Category Archives: Glacier National Park

Birding Festivals of the West 2026!

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As April proceeds apace, it’s time to greet our spring birds with the word “Tadaima!”—Japanese for “Welcome Home!” However, it’s also an excellent time to finally do something you may have contemplated for years: attend a birding festival!

Never fear, it’s not too late. Particularly as recent geopolitical events make you rethink vacationing in Paris or visiting the Egyptian pyramids, birders have the chance to seize opportunities on our very doorstep. During the past few years, Braden and I have participated in a number of birding festivals and they have always been huge fun. They have allowed us to explore places and see birds that we never imagined, and connect with great birders from all around the world. Pick up a copy of BWD or Birding and you’ll see that there are literally dozens of birding festivals to choose from throughout the year. Today, I’d like to focus on three in the West that I’ll be participating in—and that you may want to consider for yourselves.

The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival, Cortez, Colorado, May 6-10

In just three weeks, I’ll be traveling to the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival in Cortez, Colorado, which runs from May 6 to May 10. Fun story: I was invited to this year’s festival because of a blog post I wrote last summer called In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee. The UMMV organizing committee happened to have chosen that bird as this year’s “mascot” and when they read the blog, Voila!, they invited me to give the keynote!

The charismatic Green-tailed Towhee is this year’s featured bird at the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival—but is only one of the cool specialties participants are likely to see!

Now I’ll admit that I’d never considered birding southwest Colorado, but as I delved into the various field trips, I grew more and more excited. The variety of birds and habitats in this part of the country is fabulous and includes many species that can be a challenge to see elsewhere. 180 species have been observed at the festival including waterfowl, shorebirds, raptors, and songbirds. Most exciting to me are the Southwestern birds I rarely get a chance to see including Black-throated and Sagebrush Sparrows, Gray Flycatcher, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, Scaled Quail, Sage Thrasher, Virginia’s Warbler, Juniper Titmouse, and at top of my list, Gray Vireo.

The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival not only offers up great birds, but a chance to explore some of our nation’s most iconic scenery and cultural sites, including Mesa Verde National Park.

What really sets this festival apart is the chance to bird while exploring some of the most breathtaking scenery in America. Think dramatic canyon country like Mesa Verde National Park (see photo above) and Ute Mountain Tribal Park. This Four Corners region is loaded with archaeological sites and a unique culture found nowhere else in the world, and just begs to be explored. In fact, my wife and I are going down a couple of days early to do just that. To get there, we’re flying into Durango and renting a car. If this intrigues you as much as it intrigues us, do check it out! https://utemountainmesaverdebirdingfestival.com/

Wings Across the Big Sky, Kalispell, Montana, June 12-14

This will be Braden’s and my fourth time participating in our home state birding festival, and we couldn’t be more excited. One of the things that makes this festival special is that it travels to different parts of the state each year, allowing birders to explore Montana’s extensive variety of habitats and birds. Braden and I are leading two field trips, including one to the CSKT Bison Range, but all of the trips offer a surprising wealth of bird life. Montana is especially known for its raptors and grassland birds, but most people don’t realize that it’s a great place to see waterfowl and songbirds, too.

Just one of dozens of field trips at the 2024 Wings Across the Big Sky festival, including trip leaders, field biologist Hilary Turner (far left) and Andrew Guttenberg (third from left). And yes, that’s Braden towering over Hilary on the left!

If you’ve never visited Montana before, I highly recommend the field trips to Glacier National Park. At least ten kinds of warblers can be found in the park, along with four kinds of chickadees (think Boreal Chickadee), and three kinds of grouse, including Spruce Grouse. The park is especially known for breeding Black Swifts, Harlequin Ducks, Common Loons, and American Dippers. Again, you might just want to come a few days early to explore on your own!

Glacier National Park may be the best place in the Lower 48 to score breeding Harlequin Ducks! Braden and I saw this one, our lifer, on our very first Wings Across the Big Sky festival!

Glacier, though, is not the only draw to this part of Montana. Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in the West and hosts a great variety of birds along its shores. The Mission Mountains are truly one of the most spectacular and little-known mountain ranges in the Lower 48, and several field trips will explore the grasslands and wetlands of the Mission Valley. Passionate local trip leaders and Montana hospitality will ensure that you make this festival a regular part of your birding calendar.

For complete information, click here: Wings Across the Big Sky

Southeast Arizona Birding Festival, August 12-16, Tucson, Arizona

The Southeast Arizona Birding Festival has built a reputation as one of the nation’s premier birding festivals, and so when I was invited to speak and co-lead field trips at this year’s festival, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Of course, the first thing you’re probably asking yourself is “Arizona? In August???” I did, but believe it or not, this is one of the best times to bird the Grand Canyon State.

Braden contemplating a glorious sunset near the mouth of Madera Canyon—one of the field trips I’ll be co-leading during the SE Arizona Birding Festival.

Braden and I have been lucky to bird Arizona several times. See our posts “Portal Dreaming” and “Trogons and Border Walls.” One thing that always amazes us is the variety of habitats that can be found there, including wetlands, saguaro forests, and incredible canyons. Of special note are the region’s sky islands. These are mountains and mountain ranges that rise steeply out of the desert to altitudes of over ten thousand feet. Climbing up them, you quickly transition from desert through a variety of habitats, culminating with conifer forests at the top.

While many people travel to Arizona specifically to see the Coppery-tailed (formerly Elegant) Trogon, Arizona offers an unparalleled diversity of other specialties to US birders.

Sky islands not only provide welcome relief from Arizona’s summer valley heat, they offer an astounding variety of birds, many of which cannot be found anywhere else in the US. On our 2022 trip to Arizona, Braden and I nabbed life bird after life bird including Coppery-tailed (formerly Elegant) Trogon, Red-faced Warbler, Olive Warbler, Scott’s Oriole, Five-striped Sparrow, Mexican Whip-poor-will, and many more.

Yellow-eyed Juncos are just one of the many specialty birds that can be found in Arizona during the upcoming birding festival.

In addition to speaking at this year’s festival, I will be co-leading field trips to both Madera and Ramsey Canyons—two of my favorite places I have ever birded. But my buddy Roger and I are flying down a few days early to bird on our own. Registration for the festival begins on April 28, and if you’re interested, I wouldn’t hesitate to get on the website that day to reserve your preferred trips. The festival headquarters hotel, the Tucson Doubletree, is having some reservation issues, so you may want to call them directly as soon as possible to book a room.

SE Arizona Festival Link: https://tucsonbirds.org/festival/

So that’s it for this Festivals of the West post. We hope it has inspired you to give a birding festival a try. If the above festivals are out of reach, look into a local festival near you. For a list of festivals nationwide, check out Cornell’s All About Birds website. We can almost guarantee you’ll be glad you did! And if you spot me at one of the above festivals, please come and say Howdy!

If you’re enjoying FatherSonBirding, please consider subscribing by filling out the box in the column to the right. We won’t ever sell or give away your information and you can unsubscribe at any time. And do feel free to share this blog with others or link to it—but please contact us for any other uses! FatherSonBirding is written by REAL PEOPLE, and if you’d like to support our work, please also consider buying *new copies* of some of Sneed’s books, also shown in the column to the right.

Birding Glacier National Park in the Hot Dry Fall of 2025

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FatherSonBirding is a labor of love and Braden and I keep it advertising-free. If you’d like to support our efforts at independent journalism, please consider sharing our posts with others and purchasing one or more new copies of Sneed’s books by clicking on the book jackets to the right. Thanks for reading and keep working for birds. We will!

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.