Category Archives: Forest Fires

Birding the Burn—Again!

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If you’ve followed our blog, you’ve probably realized that some of our favorite places to bird are recent burn areas—that is, burn areas that have not been destroyed by so-called “salvage logging.” I first fell in love with burn areas while researching my book Fire Birds—Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests. The book highlighted the fascinating work of biologist Dick Hutto, who showed what vital habitat burned forests are for more than one hundred bird species. Yesterday, after dropping Braden off for a Boy Scout leadership weekend near Seeley Lake, I decided to hit a burn area we’d visited with Dick last spring—the Morrell Creek watershed.

Burn areas provide outstanding habitat to more than one hundred species of birds. Unfortunately, so-called “salvage logging” destroys the burned forest by removing the larger-diameter trees that woodpeckers and other birds most need for food and shelter.

I had two ulterior motives for going there. One was to scout out a good place to bird with some kids next month. The other was to see one of Braden’s and my favorite birds, the Black-backed Woodpecker. As I was driving in, I was dismayed to find that the “salvage loggers” had already ruined a lot of the habitat along the road, but I eventually pulled over at a likely place to explore, one with larger-diameter dead trees still left standing.

Forget bluebird boxes! If you really want bluebirds to thrive, leave burned forests alone. Untouched burned forests may be the favorite habitat of these birds, providing food, shelter, and safety from squirrels and other small predators.

Right off the bat, I encountered large numbers of two favorite burn species: Mountain Bluebirds and Dark-eyed juncos, who seem to prefer burn areas to almost any other habitat. The bluebirds especially were going crazy. Twice, I saw groups of three (two males and a female, I think) chasing and mobbing each other, sometimes driving themselves to the ground. A territorial dispute? The birding equivalent of a bar fight over a girl? I wondered.

It didn’t take too long for me to hear woodpecker drumming and my heart raced as I hurried through the trees hoping to see a Black-backed. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the woodpecker until it was too late and spooked it before I got a good ID. Curses!

While Black-backed and Three-toed Woodpeckers get more attention, Hairy Woodpeckers are also burned forest specialists. If you have any doubt, just look at how well this Hairy blends in with its burned background. Like the Black-backed and Three-toed, the Hairy Woodpecker is “hard-headed” enough to drill into the rock-hard wood of newly-killed trees for wood-boring beetle grubs and to drill out nesting and roosting holes.

I kept walking through the forest, finding a great sense of peace from the sounds of Morrell Creek splashing below and from the dark, silent sentries surrounding me. Eventually I located another woodpecker drumming, but only snatched two blurry photos of it before it, too, flew away. My photos, though, did show a yellow crown, narrowing the bird to a Black-backed or Three-toed Woodpecker. Unfortunately, it was a crummy day for light and photography and the next woodpecker I saw was too backlit for me to identify. I did see a Golden Eagle circling above and an American Dipper in the creek below. A Hairy Woodpecker also posed for a picture. Finally, as I was about to leave, I heard more drumming. I grabbed my camera from the car seat and chased it down.

Success!

On a high narrow snag sat a beautiful male Three-toed Woodpecker drumming his heart out. It wasn’t a Black-backed, but I didn’t care. Three-toed Woodpeckers, like Black-backeds, are specialists of burned forests and I was delighted to meet up with this fellow—and even more delighted that he’d found a beautiful, blackened home.

Though lighting conditions stunk, I was delighted to finally get a good look at this Three-toed Woodpecker drumming on one of many awesome “drumming posts” to be had in the burned forest.

Fire In The Hole!

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Braden here.

At 6:30 on Sunday, June 17th, retired UM Professor Dick Hutto picked up my dad and me to go birding. In the passenger seat of Dick’s car was Dick’s former graduate student Hugh Powell, who was in Missoula to write an article for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Our mission was simple: see a Black-backed Woodpecker.

Townsend’s Warbler. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

We were headed to an area known as the Rice Ridge Fire (after a quick coffee stop), to the northeast of Missoula. The first time we had heard about this trip was at Montana Audubon’s Wings Across the Big Sky Bird Festival. A birder from Helena told us that Dick (who had an abundance of bird knowledge, specifically about birds that liked fire) was leading a field trip up to the burn and mentioned we might want to come along. My dad, who knew Dick well, jumped at the chance and asked Dick if we could get a ride up with him. Well, here we were.

At Seeley Lake, a large tourist area as well as great birding stop, we met the rest of the group, all birders of different experience levels from Helena. Knowing that this area was good for American Redstarts and Northern Waterthrushes, my dad and I persuaded the group to look around Seeley before hitting the burn. We quickly saw and heard 15 species, including the uncommon Willow Flycatcher, identified by its characteristic call, Fitz-bew.

We slowly made our way up Rice Ridge Road, stopping regularly to look for our goal, the Black-backed. The burn area had not been logged, thankfully, and every time we stopped Dick emphasized that it should not be logged, either—why not just cut trees near town instead? Burn areas have some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the country! (For more information on this, check out my dad’s book, Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests.)

Lincoln’s Sparrows are known for nesting in higher altitude wet areas. (Photo by Braden Collard)

No Black-backeds showed, but the birds did not disappoint—MacGillavry’s Warblers and Lincoln’s Sparrows skulked in the low brush, Bluebirds danced across the black trunks, and woodpeckers of many species drummed and called. On that one stretch of road we observed four species—Northern Flicker, Hairy Woodpecker, Williamson’s Sapsucker, and (new for the year) at least three American Three-toed Woodpeckers, the Black-backed’s slightly less burn-dependent cousin.

In one spot, sort of a mix of burn and old-growth with a creek running through it, we were amazed with the number of species. A dipper, nesting under the bridge. Great looks at a Townsend’s Warbler. Large numbers of Western Tanagers and robins, both burn-preferring species. Sharon Dewart-Hansen, a Helena woman who was first in the state for the year, pointed out a new call for us—the Whip Three Beers of the Olive-sided Flycatcher.

Dick was slightly disappointed at the low number of woodpeckers, saying they would reach their peak two or three years from now, but everyone else was ecstatic. It had been a great trip, Black-backed or not.

The number of American Three-toed Woodpeckers that are in burns is double that of those not in burns. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)