Category Archives: Glacier National Park

Birding Glacier National Park in the Hot Dry Fall of 2025

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Not quite two years ago, I posted “Birding Glacier National Park in the Long Hot Winter of 2024.” The blog resulted from an invitation I received to speak to school kids in Browning, Montana, and I took the opportunity for some rare winter birding at my favorite park. The post has received a lot of views, either because people love Glacier or they are interested in the impacts of climate change or both. A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited back to Browning. This time, I came a day early and my hosts were gracious enough to provide me with a place to stay for the extra night. My last post narrated my drive up, especially the devastating state of the drought along the Rocky Mountain Front. With my extra day to bird, though, I planned to return to Glacier and I wondered, “Would the park be as hot and dry as before?”

**My destination for the day was the road (not THIS one, fortunately) leading past iconic Chief Mountain to the US-Canada border.**

I woke in my East Glacier lodging well before dawn and about seven a.m. set off for my first destination, the Chief Mountain road that leads up to Waterton Lakes in Canada. As I drove toward Browning before turning north, a spectacular orange fireball rose on the eastern horizon. I’ve seen lots of sunrises in my life, but nothing matches a sunrise over the northern Great Plains. As a bonus, a red fox and young bull moose greeted me from the side of the road!

My route took me to Saint Mary and up past the one-bar town of Babb before I turned left toward Canada at about 8:30. I sadly didn’t plan to visit our northern neighbor. Today, much as I had on my last visit here, I had a particular quarry in mind: Boreal Chickadees.

As their name implies, Boreal Chickadees live mainly in northern spruce & fir forests and as such, their range barely dips into the US in a few places along our northern border. Lucky for Braden and me, Montana happens to be one of those places. We had found our first BOCHs almost by accident during covid, when Glacier had been closed and we decided to try our luck along the Chief Mountain road. To our delight, we found the little birds. Stunningly cute, their brown heads and other features closely ally them with both the Chestnut-backed and Gray-headed Chickadees, the latter now thought to be extinct in Alaska, their only known home in the US. In any case, on my visit to Browning two years ago, I had relocated BOCHs on the Chief Mountain Road, and it was my aim to do so again today.

For my first try, I stopped at the pull-out right next to the Glacier National Park sign. I walked the road for a few minutes and managed to grab the attention of three Red-breasted Nuthatches while Sound ID picked up the calls of Golden-crowned Kinglets (which due to my ears, I have never been able to hear), but no chickadees.

I repeated this routine five more times along the road between the Glacier NP sign and the Canadian border. I got really excited at one point when I saw a flurry of bird activity from my car. I leaped out, binoculars and camera in hand, and saw robins, more nuthatches, and a Hairy Woodpecker. A foursome of Canada Jays, perhaps the most refined members of the corvid family, swung by to check me out. No chickadees.

**As my prospects for finding Boreal Chickadees dimmed, I focused on enjoying another of my favorite birds, Canada Jays—though why Canada gets to claim these gorgeous critters remains a mystery!**

As I searched, I especially looked for densely-packed spruce trees along the road, but I realized that lodgepole pine actually dominated many areas. “Hm. Maybe this isn’t a preferred location after all,” I thought. “Maybe we just got lucky the past couple of visits.”

I had started to get that “I guess I’m not going to find them” feeling when I noticed a little area that seemed to have more spruce. There was no pull-out here so I just parked as far off the road as I could and walked back to where a brushy meadow pushed westward into the forest. The meadow was lined with more spruce than anything else, and as if to lure me in, two more Canada Jays landed to be admired. “Might as well give this a try,” I thought.

**This meadow intrusion into the woods seemed like my last best chance to find Boreal Chickadees on this unseasonably warm fall day.**

I followed what appeared to be an overgrown path through waist-high shrubs. It occured to me that if berries grew nearby this would be an ideal place to get ambushed by a grizzly bear, but I cautiously pressed forward. My hopes shot up when two small birds rose out of the brush and landed in a tree. I got only a brief glimpse and still have no idea what they were, though I’m guessing some kind of sparrow.

I was approaching the end of the meadow when I saw more birds flitting around up ahead. I spotted another Red-breasted Nuthatch and Sound ID picked up White-crowned Sparrows, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Dark-eyed Juncos. Then, suddenly, I heard chickadees—and they definitely were not Black-cappeds!

Within moments several tiny birds landed in the trees before me. It took a few tries to get eyes on one and to my joy, it was a Boreal! There were four of them altogether and wow, did they have a lot of energy! Not only were they checking me out, they were checking out every other bird, too—including a Ruby-crowned Kinglet keeping company. I managed a couple of good photos. Then, within minutes, all the birds departed—even the White-crowned Sparrows with their loud contact calls. Smiling, I traipsed back to the car. The sun had a special warmth to it and Chief Mountain rising above the forest added magic to the moment. Little did I know, however, that this wouldn’t be my last “moment” of the day.

**While most visitors to Glacier focus on seeing grizzlies and mountain goats, nothing says wilderness to me more than Boreal Chickadees.**

The glow of seeing Boreal Chickadees still with me, I made my way back to Babb and turned right, up the road to the Many Glacier Valley. A large flashing sign warned that there was no general admission parking there, but I love this drive and decided to go as far as I could. I passed through groves of aspen glowing gold with fall foliage and relished the views of Mt. Wilbur and other familiar peaks ahead.

At the Lake Sherburne dam, I stopped and got out for a look at the reservoir. In keeping with my observations from my last post, it was as low as I’d ever seen it, a giant “bathtub ring” leading from the forest edge down to what water remained. I’d also noticed that Swiftcurrent Creek was incredibly low—mere rivulets flowing between a pavement of exposed rocks.

**Lake Sherburne—a reservoir, actually—stood as low as I’d ever seen it, additional evidence of the long-term drought impacting this part of the world.**

I still had plenty of time and wanted to do some kind of hike in the park, so I returned to St. Mary and found myself on a little trail for the Beaver Pond Loop. In all my visits to Glacier, I’d never before done any hiking or walking near St. Mary so I set out on this path with some excitement. It wasn’t the most dramatic hike, hugging the south side of St. Mary Lake, but it offered terrific views up the valley and the blue sky and warm (too warm) conditions made for pleasant hiking.

I’d walked maybe a quarter mile when I rounded a bend to see a dark object ahead next to the trail. At first I thought it might be a hare or other mammal. When I raised my binoculars, I realized with astonishment that it was a grouse. Not only that, I felt pretty sure it was a Spruce Grouse!

**My accidental Spruce Grouse sighting was evidence that I had put in enough time searching for these guys to break my “grouse curse.”** **Notably, the grouse brought my year species total to 527 birds—exactly tied with my previous record. Which bird will put me over the top? Stay tuned to FSB to find out!**

If you’ve followed FatherSonBirding, you’ll know that I’ve seen SPGR only twice (see posts “Gambling on a Grouse-fecta” and “August: It’s Just Weird”), and had gone to great effort to do so. To have one just show up unexpectedly, well, that pretty much blew my mind. Still, I didn’t feel 100% sure on the ID, so I snapped some quick photos to send to Braden. Then, the grouse started walking toward me. “Whaaaaat?” I wondered.

That’s when I realized that another hiker stood on the other side of the bird and had herded it my way. Finally, the grouse wandered off into the forest, leaving me both astonished and gratified. I guess I had put in enough grouse effort to finally be rewarded by such encounters!

I continued onto a nice rocky beach on St. Mary Lake and found a perfect rock for sitting. Two pairs of Horned Grebes played and fished out on the water—my best look at this species all year—and I relished a few moments in one of earth’s most spectacular places.

**Two pairs of Horned Grebes kept me company as I took a few moments to soak up the beauty of Glacier National Park before heading to my week of work in Browning.**

Glacier, though, doesn’t exist by accident. It’s here because forward-thinking people planned for the future long ago. As the epically dry conditions of this part of the world attest, we need to keep thinking forward if we want our children and their descendants to have such places to cherish. As I said in my last post, all of us need to fight the disinformation and greed of climate deniers however we can. Whether that’s by making a donation to an environmental or legal group battling the horrible policies of the current administration or making changes to lower your own carbon footprints, every effort matters. Now, more than ever, is the time.

Birding Victoria, BC

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For my birthday, my wife Amy surprised me with a week-long trip to Vancouver Island, including a three-night stay in Victoria and three more nights at a little cabin overlooking the majestic Pacific Ocean and the Olympic Peninsula across the Salish Sea (or Strait of Juan de Fuca). Amy’s surprising plans delighted me, especially since this was where we honeymooned a couple of decades before, and we’d always wanted to return. I was puzzled, however, when she said, “It’s supposed to be a good place to go birding.” What? Birding? On Vancouver Island? In January? After doing a little research on eBird, however, I concluded that she might just be right. For winter, the area seemed to have a good variety of songbirds, but I got even more excited about the possibility of ocean birds.

**While at McMicking Point, this American Crow kindly kept a close watch on my backpack—I’m sure with purely altruistic motives!**

Our first morning there, I awoke before dawn, walked to a nearby convenience store to grab nourishment, and then drove our rental car out to McMicking Point just as light seeped across the sky. I was super excited about this spot because someone had reported sixty species there only days before, including several birds that would be lifers pour moi. I had even dragged my large, awkward spotting scope and tripod out from Montana specifically for such opportunities. Alas, I later learned that the “mega lists” I had found on eBird had been compiled by one of the region’s top birders—a guy who apparently could ID a bird miles away just by the way it flew. My experience would prove far different.

**Though the bird action seemed at first a bit slow, McMicking Point offered the most scenic vistas you could imagine.**

As I set up my scope, my first thought was, “Where are all the birds?” A couple of cormorants—too far away to identify—skimmed the water, along with a few Glaucous-winged Gulls, and I could hear a raven in the neighborhood behind me, but that was it. In such situations, I have learned that it’s important to calm down and be patient—something I am horrible at (just ask Amy), but nonetheless have learned to do. Sure enough, as I trained the scope on some nearby surge channels, I spotted a few Buffleheads and then, to my delight, the trip’s first Harlequin Ducks! In Montana, we have only a narrow window to find HADUs as they breed mainly in a handful of whitewater streams in Glacier and Yellowstone (see our post “In Glacier National Park, When It Rains, It Pours—Animals.”). Because of this, I took extra time to enjoy them.

**This trip could be dubbed the “Harlequin Duck Adventure” as I would see far more HADUs this week than in the entire rest of my life!**

Through my brand new binoculars (more about these in the next post), I also could see interesting action stirring out on the Trial Islands about a quarter mile offshore. I trained my scope out there and immediately picked up Black Turnstones, Black Oystercatchers, and Dunlins working the rocky shore. Then, I got even more excited as I noted several larger, pale, medium-sized shorebirds. Yay! Black-bellied Plovers! This especially reinforced the value of preparing for any birding trip—especially with birds that are far away. The Dunlins, for instance, would have been more difficult for me to pin down if I had not learned that they were the most likely small shorebirds in the area this time of year. I also had noted Black-bellied Plovers on recent eBird lists for the site, and so was primed to recognize them.

I almost always undercount shorebirds. When I first trained the scope on the Trial Islands, I counted about six Black-bellied Plovers. When they flew, the number exploded to forty! Once again, the black armpits in flight give these away (see our post “Chasing Migrants, Part I: Swifts, Peeps, and Plovers”). For bonus points, can you ID the flying birds on the far left?

After picking up a few more species, I departed McMicking Point with, I should emphasize, a grand total of sixteen species—not the sixty-plus I had been dreaming about. Still, my next stop, Clover Point, would add a few more good ones for the day. Unlike McMicking Point, where I birded alone, Clover Point was well-trodden by walkers, dog owners and, it turns out, a few other birders. Here, I got closer looks at Dunlins, Harlequin Ducks, and oystercatchers, but also picked up both Red-necked and Horned Grebes and Surf Scoters. A friendly birder named John also joined me and pointed out a group of White-winged Scoters in the distance along with what he said was a Red-throated Loon, which Braden and I had seen recently on Cape Cod (see our post “Birding Race Point: Cape Cod’s Pelagic Playground“). I couldn’t convince myself of that ID, but we did spot a Pigeon Guillemot about a quarter mile distant.

**Clover Point offered a great chance to watch Dunlins probe the rocky shore for invertebrate morsels.**

“Is there anything special you’re looking for?” John asked me.

“I’d love to find some murrelets,” I told him with a sigh.

“Oh, we should be able to find you more alcids,” he told me, scanning the water with his binoculars. Alas, our efforts proved to no avail, and I admit that I wrapped up the morning feeling a bit of a failure. In fact, I mentioned to John the list with sixty birds on it, and he said, “Oh, that birder is a local legend. You look at his lists and you think he’s just making it up, but I’ve birded with him, and he’s the real deal. He can recognize almost anything.”

**Love, love, love Black Oystercatchers. Can’t get enough—even though I got to hang out with a couple of dozen on the trip!**

That did make me feel better, but even if I had not learned this, it’s important not to fall into the “failure trap.” After all, you can only see what you can see—and the whole point is to enjoy every bird you are lucky enough to encounter. Also, I reminded myself, my Victoria birding was far from over. I brought Amy back to Clover Point the next day, and while she walked along the cliffs, I enjoyed another nice session, including my only encounter with Surfbirds the entire week. These are some of Braden’s and my favorite rocky shore birds, and it was awesome to watch them foraging along with a larger group of Black Turnstones.

**Watching Surfbirds (right) foraging with Black Turnstones (left) was one of the highlights of my second visit to Clover Point.**

That afternoon, while Amy rested at the hotel, I decided to make the most of the season’s abbreviated daylight hours and take a stroll through Beacon Hill Park, a large park stretching almost from downtown out toward the sea near Clover Point. I intentionally left my camera in the room so I could just appreciate whatever I happened to see—which turned out to be a lot. On the grass right outside of our hotel, I was astonished to see a dozen Yellow-rumped Warblers—birds that I figured ought to be wintering much farther south (Sibley, though, shows them as all-year-round here after all). Once I reached Beacon Park, I began seeing Pine Siskins, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and a bird that, because of my crummy ears, always proves a challenge: Golden-crowned Kinglet.

**Beacon Hill offered my best experience with land birds of the trip—including a bona fide Victoria vagrant, a Green-tailed Towhee!**

After strolling for about half an hour, I stood watching a Ruby-crowned Kinglet flycatching, something I had never seen one do, when another birder approached. In a wonderfully British accent, he asked, “Do you know that within a quarter-mile of here is a great rarity?” I knew immediately what he was talking about. From looking at eBird lists, I had learned that a vagrant Green-tailed Towhee had showed up in Victoria and had set off a frenzy in the local birding community. John at Clover Point had also mentioned it, but I hadn’t realized I had wandered so close.

**Victoria birders enthralled with a “rare” Green-tailed Towhee!**

“I tried to see it,” my newest birding friend confided, “but you know what I heard—‘Oh, you should have been here five minutes ago.’” Nonetheless, he gave me directions in case I wanted to check it out, and with an hour or so of daylight left, I figured I might as well. I crossed the road and followed a little path up and over a hill until I came to a tall flagpole flying the maple leaf. Sure enough, in the field below, a group of four or five birders had gathered around a small thicket. I quietly approached from behind and spotted movement in a darkened space between two bushes. After a few moments, the familiar shape of the Green-tailed Towhee took the stage.

Although fairly common in Montana in summer, the Green-tailed Towhee that showed up in Victoria recently rocked local birders’ worlds! Full-disclosure: this is not THAT bird, but one I photographed in Bear Canyon several years ago.

It was weird seeing a bird that is relatively common in Montana being such a focus of attention here in Canada, but it was cool, too. It helped me appreciate the enthusiasm of birders no matter where you go in this amazing world. What’s funny, though, is that I got much more excited by the Fox Sparrow foraging a few feet away from the towhee. That is always a tough bird for me to find in Montana, so it was great to have one put in an appearance for me here. With that, I made my way back to our hotel so that Amy and I could go find a fun restaurant to dine at. What I didn’t realize is how much good Canadian birding still lay ahead of me.

**The lovely mastermind behind our surprise Victoria trip, my wife Amy, enjoying high tea at the Fairmont Empress Hotel.**

(For the second part of this story, see “In Search of the Marbled Murrelet”.)

Our 2024 Recap: Spain, Costa Rica, Japan (again!) and More

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2024 has been a record-breaking year for FatherSonBirding—and in more ways than one. Let’s start with the stats. Number of views to our site increased by almost 50% over last year to almost 14,000, while the number of visitors increased 65% to about 10,000. Much of what is driving these increases is interest in our posts about foreign birding destinations including Japan, Costa Rica, and Spain. In fact, viewers from 104 different countries visited our site this past year. Top views from countries other than the US were:

Japan: 445

United Kingdom: 384

Canada: 352

Australia: 244

Singapore: 208

Despite being published in 2023, our birding posts from Japan dominated views this year, especially with FSB visitors from foreign countries! Here, Tessa and I visit The Great Buddha, or Daibutsu, of Kamakura—apparently the second largest Buddha in Japan, one that harkens back to about 1252.

So which of our posts received the most views? Here is our Top 10 for 2024 (plus/minus 10 views each, given the quirks of the statistics-accumulating program):

1. Birding Japan, Kyoto: 811

2. Birding Japan, Tokyo Part I: 573

3. Birding San Antonio’s Riverwalk, Are You Nuts?: 568

4. Birding Barcelona Part I, The Urban Core: 463

5. Birding Japan, Kanazawa: 332

6. Birding Glacier National Park in the “Hot Dry Winter” of 2024: 289

7. Getting Serious About State Birds: 284

8. Braden’s Costa Rica Report #3, El Copal: 249

9. Turning Useless Lawn into Vital Habitat: 196

10. Monotypic Birds, Evolution’s Survivors: 195

A couple of things become evident from this list. One is that many birders are travelers. Even though they are from 2023, our Kyoto and Tokyo posts (links above) continue to get hits every day, often from people outside the United States. Despite this stiff competition, our post about San Antonio’s Riverwalk still wears the crown of our all-time most viewed site. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that all of this is because of how many birders are out traveling the world!

If you remember this Red-shouldered Hawk, you’ve been reading FSB almost from the beginning! Our post on birding San Antonio’s River Walk still holds the title of our most viewed post ever, with almost 2,000 views.

Our top posts, though, also reveal that readers of FSB have a major interest in environmental issues, as is revealed by our Glacier National Park post and our post “Turning Useless Lawn into Vital Habitat.” We take great satisfaction in that because one of the main reasons we write FSB is to help increase awareness of the environmental plight of our planet—and birds in particular—and what we can all do to improve the situation. Planting native plants in our yards is an especially simple, effective approach to increasing vital habitat that birds and their prey depend on. We’re happy that so many people took time to read our post on this topic.

**Enthusiasm for our post on the dry hot winter of 2024 revealed a strong interest in the environment among FSB readers. Good job, readers!**

But the year is only a little about statistics. Braden and I both had wonderful birding adventures in 2024. Thanks to his semester abroad in Costa Rica, Braden saw a remarkable 736 species of birds in 2024. More important, he got dozens of other young people into birding by starting the wildly successful UMaine Birding Club. The club did all kinds of fun activities, from leading dozens of birding outings to hosting movie nights and launching a project to reduce bird strikes on the UMaine campus building windows. Braden and I also finally got to take the eastern Montana birding safari of our dreams, spending two weeks exploring corners of the state we’d never before visited.

**Braden’s adventure-packed semester in Costa Rica led him to see a remarkable 736 species of birds for 2024.**

I had my own birding adventures including my wife’s and my trip to Barcelona last February, where I picked up a dozen species for my life list and had a whole lot of fun with Amy. I had two great trips to California: one to show my youngest, Tessa, a couple of potential colleges for next year; the second a great Bay Area trip to visit family and friends, including four fab days of birding with my childhood buddy, Scott. Work travel gave me additional opportunities to bird in Oregon, Washington, and throughout Montana. The highlight of the end of my year was getting to bird Cape Cod with Braden during Thanksgiving Week. I am also elated that my newest book, Birding for Boomers, is off to such a great start, reaching #8 the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association bestseller’s list for nonfiction paperback books!

**Thanks to the year’s second trip to California, I got to spend more time than usual with friends—and coastal birds such as this Black Turnstone.**

As usual, Braden and I have only vague ideas where 2025 will take us and what we will be moved to write about. A few destinations in the mix: Indonesia, Vancouver Island, Texas. Whatever adventures we have and end up writing about, we deeply appreciate all of you for checking in and taking an interest in the coolest group of critters on earth. We also appreciate you supporting our work by buying our books and sharing FSB with your friends, family, and colleagues.

Until next year, Happy New Year, and may 2025 bring you joy, satisfaction, closer connections and, of course, a whole lotta birds!

Sneed & Braden

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.

Our Official 2023 FSB Recap: Bird Names, Bird Clubs, and Lifers

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2023 proved to be another wildly surprising year for the FatherSonBirding team. Not only did Braden and I see birds we never dreamed we’d see, but birding opportunities and the enthusiasm of our loyal FSB followers exceeded every expectation. But first, some 2023 stats:

Blogs Posted: 32

FSB Views: 9,361 (easily eclipsing last year’s record of 7,185)

Most Viewed Post: Avian Reveal: Our Five Picks for New Bird Names (598 views)

In addition to the above stats, we surpassed 30,000 lifetime blog views and have now published 174 posts since we began FSB in 2018. Even though this is far short of what is required to annoy you with paid advertisements, it’s still remarkable to us. When we began FSB, Braden and I thought we might keep at it for a year or two at most. Now, almost six years later, FSB has actually generated a body of work that we are immensely proud of. It’s been a way for us to share our adventures, promote birding, and connect with other birders. It’s also been a fun vehicle for educating others about birds and bird conservation. So let’s get to 2023’s highlights for each of us.

Sneed’s 2023 Birding Highlights

Japan: Without a doubt, my biggest highlight of the year was taking my daughter, Tessa, to Japan for three weeks. Together, we created a lifetime of memories in a country we loved even more than we thought we would. As you all discovered with my posts about Tokyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa, and other places, I got in plenty of birding, adding 28 species to my Life List and getting to know more than fifty species of common Japanese birds. (Note that Kanazawa is near the epicenter of this morning’s 7.5 earthquake. We are thinking of all of you over there, and hope everyone is safe!)

**One of my favorite Japanese birds, a male Daurian Redstart.**

Birding Eastern Montana: Thanks to assignments from Montana Outdoors magazine, I had the opportunity to drive out to Westby with my childhood buddy, Scott Callow. We not only hit hotspots such as Bowdoin NWR, Plentywood, Makoshika SP, and Bear Canyon, we had a wonderful visit with FWP biologist Heather Harris who took us on an up-close-and-personal visit to some of Montana’s healthiest short-grass prairie. There, we got my best looks ever at Sprague’s Pipits, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, and other prairie residents.

**Heading to Westby with my friend Scott was not only a great way to see great Montana birds, but a rare chance to catch up with a lifelong friendship!**

Adding Montana Lifers: While in Westby, Scott and I saw my first Piping Plover in Montana, but during the rest of the year—and with the help of other Montana birders—I also added three species to my all-time worldwide Life List: Sagebrush Sparrow (Bear Canyon), American Golden-plover (Mission Valley), and Spruce Grouse (Mission Mountains).

**This Sagebrush Sparrow was probably my favorite new ABA Lifer of 2023–and proves that great things can come in small packages!**

In addition to the above highlights, Braden and I got to bird together several times, including a breakneck trip to Glacier NP with our buddy, Nick Ramsey. I also had the pleasure of meeting a lot of other Montana birders at Wings Across the Big Sky and the meeting of Flathead Audubon. At the beginning of 2023, I had entertained visions of breaking my Montana Big Year record with my work trips to eastern Montana—but didn’t. I came close, however, racking up 253 species, including my last two: Short-eared Owl and Northern Shrike on Braden’s and my last big Montana outing. And now . . .

**Despite Braden and Nick’s busy lives getting educated and building their birder resumés, we all managed to squeeze in a quick 3-day trip to Freezeout Lake and Glacier National Park last summer.**

Braden’s 2023 Birding Highlights

Eastern Songbirds: A long-time goal of mine has been to learn the eastern songbirds, specifically the eastern wood-warblers, by ear. This summer, thanks to my job doing point counts in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania, I succeeded at that goal, solidifying nearly two dozen warbler songs in my mental repertoire, including those of Magnolia, Canada, Mourning and Golden-winged Warblers. Beyond that, I got to spend all of May and June, and some of July, romping around the forests of the Appalachians, learning about the ecology of all of these species. I fell in love with Golden-winged Warblers, with their specialized habitat needs and endearing personalities, and came to know not only the species of birds in these forests, but also the trees the birds were using. Highlighted by a trip to Cape May and a trip to the Adirondacks, my summer in Pennsylvania may have taught me more about the natural world than any summer I’ve lived through yet!

**Getting to know Eastern warblers—including Golden-winged Warblers—fulfilled a long-held ambition of mine.**

Western Field Ornithologists Conference: In July, I said goodbye to my co-workers and the woods of Pennsylvania and flew across the country to Denver, Colorado, where I was picked up by one of the members of the board of Western Field Ornithologists (WFO). There started my week-long, high-energy stay in the alpine zone of Colorado, where I proceeded to not only see hordes of birds (including two lifers, Virginia’s Warbler and Brown-capped Rosy-finch) as well as meet a variety of people of all ages, who had converged at the WFO annual conference thanks to their passion for birds. During this conference, I got to hang out with a squadron of young birders from California and meet people like David Tonnessen, a native Coloradan guide, Nathan Pieplow, one of North America’s leading experts on bird sound, Ted Floyd, the editor of Birding magazine, Chris Wood, one of the founders of eBird, and Jesse Barry, one of the lead developers for the Merlin app. It was a whirlwind week, during which I bushwhacked through alpine tundra in search of White-tailed Ptarmigan and Dusky Grouse (only the latter of which we saw), scoped distant prairie potholes for shorebirds, and trekked through spruce-fir forest in the dark of night in an attempt for Boreal Owl. I’ll be sure to attend more of these conferences, whenever I am able to!

The field trips before the WFO conference gave me my first crack at Colorado birding!

Starting the UMaine Birding Club: Last semester, several people told me that if the University of Maine had a Birding Club, they would join. This year, after a few MORE people told me that, I just decided to buckle down and start one. Our first meeting, which took place on September 14th, was a raging success, with more than thirty people filling the classroom I’d reserved to hear me give my elevator pitch for the club. After a ten-minute talk, we headed out across campus in search of fall migrants, which we found in the form of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and several Cape May Warblers. The rest is history. I put on twelve meetings this year, and led twelve outings as well. I made sure that our meetings were diverse, with some days featuring guest lectures about bird jobs or indoor bird scavenger hunts and others pitting club members against each other in Bird Jeopardy. My personal favorite was a thirty-minute talk I gave on everything wrong with the state birds, and we finished out the year last Thursday with a movie night featuring The Big Year. Our outings, highlighted by one trip to Sebasticook Lake and another to the coast, tallied ninety total species, including Sandhill Cranes and an American Goshawk, which both became “Bird of the Day” on their respective trips. Overall, starting a Birding Club was one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done and I can’t wait to jump back into it next fall—after I’ve returned from studying abroad in Costa Rica!

**Quizzing the UMaine Birding Club on bird vocalizations!**

So that’s a wrap, people. Braden and I want to thank you for tuning in and sharing your enthusiasm with us, and we hope that 2024 brings you a rewarding year of seeing, learning about, and protecting the animals we all love.