Category Archives: Freezeout Lake

Birding Glacier National Park in “The Hot, Dry Winter” of 2024

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Our thoughts go to all of the Californians getting hammered by unprecedented rains right now, and we hope that you are all staying safe—and preferably indoors. While the Southwest is getting one historic climate event, Montana has been getting another: record heat and dryness. Both of these add a heightened sense of urgency to tackling climate change by reducing greenhouse emissions and promoting renewable energy. And, of course, these events are certainly impacting birds. Last week, I had a chance to explore one of our nation’s most pristine areas to see what the birds are doing.

Even before I moved to Montana in 1996, I had visions of visiting the Many Glacier Valley in the depths of winter. In college, I had spent the best summer of my life working as a cook at Swiftcurrent Motor Lodge, and had returned to the valley many times since then—but never in our darkest, coldest season. What would this wonderland be like covered in snow and ice? Last week, almost fifty years after working there, I got a chance to find out. The only thing missing? Winter itself.

I had been invited to spend four days visiting with pre-K through grade 1 students in Browning, Montana, a trip I looked forward to for many reasons, including the chance to learn more about Blackfeet culture and explore the area. As a bonus, I would be working mainly in the afternoons, freeing up the mornings for birding and other activities. As the librarian and I put together the trip, however, I never imagined that I would be visiting during an unprecedentedly warm winter in which temperatures were breaking records daily and the landscape stood almost devoid of snow.

On the drive to Browning, I stopped at the Freezeout Lake wetlands complex near Great Falls and counted several thousand Canada Geese and Mallards. To my surprise, the geese were flagged as rare on eBird for this time of year. Why? Because the lakes are almost always frozen in January and February, but this year large areas of open water shimmered, inviting both geese and ducks.

The disturbing presence of open water at Freezeout Lake is attracting its share of Canada Geese and Mallards this “non-winter.”

Reaching the outskirts of Browning, I turned right for a side trip to Cut Bank. In a normal winter, this entire area would be covered in snow, providing a chance to find Snowy Owls, Snow Buntings, and other typical winter birds. Not today. Driving mud and gravel back roads, I was lucky to find a solitary Rough-legged Hawk on a telephone pole. I did flush one group of 15 smaller birds that I assume were Horned Larks, but nothing else of note. In fact, the main birds I was seeing were the stalwart ravens, magpies, House Sparrows, starlings, and pigeons.

When Thursday rolled around, my birding hopes rose as I got up early and drove toward Babb, the entrance to the Many Glacier Valley on the east side of Glacier National Park. I had no idea how much of the road was open, but made it to the park boundary at Lake (reservoir) Sherburne dam. There, I parked and donned my camera and binoculars.

The Lake Sherburne Reservoir at the Glacier National Park boundary, where I began my jaunt into the Many Glacier Valley.

I couldn’t have asked for a more astonishing day. By 9:00 a.m., temps had reached into the mid-30s and were rising rapidly. Despite an extremely dry winter, a thin layer of snow covered the spectacular peaks of the continental divide and full sunlight created an unparalleled, dazzling landscape. As an extra “cherry,” a waning gibbous moon slowly sank toward 9,300-foot Mount Allen. I paused to take a deep breath and appreciate that I was probably the only person on earth observing this incredible scene. Then, I set out.

A raven greeted me as I stepped into the park, but I wondered if I would see any other animals. Would a grizzly bear be taking a mid-winter stroll on a day this warm? I didn’t know, but spotted no other critter as I walked half a mile along the reservoir. I didn’t have a great deal of time, so I turned around after 20 minutes, and as the day continued to warm, a few birds made an appearance. I heard Black-capped Chickadees and a woodpecker drumming in the distance. Then, a grouse burst out of some stunted aspen trees to my left. I desperately watched it flying away, looking for any ID clues, but alas, I just don’t know grouse well enough to be sure. The bird was gray, however, and the habitat was wrong for Ruffed and Spruce Grouse, rendering a 95% probability of Dusky Grouse, but since I wasn’t sure, I didn’t record it on eBird.

Despite the incredible scenery, I was feeling a bit thwarted bird-wise, and calculated that I had time for another hour of exploration, so I drove back out to Babb, turned left, and then left again on the road leading to the Canadian border and Waterton Lakes National Park. My mission? To find Boreal Chickadees! In fact, I was driving the very road where Braden and I had discovered our lifer BOCHs three years before (see post “Are you ready for . . . the QUACH?”). That had been during early covid days when hardly a soul traveled the road. Would I be able to find any birds today?

My first chickadee sighting along the road proved to be a mixed flock of Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees feeding on knapweed seed pods—perhaps for insect larvae. Cool, but not the object of my quest.

The road wound its way up through scenic pastures and aspen groves, climbing steadily until it reached conifers—all under the magnificent gaze of Chief Mountain. As before, I passed not a car along the way. I pulled over twice and played the calls of Boreal Chickadees, but no bird responded. Then, I actually saw a flock of chickadees up ahead and eagerly braked to a halt.

Not BOCHs. Instead, a mixed flock of Mountain and Black-capped Chickadees, with a Red-breasted Nuthatch joining them.

One of Glacier’s most iconic mountains, Chief Mountain stands watch over the northeastern part of the park, including the road up to Waterton Lakes National Park.

Undeterred, I continued, and soon stopped for another flock of Black-cappeds. I wondered how much exploring I had time for, but passed a Border Patrol truck and soon was forced to stop at the closed boundary of Glacier National Park. Turning around, I again parked to play a BOCH call with no luck. The Border Patrol truck approached and the agent rolled down his window for a chat. I told him what I was looking for and asked him if he saw many birds along this stretch. “Some Stellar’s Jays,” he answered, “but not a lot else.”

I thought the road to Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park might be open, but alas, no. Fortunately, the chickadees were on my side of the boundary!

I wished him a good day and continued driving back toward Babb. Before the road began descending again, a large pull-out opened up on the left and I stopped one last time. Not expecting much, I played a BOCH song and made some pishing noises. Within moments, six chickadees surrounded me! Boreal Chickadees!

With their curiosity and handsome features, Boreal Chickadees may just seize the title for Most Delightful Chickadees.

The chickadees were much more curious about me than their congeners (animals in the same scientific genus, i.e. the Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees). The Boreal Chickadees flew back and forth above me and called from nearby branches. I even nabbed some decent photos. I spent ten or fifteen minutes with them, barely believing I was having such a great experience with these elusive, high-altitude and high-latitude songbirds. It once again renewed my appreciation for living and birding in Montana, since this region is one of the few places this species dips into the United States from its main distribution in Canada.

This Boreal Chickadee might have been auditioning for the Chickadee Choir with how much it called to me.

Feeling satisfied and grateful for such a marvellous morning, I headed back to Browning, spotting only a few ravens and Rough-legged Hawks along the way. No matter. The BOCHs and breathtaking views of the Many Glacier Valley had made this a day I would never forget. Now if we can only get some snow.

July Shorbs & Other Surprises

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Here, as we’re about to roll into September, I finally have time to fill in a bit of the rest of our summer birding shenanigans. Those of you who have followed our blog may have gleaned that we don’t generally put much effort into our late July birding. The reasons aren’t too hard to uncover. By late July, most birds have stopped singing, rendering them much more difficult to find and identify. Meanwhile, shorebird migration season hasn’t really hit full stride. In short, there’s very little low-hanging birding fruit to draw us into the field.

A cooperative Alder Flycatcher on Bellview Road near Choteau.

What did draw us out in late July, however, was the presence of our friend Nick Ramsey passing through Missoula for a few days. With Braden home, and Nick also in Missoula, we really had no choice but to embark on a birding adventure. We decided on a two-night/three-day trip, and headed out on Friday, July 28 curious about what we would find. Having already birded a lot this summer, I let “the boys” decide what they’d like to see, and both had been sorely missing prairie birds, so we pointed the trusty minivan toward Great Falls.

Our adventure started out promisingly when we saw Black Terns near Brown’s Lake and heard a Northern Waterthrush—along with a host of other species—next to the road past Lincoln. After hitting Benton Lake NWR at the height of breeding season in June (see post “Festival Report: Wings Across the Big Sky 2023”), I wondered what might await us there, and to my delight, almost everything I’d seen in June now presented itself almost two months later. These included Long-billed Curlews, Upland Sandpipers, Sharp-tailed Grouse, and gobs and gobs of adorable baby Eared Grebes.

https://ebird.org/checklist/S145834937

Eared Grebes with their babies put on a real show at Benton Lake. . .
Even if Mom didn’t always appreciate her “baby backpack!”

Time was a-wastin’, so after a couple of wonderful hours, we sped to our next destination, Freezeout Lake. You may recall that I saw my first Montana American Bittern there only two months ago, but today started out a little slow. As we continued driving, though, the species kept piling up. It hit its climax when we stopped at “Pond 4”, on the opposite side of the highway from the main, large ponds. Here, we stumbled into a wonderful assortment of shorebirds. “But you said shorbs hadn’t started migration yet,” I can hear you all saying. Well, guess what? I was wrong. Deal with that!

The shorbs in front of us included Baird’s and Least Sandpipers, Wilson’s and Red-necked Phalaropes, Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers, yellowlegs, and a nice bunch of dowitchers. Speaking of, Braden and Nick “liked” one or two of these for Short-billed Dowitchers, an elusive species in Montana, but notoriously hard to identify. It wasn’t until another bird flew in, scaring the flock away that the boys confirmed a “shorty” by call in the flock!

I know, lousy photo, but this Sandhill Crane family at Freezeout reminded me of camels crossing the Sahara! Franklin’s Gulls, not vultures, lurk in the background.

But wait, that’s not all. As we were admiring all of the other birds, an American Bittern flew in and settled next to the cattails only fifty yards from us! Here, Braden and I had gone almost a decade without seeing one, and this marked my second visual sighting in one summer!

But wait, that’s not all. After the AMBI flew away again, a Prairie Falcon screamed over the pond, flushing every bird out there. We got amazing looks, and with his new camera, Nick captured incredible photos! To see some of them, look at our checklist:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S145853272

Our day hadn’t finished, either. After leaving Freezeout, we trundled up Bellview Road to find Thick-billed Longspurs, Alder Flycatchers, Veerys, and more. Finally, exhausted, we made our way to East Glacier, where I’d booked a hotel for two nights. Since leaving Missoula, we’d recorded more than 110 species—and our trip was only a third over! Alas, fall is settling in as I write this so I probably won’t get around to blogging about the rest of our adventure, but if you want an idea what we did the next two days, please revisit my post “In Search of the Wily White-tailed Ptarmigan, 2022!”

On our drive home, this fire near Arlee reminded us that it was definitely fire season. This was one of three fresh blazes we saw as we headed back to Missoula from Glacier.

Bitterns Under the Big Sky

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You may have noticed a paucity of posts since my daughter and I returned from Japan. It’s not for a lack of birding action. In fact, the past couple of months have seen our busiest birding in a couple of years. Braden has been strenuously counting eastern songbirds while I have been crisscrossing the state on various writing and speaking assignments, some of which I hope to share with you when I get several deadlines out of the way. Meanwhile, big thanks to our recent guest poster Roger Kohn for stepping in during our delinquence! And now, for today’s story . . .

The second weekend in June, my work took me to Montana Audubon’s Wings Across the Big Sky Festival, to be held in Great Falls. I had received a surprise invitation to speak at the event as well as lead two birding outings to one of Braden’s and my favorite Montana hotspots, Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The festival kicked off on a Friday afternoon, but I cunningly calculated that if I got up early, I could get in a couple of solid birding sessions beforehand on the east side of the divide. I was on the road by 5 a.m. and cautiously drove into the dawn on Hwy 200, headed toward Great Falls. Why cautiously? Because this was the time of greatest risk of striking deer and other animals on the highway. Near Lincoln, in fact, I passed a dead elk and a smashed up car flashing its hazards off to the side of the road. I drove by, but then thought, “Wait. What if someone is still inside of that car?” and quickly turned around. Fortunately, I discovered no bleeding bodies, but it reinforced my caution as I continued my journey.

On my approach to Freezeout, I espied a Wilson’s Snipe and couldn’t resist pulling over for a photo. Can you see the raindrops?

The first stop on my birding agenda was Freezeout Lake, a place readers will be familiar with from past posts. Since we began birding, Braden and I have visited Freezeout more than a dozen times—and not just when the lake receives its famous influx of tens of thousands of Snow Geese migrating north in March. Over the years, we had made great discoveries at all times of year, including Clark’s Grebes, Tundra Swans, awesome shorebirds, and our Lifer Short-eared Owl. One bird that had always eluded us? American Bittern.

At first it’s not much to look at, but Freezeout Lake is a vital resting and breeding location for tens of thousands of Montana birds.

“I don’t understand it,” Braden told me via telephone the night before I left. “Other people go to Freezeout and see bitterns right in front of them, but we’ve never seen one there.”

“I guess we just haven’t paid our dues,” I said. “But I’ll keep a close eye out for them.”

Despite this promise, I held little hope of seeing one of these secretive birds. For one, they were thinly scattered across the state. Braden and I had heard one in the Swan Valley two years ago, and I had heard another at Bowdoin in 2022, but we had never seen a bittern in Montana, and I didn’t expect to this morning. Nonetheless, I arrived at Freezeout before 8:00 a.m. and eagerly set out along the management area’s dirt roads. Northern Shovelers and Gadwalls sat in the middle of the road, only reluctantly moving out of my way as I approached. Savannah Sparrows and Killdeer called through my open windows. I spotted several Wilson’s Phalaropes and, out on the water, a complement of American White Pelicans and Western Grebes. I especially searched for Short-eared Owls, but not a one was to be seen. After spending half an hour tolerating the mosquitoes, I turned around and made my way back to the beginning of the main driving loop.

I’d never seen so many Western Grebes at Freezeout as I saw last weekend. Surprisingly, I found not a single Clark’s Grebe despite studying more than a dozen possibilities through the scope. Up close, Clark’s are easily distinguished by a more orange-colored bill and the black facial line that rises above the eye, not below it as in this fellow.

Turning left onto the loop, I sharpened my senses as I guided my minivan into an area of thick cattails and brimming canals. Yellow-headed Blackbirds emitted their harsh cacophony and I heard a Sora in the distance. Glancing out my right window, I hit the brakes.

“No way,” I said.

Like most birders, I had been victim to wishful thinking countless times while birding, but as soon as I saw the thing standing out among the cattails a hundred yards away, I knew what it was. American Bittern!

With the bird’s amazing camouflage, I may not have seen this American Bittern if that Red-winged Blackbird hadn’t shouted, “Hey, Dude in the minivan, check this guy out!”

I turned off the engine, picked up my camera, and quietly climbed out of my minivan. I took several documentation photos and then silently studied this remarkable apparition through my binoculars. American Bitterns truly are bizarre-looking creatures. Grouped with shorebirds, bitterns display some of the most superior camouflage in the bird world. Brown overall, with brown and white stripes running down their long necks, they are famous for their “freeze pose” in which they extend their necks vertically, making them blend in almost perfectly with the cattails or rushes around them. In fact, as I watched, the bittern held this pose for several minutes before lowering its head and looking for food.

As famous as their freeze pose is, their call matches it for bizarreness. A deep guttural sound that some describe as pump-er-lunk, the bird sounds like nothing else in the natural world. The first time Braden and I heard it in the wild, I hardly believed it was real and accused Braden of playing it on his phone. It was real alright, and this morning, to my amazement, the bittern in front of me emitted this sub-woofer sound across the marsh.

When I first saw this guy, I was hopeful I’d found a Red Knot, which Nick Ramsey had told me were passing through the state. Still, I was not unhappy when my knot untied itself into a Willet!

After a few minutes, the bird flew away, and I watched it go, still in shock that this bird had decided to grace me with an actual sighting. I knew it could be a long time before I saw another one. Once hunted widely, bitterns continued to decline through the twentieth century due to wetlands loss and degradation, and perhaps pesticides. According to Cornell Labs’ Birds of the World, “Remarkably little is known about the biology of this species.” As I continued driving, though, I hoped that this one-of-a-kind bird would continue to find safety and nesting areas in Montana—even if I never personally got to see one again.

Love Wilson’s Phalaropes!