick them up for 2026.
Speaking of 2026, both Braden and I have excellent chances to accidentally break our world Big Year records. My record, set last year, is 552, and only a quarter of the way into this year, I’m at 422. This is not as much of a gimme as it sounds since many of the birds I’ve seen in Costa Rica and California are birds I would normally check off in Montana, but with a little luck and persistence, I feel I will get there. Braden’s record, meanwhile, is 867 and he is already at 546, with hopes to bird abroad at least one more time this year. We no longer put a lot of stock into numbers like these, but they’re a fun thing to keep an eye on.
After saying goodbye to the Helena Regulating Reservoir, Susan and I did a little more birding and then got lunch in downtown Helena. I only mention it because we ate at an excellent little crepe place called—what else?—The Creperie. It featured outstanding food and reasonable prices. It’s open until 3 p.m. most days and is located right next to the lower entrance of the walking part of Last Chance Gulch. If you’ve got the post-birding munchies, check it out!
Our first-of-the-year Browns Lake checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S313329879
