Category Archives: Montana

Billings’ Riverfront Park: Montana’s Premier Songbird Hotspot?

Thanks to your enthusiasm FatherSonBirding has garnered more than 1,000 views for the month of June—our best viewership ever! In fact, it’s been very gratifying to watch more and more people get involved in birding, and Braden and I want to let you know how much we appreciate all of you, whether you are a beginning birder or advanced, whether you work to protect birds or simply cultivate an appreciation for them. Whatever you do, keep it up and we will keep sharing our own experiences. As always, feel free to share these posts and encourage others to subscribe. Sneed & Braden

I have to admit that without Braden, birding isn’t quite as much fun. I also don’t see as many birds without his better skills and ears. Still, sacrifices must be made and I continue to seek out birding opportunities wherever and whenever they present themselves. Just such an opportunity arose a couple of weeks ago when I traveled to Billings to be the closing speaker for their first annual Kid Lit Festival. “A-ha,” I thought. “This sounds like a birding opportunity!” So instead of one night, I scheduled the trip for three—with an ambitious birding schedule in the mix. Just for fun, I set a goal of seeing 100 species for the trip, a number I hoped to easily surpass. Friday morning, June 10^th, I set out toward Billings, making several stops along the way, and arrived at the trip’s first real birding destination, Shiloh Conservation Area, mid-afternoon. Though it has been engineered by humans, I’ve always loved Shiloh and have seen many interesting birds there from dowitchers to my Lifer Swamp Sparrow. Today, the surprises included a female Bullock’s Oriole, male Western Tanager, and a Wilson’ Phalarope that didn’t seem to know quite what she was doing there!

**This lone, befuddled Wilson’s Phalarope at Shiloh seemed to be wondering where all the other phalaropes had gone!**

I was even more excited to get up early the next morning and visit Billings’ Riverfront Park, a place Braden and I had birded only once before, but that had netted a rich harvest of songbirds including our first state Ovenbirds and Plumbeous Vireos. I wondered Could it possibly be as good this time? As soon as I climbed out of the car, I got my first indication when I saw my first of 26 Yellow Warblers and 6 American Redstarts, and heard multiple Common Yellowthroats and Yellow-breasted Chats.

**With their weird calls and stunning good looks, Yellow-breasted Chats are always a delight to observe—even if they are no longer warblers!**

That’s not to say that the birding was easy. With the thick riparian canopy, the situation mostly called for ear-birding and with my lousy ears, my skills were put to the test. Nonetheless, using Merlin’s Sound ID to help alert me to what to look for and to help confirm calls that I thought I recognized, I slowly assembled a picture of the birds around me. Thankfully, most of the birds also put in an appearance for visual confirmation, but I’m still sure that I grossly underreported the numbers around me and probably missed one or two species as well.

That didn’t keep me from fully appreciating the diversity and abundance of songbirds, however. I felt especially thrilled to see so many warblers, with large numbers of Yellow Warblers, American Redstarts, Ovenbirds, and Common Yellowthroats.

**On our previous visit to Riverfront Park, Braden and I had gotten only poor, brief glimpses of Ovenbirds, but today multiple Ovenbirds not only sang but popped out for an appearance.**

Merlin also picked up huge numbers of Warbling and Red-eyed Vireos—the latter a lot easier for me to recognize by ear than the former—and eventually I saw both species. I had hoped for Plumbeous Vireo as well, but struck out on that one. I also saw only one Black-headed Grosbeak, though I’m sure many more were around. All in all, I found 34 species and came away thinking that Riverfront just might be the best spring riparian birding hotspot in the state, and I vowed to return every year if possible. Even better, I still had two full days of birding ahead of me as the next day I planned to drive to Bowdoin NWR and then to Great Falls for a visit to Benton Lake.

My Riverfront Park List

**I was surprised to see only one Black-headed Grosbeak at Riverfront, but at least this one posed nicely—if from a great distance.**

Our First Guest Post: “Rare Rail Round-ups” by Nick Ramsey!

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This week we are thrilled to offer a post by our good friend and Montana Native Son, Nick Ramsey. Helping to lead a new wave of outstanding young birders dispersing throughout the country, Nick was there at the beginning as Braden and I took our first tentative steps into serious birding. The list of “firsts” he showed us would take up a whole blog by itself, but includes our first Black Terns, Northern Saw-whet Owl, and perhaps most memorable, Sprague’s Pipit. Currently, Nick is a sophomore at Louisiana State University majoring in Natural Resource Management and Ecology with an emphasis on Wildlife Ecology. We hope this is the first of many blogs he will write for FatherSonBirding. (Nick shown here holding a Yellow Rail.)

Our Special Guest Contributor Nick Ramsey holding a Yellow Rail captured for banding.

Yellow Rails are one of the most sought-after, most elusive species for birders in North America. Usually, they are near impossible to see. Most people that have them on their lists have gone in the evening to tall upland marshes in their northern breeding range, just to hear a soft song akin to pebbles getting hit together. Finding one in the winter is nearly impossible – right?

Not quite. I’ve serendipitously encountered Yellow Rails twice. Once, in eastern Montana with Braden and Sneed, we were looking at our lifer Nelson’s Sparrows at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, one of their westernmost breeding sites in the state. The habitat looked great for Yellow Rails, and it was on the back of my mind. While I was taking photos of the sparrows, Braden asked for us to be quiet. Soon, I heard what he was hearing – the clicking of a distant Yellow Rail! And in broad daylight, no less! A lifer for all of us, and quite a rarity for the state of Montana, although there were historical records from the area. We were never able to see the bird, which is just part of the experience with Yellow Rails.

Audubon Marshbird Biologist Jonathon Lueck holding a secretive Yellow Rail—a bird Nick, Braden, and Sneed first encountered at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge.

The second time, I was stomping around an old helipad at St. Mark’s National WIldlife Refuge in the Florida Panhandle. The tall, wet grass was home to a wintering LeConte’s Sparrow and potentially Henslow’s Sparrows. As I worked the grasses, hoping to flush one of these seldom-seen sparrows, a bird jumped up. It wasn’t much bigger than the sparrows I was searching for, but its legs were dangling beneath it. And – it had white secondaries!! It was a Yellow Rail! It landed only about 15 feet from me, but despite another hour of searching I was unable to flush it again. I was hooked – these shy rails had quickly become one of my favorite birds.

In Louisiana there is an active effort to survey populations of Yellow Rails, in conjunction with work on endangered Black Rails and other secretive marsh species. We are also home to the Yellow Rails and Rice Festival, where people from all over flock to Louisiana’s rice fields as combines flush rails during the rice harvest. Researchers use this opportunity to band rails and monitor Yellow Rail populations. As with most conservation efforts, they operate on a tight budget, so they love volunteers. They especially love college students, because when we trip in a marsh or a rice field after chasing a rail, we bounce. The older subset of birders that volunteer is not quite as bouncy.

Jonathon Lueck holding a prized Black Rail.

On three occasions this winter, I’ve been able to volunteer on rail surveys, targeting Black, Yellow, and other rails. The primary method for these surveys is the “rail drag.” Four to eight people drag a rope about 50 feet long through prime rail habitat – wetter for Clapper, King, and Virginia Rails, dryer high marsh for Black and Yellow Rails. The line is fixed with a few gallon jugs full of cat toys spread out evenly. These serve two purposes. First, they weigh the line down, assuring no rails just hide in the grass while the line passes over them, and second, they make a ton of noise, frightening the rails into flight. These drags are conducted at night, and everyone carries a net and a flashlight. Once a rail is spotted, the lights temporarily freeze the bird and we gallop through the marsh to go catch it! This is my favorite part.

Jonathon Lueck with a Clapper Rail in hand.

The first time this winter that I volunteered we were lucky to catch Black, Clapper, Yellow, and Virginia Rails on the Cameron Coast of southwest Louisiana. I personally netted a clapper, and chased after lots of other birds. We also netted a couple of Sedge Wrens, abundant in the drier marshes we dragged. Several weeks later, I was able to get back out to the Cameron coast with my friends Kraig and Ravynn, who’d never birded outside of Baton Rouge. After a fruitful day birding near the coast with 100 species, including my stater White-tailed Kite and over thirty lifers for my friends, we set out to go catch some rails. We met Audubon Delta’s marsh bird biologist, Jonathan Lueck, as well as a couple other volunteers, at the site. Jonathan is a character – he had a skinned-out otter and a skinned-out raccoon in the bed of his truck amongst the rail netting supplies. He found them on the side of the highway and was using the fur to make gloves, hats, and other products as a side hustle (ornithology is fun, but it doesn’t pay very well.) Jonathan passed out the nets and lights, and we got started! The first two transects didn’t yield anything, but there was another site just down the road that needed to be surveyed as well. On the way back to the car, I flushed a Clapper Rail! Kraig ran ahead and caught it. It was his first time seeing one, and getting to hold it made it that much cooler. After processing the bird, we went to the next site. This one was a lot more productive, yielding two Yellow Rails! We also flushed several of the larger species, but weren’t able to catch them. Kraig was the man of the hour, catching a Yellow Rail and a Clapper (as well as spotting many of our best birds earlier in the day, like Limpkin and American Bittern.) After a great night, we made the three hour drive back to Baton Rouge, capping off 22 hours straight of birding and travel.

I’ve been very lucky to get involved with a ton of fun research here, and the Yellow Rail banding might be my favorite. Every time we catch one we widen the window into the natural history of these adorable little birds.

Rail-hunting can lead to some great bonus birds such as this Henslow’s Sparrow with new bird band.

All photos copyrighted, courtesy of Nick Ramsey.

Battling the February Birding Blahs

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In a recent Redpolling poll, voters overwhelmingly chose February as the worst month for birding (except for a few cheeky Floridians who lorded it over the rest of us). But is February really that bad? In Montana, after all, you can go find some wonderful winter residents such as Rough-legged Hawks, Northern Shrikes, and Snow Buntings. On the other hand, by February you’ve usually seen those already so where does that leave you?

**February is a great month to catch up on bird-related reading. For my review on this and other excellent titles, Follow @sneedcollard on Instagram.**

For me personally, February is a time to get a lot of actual WORK done such as writing birding articles, banging out new children’s books, writing letters to the editor and my senators about bird conservation, and reading bird books. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not curious about which birds are around—while remaining optimistic that I’ll find some surprises if I go out. On a morning dog walk recently, for example, a Northern Goshawk flew right over me and Lola! This last Sunday morning, Lola and I again headed out wondering if we might see any other surprises.

**Just to prove that in birding you never know—even in February—a Northern Goshawk flew right over me and my dog Lola only a couple of weeks ago! It was the first I’d ever seen on my own.**

We decided to do a loop I only rarely traverse anymore, through a private neighborhood that COULD be great bird habitat but has instead been landscaped with acres of lawn and over-pruned trees. Still, even before we got to that neighborhood, I noticed that our resident birds have shifted into courtship mode. On Valentine’s Day I heard the first two-note song of a chickadee for the year and also the first throaty warble of an advertising Northern Flicker. This morning, I heard both of those—plus an amazing number of Song Sparrows also advertising. I haven’t kept track of “first spring calls” before, but I wondered if they are on a trend toward “springing out” earlier and earlier every year?

**After not hearing a Song Sparrow call for many weeks, I was gratified to hear four of them singing in different locations on our recent Sunday morning walk!**

In the private neighborhood itself, we heard some distant wild turkeys, a Red Crossbill, and an unknown high-pitched cacophony. My hearing is so sucky anymore I couldn’t tell who was making this chattering, but whipped out Merlin’s Sound ID, which ID’ed them as Pine Siskins. But where were they? I walked forward a bit, turned around and there they were—more than forty of them in a tree! Okay, so it wasn’t a Northern Pygmy-Owl, but I was still happy. Lola and I had headed out expecting maybe 6 or 8 species and ended up with sixteen! Just goes to show you that, even in the February Blahs, birds are around and ready to teach us new things.

**A flock of 40 Pine Siskins proved a delightful highlight of our unlikely February neighborhood walk.**

A New Year’s Triple-Shot of Owls

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Still on the fence about subscribing? Kick off the New Year right and go for it. We won’t share your info or use it for any nefarious purposes. We promise! Just fill out the box down and to the right.

You PhD students of FatherSonBirding may recall that our debut post related to our very first Snowy Owl sighting on March 9, 2018, almost four years and 100+ posts ago. Today’s post marks a return to our roots—sort of.

After a successful birding trip to Oregon to close out 2021, Braden and I decided to kick off 2022 with a modest New Year’s Day tour of Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge in the vain hope that we might see a Short-eared Owl, a species that totally eluded us last year and is one of our favorite birds. As we headed north in our trusty minivan, however, a crooked nail of a thought kept scratching at my brain. Finally, as we approached St. Ignatius I glanced at Braden and said, “You know, people eBirded the Snowy Owl again yesterday, and this might be our last chance to see it together before you head back to college. What do you think?”

“I’m in,” he answered, “but let’s hit Duck Road first.”

I exhaled, relieved. Even though it would mean an extra two hours of driving, now we were committed. We quickly hit Duck Road at Ninepipe looking for Short-eareds, and of course got skunked, though we did get a great look at a hunting Prairie Falcon and flushed a Great Horned Owl that had taken up residence in a small tree. Then, we high-tailed it toward Kalispell, stopping only for an unsuccessful attempt to find a Lifer Glaucous Gull at Somers Bay.

This Great-horned has apparently taken up residence in a new tree. Don’t be surprised to see it your next time on Duck Road. (Water tower of Charlo in the background—don’t you love telephoto lenses?)

Turning left onto Farm Road in Kalispell—er, Somers to be exact—dark clouds of failure haunted me. After all, we had scoured this neighborhood for four hours in 2021 without so much as a glimpse of a Snowy Owl (see our post “Payin’ Raptor Dues, Reapin’ Raptor Rewards”) and as we crept slowly forward, it felt like history would repeat itself as we passed one owl-less roof and field after another . We turned left on Manning Road and continued driving, stopping a couple of times to scan every house in sight. “I’ve got Collared Doves,” Braden said, just as I focused in on a fuzzy white lump on a roof.

“Got it,” I said. Braden said, “Good,” thinking I was referring to the Collared Doves. “No, I mean the owl,” I clarified. And indeed, only ten minutes after beginning our search, there it was—no more than a quarter mile from where we’d seen our first Snowy in 2018! As beautiful as Snowy Owls are, they don’t usually do a whole lot, but we enjoyed staring at it for ten minutes and taking lousy photos. We thanked the owl and then, with a whole afternoon suddenly freed up, began birding our way back home.

**Okay, not the best photo, but give me a break already. The Snowy was far away!**

We hit numerous spots on our way south, picking up one Year Bird after another. One of the great things about birding on New Year’s is that it resets the birding calendar, making every new bird a Year Bird! In fact, perhaps because of our low expectations, we saw almost everything we could wish for: Common Redpolls, American Tree Sparrow, half a dozen ducks, and an unlikely Double-crested Cormorant. As we once again approached Ninepipe, we had plenty of daylight for a second go at Short-eared Owls. We again bombed on Duck Road so made our way around the fringes of the refuge, ending up on Ninepipe Lane. Suddenly, a large bird leaped into the air.

**I’ve never been able to take sharp in-flight photos, but I just love this image as this Short-eared Owl looks and listens for prey.**

“Short-eared!” Braden shouted. Yes! We got a beautiful look at the amazing creature as it flew a couple of circuits around us and then dove on a hapless mammal in a snowy field. Even more amazing, in the next mile we saw four more Short-eareds! They all perched at a fair distance, but we didn’t mind. In fact, we were glad that we wouldn’t be disturbing them by driving close. Not surprisingly, the SEOWs swooped in for Bird of the Day honors, but we had more birding pleasures in store—including Cedar and Bohemian Waxwings, a Great Blue Heron and kingfisher, a Northern Shrike, and right in our own neighborhood, our last bird of the day, Wild Turkey. It was an awesome way to kick off 2022, and with 46 species under our belts, by far our best Montana New Year’s Day birding experience ever—one we will treasure as Braden prepares to return to college in Maine.

Our Accidental Big Year: Final Tally, Part 1

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Request: with the year’s end at hand, please support the groups that depend on your help to protect our precious avian wildlife. If you need ideas, here are the groups we have given to so far this year: Houston Audubon, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Montana Audubon, Five Valleys Audubon (our local group), National Audubon, BirdLife International (Braden’s favorite group), the American Birding Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation International, the Montana Natural History Center and the Rainforest Alliance. Please share this list, and let us know if you have questions about any of them. If you want to donate to several of them at once, you can simplify the process by giving via Charity Navigator. You can also learn more about the groups there.

Dear Gentle Birders, Braden and I would like to wish you a Very Birdy 2022, with hopes that in the coming year you enjoy birding and helping birds more than ever. To wrap up the year, we have some very (choose one) a) exciting b) surprising c) alarming birding tales to share with you. Many of you read our post My Accidental Big Year, which highlighted how, quite by accident, I (Sneed) was closing in on my all-time Big Year record of 336 species. Thanks to unanticipated trips to New England, Texas, Washington—even Utah—I found myself creeping tantalizingly close to breaking the record thanks, in great part, to many of you helping me track down birds that I needed! Alas, with six species to go, my momentum ground to a halt in Montana as I unsuccessfully searched for Surf Scoter, Rusty Blackbird, and other rarities that might nudge me closer. Fortunately, I had one more “accidental” ace up my sleeve: our family Christmas trip to Oregon.

**This rather blasé Western Gull on the roof of “Mo’s Chowdah” kicked off our final pushes to break both of our Big Year records!**

After wrapping up his semester at UMaine, Braden flew home to Missoula early on December 16th, and the next day—thanks to Andy Boyce—we got him his 300th Montana Lifer: Anna’s Hummingbird! I mean, WOW! A couple days later, we headed West on I-90, encountering harrowing conditions that included snow, ice, rain, and a jack-knifed truck on the ascent to Idaho. Even worse, it looked like we would be hitting solid rain and snow in Oregon—potentially kyboshing my aspirations not only to reach 337 species, but push beyond it to 350, something I optimistically thought might be possible if I hit every Oregon target in the vicinity. We arrived at Cannon Beach at about noon on Monday and, since it was raining, and too early to check into our AirBnB, decided to stop at Mo’s for clam chowdah and then tool on down to Tillamook to gorge on cheese curds.

As we pulled into the Mo’s parking lot, Braden pointed to the roof and said, “Well, there’s the first of your six birds!” I laughed, spotting a Western Gull sitting in the rain. Half hour later, as we masticated mediocre chowdah, a Surf Scoter flew by the window. 2 down. 4 to go! Still, as we continued driving down the coast, I wondered if we’d see any other Year Birds in this weather. At Nehalem Bay, however, we pulled over to scout a flotilla of 50 Surf Scoters, and spotted a Red-breasted Merganser for Year Bird number 334. Then, before Tillamook, Braden instructed me to pull over at a place called Barview Jetty where we might find a number of birds high on my needs list. I should have known we were in for a treat when even before the car stopped, Braden exclaimed, “There’s a pair of Harlequin Ducks!” I eagerly jumped out to see my favorite ducks, ducks I had missed in Montana this past summer.

**After missing breeding Harlequin Ducks in Montana last summer, I was thrilled to see a pair wintering on the Oregon coast—the only pair we would see during two intensive days of birding!**

Within moments, though, other birds sent my head spinning. Five Black Oystercatchers were sitting out on the jetty. Then, through our new Vortex scope, we ID’ed my RECORD BREAKER: Brandt’s Cormorant! The thing? I hardly had time to appreciate it because, driving to another part of the jetty, we saw even MORE great birds. In the parking lot, we got Glaucous-winged Gull, and only a few yards from the car, Black Turnstones. Walking out onto the jetty, we saw Pelagic Cormorants, Dunlins and more turnstones—only to realize that they were another of our favorite birds, Surfbirds!

Braden and I ‘oohed’ and ‘ahed’ over these adorable Barview Jetty Surfbirds, birds that have long placed high on our Favorite Birds list. I especially love the rain bouncing off of their feathers in this photo!

As if that wasn’t enough, as we were walking back to the car, a group of gulls lifted off nearby and Braden studied them for possible Glaucous-winged Gulls. As he did so, I saw a bird that looked a lot like a winter Bonaparte’s Gull. “Oh, there! There! There!” I shouted, not sure what I was seeing. Braden, quickly spotted the bird and said, “Oh my god! That’s a Black Kittiwake!” Neither of us could believe it. It was a bird I never even imagined I’d see on this trip, and it pushed my Accidental Big Year total to a shocking 343 birds, smashing my previous record.

**Braden had fallen in love with Black-legged Kittiwakes in Svalbard (Norway) and Iceland, but I never dreamed I’d see my first one right here in the U.S. of A.!**

Would I tick off even more birds? Could I tempt that almost magical total of 350? Was it possible Braden would break his own Big Year record??? I’d tell you, but I am craving a chocolate chip cookie. Come back next time to find out!

Our Barview Jetty eBird list: https://ebird.org/checklist/S99200064