Here is Part 2 of Braden’s and my eastern Montana trip report, which began with a wonderful time at the Wings Across the Big Sky birding festival in Helena (see our last post by clicking here). Today’s installment details this year’s visit to one of our favorite birding destinations, Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, and then our evening birding and camping at Fort Peck.Enjoy and please feel free to share this post!
After our two days enjoying scintillating field trips and lectures at this year’s Wings Across the Big Sky birding festival in Helena, Braden and I spent two nights at American Prairie’s Antelope Creek Campground. I’d tell you what we were doing there, but for now at least, our lips are sealed. On Tuesday morning, however, we rose early, packed the car and headed toward what has become an annual favorite father-son destination: 15,551-acre Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge.
You know you’ve reached eastern Montana when you start seeing Franklin’s Gulls. These gulls were made famous by ZZ Top’s classic hit, “Sharp-Dressed Gulls!”
It had actually been a couple of years since Braden and I visited Bowdoin together, so we especially relished this year’s opportunity. Bowdoin offers a wonderful mix of wetlands and prairie habitat where you can find a terrific diversity of birds. Even better, this year’s water levels showed a significant improvement over last year, when it looked as though the main lake might dry up altogether.
Aaaaaw. Baby Killdeer at Bowdoin!
Unfortunately, today, windy conditions proved a challenge, especially in the grassland sections. While usually we can just drive with the windows open, listening for various songs, this year we generally had to keep the windows rolled up to keep from being sand-blasted by wind and dust. The wind also forced the smaller sparrows that we especially sought to sit down in the grass where they were difficult if not impossible to see. Only the intrepid meadowlarks braved the tops of sage plants, being blown back and forth as if they were on a carnival ride.
We saw at least 18 Willets while driving the Bowdoin loop—a record for us there. These birds, like several other shorebirds, breed in the grasslands around the main lake.
Nonetheless, thanks to diligence and Braden’s great ears, we managed to locate at least a few Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Lark Buntings, and Grasshopper, Lark, Clay-colored, Savannah, and Song Sparrows.
We also got great looks at White-faced Ibises, Willets, American Avocets, and other “usual suspects” in the aquatic realm. It’s always reassuring to see the hundreds of white pelicans nesting out on the main island.
We never get tired of seeing Wilson’s Phalaropes, which breed at Bowdoin NWR in good numbers.
One bird we especially missed was a Baltimore Oriole, which we usually see by stopping at the refuge visitor center before driving the big loop. After we finished the loop, however, we decided to give the BAORs one more shot and sat in our car munching our turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. Sure enough, after ten minutes, a bright orange bird with a black head flew across our vision! Sometimes, you just gotta be patient. All told, we observed 76 species at Bowdoin. But our day had not yet finished.
I’ve always felt captivated by these giant Art Deco power station towers at Fort Peck Dam. By camping here, we discovered that the towers are brilliantly lit up at night—a strange effect so far from “civilization.”
After Bowdoin, we drove to Fort Peck to spend the night camping below the dam. I’ve always been fascinated with the story of the Fort Peck dam and how, out in the middle of nowhere, a medium-sized city sprang up to build what, at the time, was by far the largest dam in the world. Today, it is still impressive, stretching more than four miles long, and “looked over” by two large (and to me beautiful) Art Deco power plant towers.
Who said Fort Peck doesn’t have fine dining?
Braden and I found a cozy campsite, set up our tents, and set out to explore the extensive campground. Our top target here were Field Sparrows. We didn’t see any. But we did get an unexpected triple shot of orioles: Baltimore, Bullock’s, and Orchard, all of which dropped by our campsite at least once.
Fort Peck gave us by far our most cooperative experience ever with Baltimore Orioles. This male was part of at least two breeding pairs we found in the campground.
We also got great looks at another Montana favorite, Brown Thrashers, the first of quite a few we would see on our trip.
One of our favorite Montana birds, Brown Thrashers would put in several appearances on our trip, including right in our Fort Peck campsite!
We generally try to avoid staying at large campgrounds, which can be noisy and sterile, but I was glad we gave Fort Peck a try. Even though my sleeping pad kept deflating through the night, the campground was a bit out of the wind, and offered up birds aplenty! Besides, how could I dislike a place that featured my book Beaver & Otter Get Along . . . Sort Of on its summer reading program? Tomorrow, we would try more prairie birding and hope that the wind would die down . . . but would it? Stay tuned for our next report!
As we were lining up our campsite, Braden suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my god! It’s your book!” Helped make my day!Thank you Fort Peck!
In case you missed our last post, Sneed’s new book, Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures, is now out just in time to enhance summer science education. To order, click on the book jacket in the right column!
Have you ever contemplated attending a birding festival? Braden and I have attended festivals in Monterey Bay, San Diego, and Rockport-Fulton near Corpus Cristi. All were terrific. I have to say, though, that our favorite is right here in Montana. After last year’s Wings Across the Big Sky birding festival in Great Falls, I was skeptical that this year’s fest in Helena could match it. How wrong I was! This year’s festival would not only prove wonderful in itself, but provide the perfect launch pad for Braden’s and my 13-day birding safari to eastern Montana. In fact, even before we reached Helena, Braden made what may be his greatest Montana bird discovery yet.
We left Missoula early on Friday, May 31st. Our first destination? Browns Lake, site of many past wonderful birding experiences—but nothing like we would have today. After the turnoff to Browns Lake, we always stop at a little riparian area and, as usual, got out to listen and look. Right away, we heard Dusky Flycatchers, Warbling Vireos, and Yellow and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Then, Braden heard an American Redstart and began “pishing” it in so that we could catch a look. I had my camera focused on a Yellow Warbler when Braden urgently hissed, “Daddy! Get over here now!” I rushed over to find him training his binoculars on a mind-blowing find: a Bay-breasted Warbler!
Perhaps Braden’s best Montana bird find ever, this glorious male Bay-breasted Warbler gave us great looks despite my horrible photos. This bird made the Montana Rare Bird Alert.
For those of you who don’t know it, Bay-breasted Warblers breed mainly in spruce forests of northern Canada across to the far northeast of the U.S. During migration, they almost never pass through eastern Montana, not to mention western Montana. True, I had seen a female in Missoula several years ago, but the gorgeous male in front of us shouldn’t have been anywhere within 500 miles of where we were standing—and, accordingly, made Montana’s Rare Bird Alert.
With that auspicious beginning, we happily proceeded to Carroll College in Helena for the Wings Across the Big Sky opening banquet. That featured an excellent talk by Tiffany Kersten, who set the Lower 48 Big Year record in 2021, and spoke eloquently about the challenges of birding as a solo female. Tiffany now is the proud owner of NatureNinja Birding Tours, and I can only guess that her guiding and tour experiences are not to be missed.
Usually uncooperative, Yellow Warblers gave us great looks at Vigilante Camprground near Helena.
Saturday morning, Braden and I convened at the festival breakfast for our first field trip, led by the highly-skilled veteran Montana birder, Sharon Dewart-Hansen. We were excited about the field trips we had signed up for because they would take us to places we had never before birded, and Sharon led us to Vigilante Campground northeast of Helena. After driving up a spectacular canyon, about 15 of us piled out to bird. Immediately, a Broad-tailed Hummingbird loudly buzzed us—a Montana Lifer for both Braden and me. Walking the campground, we were regaled with the songs of Ovenbirds, MacGillivray’s Warblers, Hammond’s Flycatchers, Veerys, and always my personal favorites, Lincoln’s Sparrows. A Ruffed Grouse drummed cooperatively several times.
Have I posted more Lincoln’s Sparrows than any other bird on FatherSonBirding? Perhaps, but who can blame me? I just love these guys!
After scouring the campground, we headed up canyon on foot and were treated to Violet-green Swallows and White-throated Swifts. On the way to the Vesta Cerra Ranch, whose owners generously allowed us to stop to eat lunch and admire their hummingbird feeders, we stopped for better looks at Broad-tailed Hummingbirds!
This Broad-tailed Hummingbird was a Montana Lifer for both Braden and me. These birds are quite rare and localized in the state, with the heart of their breeding range south of Montana.
After packing up our car early Sunday morning, we headed out for our second field trip, guided by expert Montana birders Hilary Turner and Andrew Guttenberg. Once again, we were treated to fabulous birding through brand new territory that featured awesome grassland, riparian, and canyon birding. The highlight was a visit to the private Phantom Springs Ranch, where we recorded 45 species, including wonderful looks at displaying Bobolinks. Here, two Sandhill Cranes tried to join our group, but we had to politely inform them that our field trip was full.
These two Sandhill Cranes tried to join our group at Phantom Springs Ranch, but we had to politely turn them away.
After birding several other wonderful spots northwest of Helena, Braden and I sadly said goodbye to our intrepid birding companions. That sadness quickly turned to excitement, however, as we steered north on the next stage of what would become a 2,500-mile birding extravaganza . . .
Led by trip leaders, field biologist Hilary Turner (far left) and Andrew Guttenberg (third from left), our group enjoyed superlative birding in places Braden (second from left) and I had never before explored.
This week’s blog focuses on one-of-a-kind birds—and a book to go along with them. For those of you who have been following FatherSonBirding for the past couple of years, you may remember a February, 2022 post about monotypic animals. These are animals that have no other species in the scientific genus to which they belong. At the time of the post, I had begun researching a new children’s picture book about animals that were not only monotypical to genus, but to the family or order taxonomic level. In other words, these animals are really alone in their taxonomic world. What’s more, they often possess wonderful adaptations and behaviors found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. They include both animals you are undoubtedly familiar with such as the platypus, leatherback sea turtle, whale shark, and pronghorn. They also include lesser-known critters such as India’s purple frog and the South American monito del monte.
Often called an “antelope,” the Pronghorn is actually a unique survivor of our Ice Ages, whose closest living relatives are giraffes and okapis.
The good news is that Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures is now a reality, exploring 13 of earth’s most remarkable creatures! But since this is (mostly) a birding blogsite, let me focus on the one-of-a-kind birds in the book.
Like No Other’s very first animal is Africa’s Secretarybird. I first learned about this bird 25 years ago when I was researching a book called Birds of Prey: A Look at Daytime Raptors. That book is now out of print, but while researching it, I came upon this bizarre-looking, long-legged raptor that often kicks and stomps its prey to death—when it’s not carrying them up into the air and dropping them from great heights. This grassland- and savanna-dwelling bird originally lived throughout much of Africa, but has declined sharply in much of its range. Culprits include habitat loss and degradation, collisions with fences and powerlines, and poisoning from pesticides. It is a dream of mine to see these birds in the wild before I croak (or hit a powerline myself).
Though a bird of prey, the Secretarybird’s appearance, behavior, and ancestry is unlike any other raptor.
The second bird in Like No Other is a bird I’m not sure I’d even heard of before writing the book: South America’s Oilbird. These squat, kind of chubby-looking birds are reminiscent of nightjars such as the Common Nighthawk or Common Pauraque, but similarities stop there. Oilbirds roost in colonies of up to 10,000 birds in caves of forested areas of northern South America and along the spine of the Andes. Like bats, they use echolocation and an excellent sense of smell to locate fruits of forest trees. Birds of the World lists them as of “Least Concern,” but they contain so much fat that in the past they have been boiled down for oil lamp fuel. No one has any idea how long they live.
Oilbirds live in caves in South America and hunt using echolocation, good night vision, and a great sense of smell.
You know me. I would have packed a lot more birds into Like No Other but felt obligated to include a fair number of other vertebrate groups (those darned vertebrates!). I did manage to wedge one more monotypic bird into the pages, however—New Zealand’s enigmatic Kakapo. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the Kakapo is the world’s heaviest parrot. Even more amazing, it doesn’t fly! I first learned about the birds 35 years ago when I was on a four-month bicycle trip through New Zealand. At the time, fewer than 50 Kakapo were thought to exist, and as is so often the case on Pacific islands, invasive mammalian predators were largely to blame. Thanks to an intensive conservation program that included captive breeding and eradication of introduced species from offshore islands, however, the Kakapo’s future now looks much rosier. Kakapo are by no means out of the woods, but their population is up to about 250 birds, and they are being closely monitored. It’s another wonderful example of what humans can accomplish when we put our minds to it.
The Kakapo provides an inspirational story of what we can do to save species if we try.
Humans are the very last one-of-a-kind creatures in Like No Other. Nothing like us has ever existed on the planet before, and the jury’s still out whether we can figure out what to do with our big brains and ambitions without destroying ourselves. Stories of protecting the Kakapo and other species in Like No Other, though, give me hope we’ll come up with solutions.
Like No Otheris available now from your local independent bookstore, online stores, and other outlets.
Like No Other is available now through your local independent bookstore and other outlets.
Braden and I write FatherSonBirding in the hopes of sharing the wonders of birds and birding, and the urgency to protect them. We do not accept advertising or donations, but if you’d like to support our work, please consider buying *NEW* copies of some of Sneed’s books—First-Time Japan, for instance, or my picture book for younger readers, Birds of Every Color. We appreciate your interest and hope you will keep reading!
The birds are back! Well, at least a lot of them. Last weekend, our dog Lola and I hiked our favorite four-mile loop from our house up to a ridge called the Mount Jumbo Saddle and then back down past what has become my favorite “bird thicket” in Missoula. We first began hiking this route when I was training to take Braden’s scouting troop to Philmont Scout Camp in 2019. Honestly, Lola isn’t crazy about the route since she hates loud noises and we often hear guns firing from a range a couple of miles away. I keep making her do it, though, because I’ve discovered that it’s a great way to keep up with the neighborhood bird community, especially in spring. The past couple of years, I’ve tried to do this route on a regular basis, carefully recording new arrivals and learning more about their migration patterns.
The past couple of years, Lola and I have regularly hiked up to Mount Jumbo Saddle and back to check in on which birds are currently in residence. Lola likes the route except for the gunshots she hears from east Missoula!
Songbird migration builds slowly here in Montana. This year in late March, I noted the first Western Meadowlarks, Western Bluebirds, and Spotted Towhees on the route—but four weeks later, April 21, not much had changed. Two weeks after that—yesterday—the dam broke. I set off up the hill hoping to see perhaps the year’s first Vesper Sparrows, but quickly discovered that new arrivals were spouting off everywhere I turned. It began halfway up Jumbo Saddle when I heard a song that reminded me of a Western Meadowlark and I guessed that it was my season’s first Vesper Sparrow. The problem? I didn’t know for sure—a situation faced by millions of birders who have not, or cannot, learn more than a few bird vocalizations.
In our neck of the woods, Spotted Towhees are among the earliest spring songbird migrants. Fortunately, their weird “bouncing ball” rattle is easy to pick out.
What to do?
In the past couple of years, I have developed a strategy for dealing with these situations—one that might help you, too. It used to be that when you heard a song or call that you couldn’t identify, one’s options were limited. You could just guess, and play various bird calls on your app, hoping to land on the right one. You could record the call and play it back to an expert. More often, you’d try to follow the song and get a visual on the bird to see what it was. Unfortunately, all of these methods are slow and cumbersome, and in spring, well, there are just too many vocalizations to keep up with.
And then along came Merlin’s Sound ID feature.
Sound ID is (almost) every birder’s dream. You simply tap a button on the Merlin phone app and it begins recording and identifying the songs and calls around you in real time. The app is not infallible. You have to be fairly close to birds for it to pick up and identify them, and the app has difficulty handling background noises such as wind, rushing streams, and cars roaring by on a freeway. The app also makes mistakes. Starlings, mockingbirds, and Steller’s Jays can fool it with their imitations of other birds. If the app only picks up part of a call, it sometimes can mistake one bird for another. The bottom line: you should never use the app alone to identify a bird.
So how do you make proper use of it? I employ it in two ways.
Strategy One: Confirmation
The first is to confirm a song or call that I may be somewhat familiar with—but am not 100% sure about. The putative Vesper Sparrow in the second paragraph is a perfect example. In past years, I had learned that a Vesper Sparrow kind of sounds like the call of a Western Meadowlark—but a bit simpler and cruder. When I heard a “somewhat meadowlark” call near Mount Jumbo Saddle, I immediately thought “Vesper Sparrow” but couldn’t be sure, so I started Sound ID. Sure enough, the song lit up as Vesper Sparrow. Other things made me confident about this ID, too. The timing was right from previous years. Most important, I was standing in perfect Vesper Sparrow habitat—open meadows with tall grass and scattered perching shrubs.
The arrival of Vesper Sparrows is a cause célèbre for Braden and me. I always need to confirm its meadowlark-like song, however.
As my hike continued, in fact, I used Sound ID to confirm several other birds in this way, including Steller’s Jay and the year’s first Chipping Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Things were about to get more challenging, however.
Strategy Two: Possible Presence
Not long after hearing my first (and second, third, and fourth) Vesper Sparrow, I reached a nice brushy area where Braden and I have heard Orange-crowned Warblers in previous years. Unfortunately for me, I have a very difficult time distinguishing one warbler song from another. I usually recognize Yellow-rumped Warblers when they first show up, but as other species arrive they plunge me into, in the words of Sir Topham Hatt, “confusion and delay.” This morning, I could hear what sounded like warblers—but I didn’t know which ones.
Again, Sound ID comes in very useful in these situations because it can give you an idea of what to look for. I started a new recording and the app failed to come up with any Orange-crowned Warblers. It did, however, identify Yellow-rumped, Yellow, and most exciting, Nashville Warblers! I did not log any of these on eBird, however—not right away. Because I am not good with warbler songs, I needed to confirm these in at least one or two other ways.
Once the Orange-crowned Warblers arrive, I know I’m in for a real challenge to start distinguishing different warblers by song. That’s when I lean heavily on Sound ID.
One is to compare what you are hearing with known recordings on other apps. If what you are hearing is identical to vocalizations in the Merlin sound library or on the Sibley app, depending on your experience, I feel confident that you can go ahead and record the bird—again keeping in mind the caveat that some birds imitate others.
Still, I only do this when I am really sure the two songs are the same—understanding that bird songs from the same species can vary tremendously. If I have any doubts, I wait to log a bird on eBird until I have confirmed it with a visual sighting or by running it past an expert. With this technique, Sound ID isn’t cinching the identification for me, but it is helping me a lot by giving me a better idea of what to look for.
This morning, however, I could not find any of the three warblers in the first thicket, so Lola and I kept hiking. Ten minutes later, I spotted a Yellow-rumped Warbler in a tree—and recorded it—but it was the Nashville Warbler I was really after.
Lincoln’s Sparrows are hands-down one of my and Braden’s favorite songbirds. Unlike the warblers, they also seem kind of curious and make themselves for visible to the eager birder.
Eventually, I came to another thicket, and here I was thrilled to see my first Lincoln’s Sparrow of the year. Just as enticing, I also was hearing warbler sounds all around me so I turned on Sound ID once again. This time, Orange-crowned and Nashville songs started lighting up Sound ID like a pinball machine. Thanks to the app, I was quickly able to distinguish the two species by ear, and I confirmed these by playing other recordings on the Merlin library. Soon after, I actually saw the birds for myself. Yes! I thought, and finally logged them onto eBird.
Sound ID has helped me find many more Nashville Warblers than when Braden and I first started birding ten years ago.
All together, Lola and I saw eight new first-of-year species on our hike. For several of them, Sound ID not only helped me identify them, it alerted me to look for them in the first place. I want to emphasize, however, that Sound ID is not a substitute for putting in the hours to learn and identify birds yourself. Recently, Cornell has issued friendly cautions not to rely on it as your sole basis for identification. Instead, I consider Sound ID a wonderful “helper tool” that can especially assist beginning birders, as well as more experienced birders like myself who just find it difficult to learn vocalizations. And did I mention the Merlin app (with Sound ID) is free? Cornell Lab, the app’s developer, has generously made it available to anyone who wants it. Even better for our international readers, Cornell Lab is rapidly expanding what the app can identify to countries around the globe. All you need is a phone. Learn more at https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/.
After giving my keynote talk to the Montana Library Association (and yes, it went well, thank you!), I changed out of my good clothes, checked out of my room and hit the road—but not too far. It was early afternoon by now, but before heading home I thought I’d better take advantage of the opportunity to visit Warm Springs Wildlife Management Area, one of Montana’s top birding destinations. It being migration season, the possibilities were almost endless of what I might find, but I kept my expectations low. Why? Primarily because much of Warm Springs is not easily accessible. The refuge consists mainly of several very large reservoirs designed to help clean toxic chemicals from the waters pouring out of the world famous Berkeley Pit copper mine in Butte. The road, however, only gets close to these bodies of water in certain places, so it’s easy to miss rarities that might show up. Nonetheless, I took the “back entrance” into the refuge and soon found myself at the bottom of the large, southernmost reservoir. The scene before me immediately put me in a happy place.
This photo doesn’t capture the size and scope of the Warm Springs ponds—or how amazing they look filled with waterfowl!
Stretching across the water were hundreds, no, thousands of ducks and other water birds, and I quickly set up my scope for a proper look. I usually try to estimate bird numbers wherever I am, but as I searched across the reservoir with the scope, I quickly abandoned that effort. I recorded 5000 coots, but that could easily be low. I also saw hundreds of Northern Shovelers and Ruddy Ducks, and noted plenty of Buffleheads, Ring-necked Ducks, Lesser Scaups, Gadwalls, American Wigeons, and more. A duck party!
Just a few of the birds stretching out before me at Warm Springs. Pop quiz: can you identify three species?
When scoping such a vast array of birds, it’s a natural instinct to look for the unusual or rare species, and after a few minutes, I landed on a pair of Red-necked Grebes—my first of the year. My biggest find, however, was the year’s first Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) in the trees next to me! After making an inadequate attempt to eBird what I saw before me, I jumped back in the minivan and continued up the road. I passed a resident pair of Bald Eagles, and then pulled over at a small fishing access next to a long dike that separated this reservoir from the next. I grabbed my binoculars and ventured out onto the dike, and right away saw another Red-necked Grebe. Then, I recognized a bird that made me rush back to the minivan for my camera. I hurried back out onto the dike and trained my lens on it—a Common Loon!
During breeding season, Red-necked Grebes have a circumpolar distribution, but in the US they breed only in a few areas along our northern border. Fortunately, Montana is one of those places—though this guy/gal may well have been heading to Canada or Alaska.
Now, loons are not exactly rare in Montana, but they aren’t gimmes, either (for instance, see post “Rare Bird Hat Trick”). Last year, I saw only one—a quick fly-over at Glacier National Park. If you don’t visit one of the lakes where they breed in summer, you have to catch them during migration. Braden and I have seen a number of COLOs during fall migration, but this was the first I could remember in spring. But wait. As I was trying to get a decent photo of this loon, another one popped up nearby. “No way!” I muttered out loud. But wait, then I spotted a third, and eventually, a fourth! (I think I saw a fifth, but these ‘torpedoes’ can travel so far under water that I can’t be sure.)
This pair of Common Loons defines the word serenity.
Needless to say, I felt “loonstatic.” My only problem? Every bird was backlit, making a good photo impossible. To try to rectify this, I walked around to the parking area where I could get “up-light” of the birds, hoping they wouldn’t depart before I reached a good spot. They didn’t. I took enough photos that I finally got a really nice one (see below). My other problem, though, is that . . . I needed to relax.
After capturing my best COLO shot ever, it was time to Zen out with some quiet loon time.
More and more, recently, Braden and I have discussed the obsession to rack up species and get good photos without pausing to really appreciate them. Both of us, in fact, have been making an effort just to be still in the moment, and with four stunningly gorgeous loons diving for food in front of me, this seemed like a perfect time. I sat down on a rock and set my camera and binoculars on the ground next to me. I watched the loons for a few moments and then just closed my eyes. I thanked the universe for this special moment and tried to breathe deeply, focusing on the now for a few minutes.
Alas, I did not attain “loon-lightenment,” but when I opened my eyes, the loons were still floating, preening, and diving in front of me. Several times, I watched them surface with crayfish in their bills. I’m not sure if the loons did anything special to them, such as knocking loose their exoskeletons, but down the hatch they went. It was beautiful.
A little “crawfish loon-touffée” for lunch!
My birding had not finished, either. After Warm Springs, I tooled up the road a few miles to another spot that many birders don’t take time to check out—Racetrack Pond. Often, there’s not much to see at Racetrack, but I had occasionally stumbled into some treats. Again, it was migration season, so you just never knew. As I pulled off the interstate and turned right, I immediately saw a couple of hundred gulls out on small islands in the pond. “Hm,” I thought. “Maybe I can pick up some California Gulls there.” As I drove closer, however, I realized that they weren’t gulls. They were Snow Geese!
I pulled over and again set up the spotting scope—and not just to see the Snow Geese. I had an ulterior motive. Almost exactly a year earlier, at Browns Lake, I had stumbled into some migrating Ross’s Geese mixed in with a large Snow Geese flock. “Maybe there are some Ross’s hiding in this one,” I thought with an evil grin. I diligently scanned the flock for several minutes, mainly looking for any geese with stubby pink bills. Ross’s, though, also are a bit smaller than SNGO and tend to have a cleaner, whiter appearance. I thought I was going to strike out when I glimpsed two geese that fit the, ahem, bill. I watched them for at least ten minutes before discarding any doubts. Yay! This was only my third time ever seeing Ross’s Geese, and to get them two years in a row felt like an accomplishment. By the way, ROGOs are also a wonderful conservation success story. Their numbers had dropped to just a few thousand by the 1950s. Today, it is estimated that there are more than two million! Let’s hear it for conservation!
Can you pick out the two Ross’s Geese in this photo? Once you know what you’re looking for, they stand out like, well, um, Ross’s Geese.The prominent, clean white goose just right of center is one of them. The other is swimming toward it from about 10 o’clock.
My discoveries weren’t over. At the north end of the pond, I again pulled out the scope to discover a Greater Yellowlegs, a Killdeer, and two real surprises—an American Avocet and five, count ‘em, FIVE Marbled Godwits. “Perhaps they’re heading to the same place as yesterday’s Willets,” I wondered (see our last post). I later learned that large flocks of avocets had been rampaging through the state, so this one was right on schedule.
With the help of my spotting scope, I was able to pick out the American Avocet (far left) and Marbled Godwits (far right) along the far shore of Racetrack Pond.
With another wonderful day of birding under my belt, it was time to head home, but really, these days just primed my birding pump. Many adventures lie ahead—especially when Braden returns home from Costa Rica in a couple of weeks. Be prepared for plenty of posts this summer!
