Category Archives: Montana

Swift-ecta!

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In an earlier post, we may have let slip that both Braden and I are on a tear for our 2025 global species lists (see our post In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee). That’s due to a variety of factors. Braden not only drove across the country from Maine to Montana this past spring (see last post), he embarked on intense birding trips to Oaxaca, Mexico (see post Birding in Oaxaca, Mexico) and Costa Rica. As for me, I received delightful last-minute invitations to Colombia (post Antpittas and Tody-Flycatchers), thanks to FSB contributor Roger Kohn, and to Texas, where I spoke about my book Birding for Boomers. The upshot of all this is that Braden has seen almost 800 species of birds this year, while I am within twenty birds of breaking my all-time record of 527.

The thing is, twenty birds in Montana in late July is more challenging than it sounds. Birds common in May or June become increasingly difficult to detect and find, so if you don’t have them by August you may not get them at all. That means you’ll have to rely on migrants—which are notoriously unpredictable—or winter arrivals that you probably got earlier in the year. As a result, I’ve recently been focused on picking up the remaining common birds that I so far haven’t seen. Top on my list? Say’s Phoebe.

Last year, I saw a Say’s Phoebe near the base of Missoula’s Pattee Canyon. Alas, that one eluded me this year, forcing me to search farther afield!

Say’s Phoebes are cool little flycatchers that love to nest on human-made structures such as barns, covered porches, and utility buildings. While not rare, they seem to be pretty picky about their accommodations, and we run into them only infrequently in Montana. As I write this, for example, only four sightings have been reported in Missoula County in the past month. While scouring eBird, though, I did note regular sightings up at Kerr Dam below Flathead Lake. Braden and I had discussed doing a birding day trip, so two Tuesdays ago we set out early, Say’s Phoebes our Number One goal.

Before leaving Missoula, Braden asked if we could stop at Greenough Park. He had been pursuing a birding challenge with friends back East to see how many species they could find every day for seven days in a row. “I want to pick up Lazuli Bunting and Swainson’s Thrush,” he told me. This search happened to lead to the first delightful surprise of the day. As we were walking up a dirt trail, we approached a cottonwood tree where Braden had found a Western Screech Owl two days before. Today, he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my god! It’s a baby!” Sure enough, a WSOW baby sat only a yard from its parent about twenty feet up the tree. Here, our day had just begun and already it had been a wonderful outing!

This adorable little guy was the first baby Western Screech-Owl Braden and I had ever seen!

Still, we had a lot of ground to cover. After a fortifying meal at our favorite French restaurant, McDaniels (in honor of Rogére), we headed up to Ninepipe NWR. We didn’t have any major agenda there except perhaps to snag some shorebirds. For July, it was an unusually cool, overcast day and we joked that we might see some Black Swifts. For those unfamiliar with Black Swifts, they are one of the most elusive and rare birds in the US. They nest mainly behind waterfalls and, especially with climate change, are highly vulnerable throughout their range. In Montana, I had never seen one outside of Glacier National Park, and it was pie-in-the-sky logic to even hope we might see one here out in the valley.

Braden poring through intermolt ducks at Ninepipe.

Anyway, we stopped at one Ninepipe pullout just off Hwy 93. The ducks were in their almost-impossible-to-identify intermolt plumages, but we still saw a nice variety of them plus Trumpeter Swans, American White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and Great Blue Herons. “Where are the Black Swifts?” I pressed Braden, but he shrugged off my flippant remark.

Though we hadn’t seen any Black Swifts, the low cloud cover at least admitted the possibility that they would venture down into the valleys from their mountain waterfall hideaways.

The phoebes on our minds, we didn’t want to spend too much time at Ninepipe, but decided to stop at one more pullout and, again, found the usual suspects. We both searched the skies for Black Swifts just in case, but didn’t see any. “I have to go to the bathroom,” Braden said, and I kept looking around for various birds. As soon as Braden emerged from the outhouse, however, he shouted, “Black Swifts!” Huh? My eyes darted back toward the low clouds, and there they were—four unmistakable dark shapes scything through the air!

Black Swifts were a stunning find on a day for which we had almost no expectations.

Though I’d seen Black Swifts before, this was my first time really getting to study them, and I noticed both similarities and differences between other swifts. Like other swifts, BLSWs have distinctive almost sickle-like shapes when they fly. With a wingspan of eighteen inches, however, they are significantly larger than Montana’s other swifts, and this shows in their flight. While Vaux’s Swifts zip around with almost mechanically stiff rapid wingbeats, Black Swift wings bend more noticeably. They still look like advanced jet fighters as they zoom through the sky, but with more flexible bodies. Braden also pointed out that Black Swifts show noticeable forks in their tails compared to Vaux’s Swifts, which look like their tails have been chopped off with a cleaver.

Swifts can usually be distinguished from swallows by their stiff-winged, scythe-like silhouette. Note the prominent fork in the tail of this BLSW that distinguishes it from Vaux’s Swifts—though White-throated Swifts can also show a fork.

We watched these rare beauties for a full five minutes before they drifted away across the lake and I even managed some cool photos. After they had gone, Braden and I just looked at each other. “Black Swifts,” he said, and we gave each other a hug.

Swifts always remind me of fighter jets—captured here doing an F-35 impersonation.

Remarkably, it was still only 8:30 and we had a ton of birding ahead of us. Our next stop was the roadside rest stop just south of Ronan where we picked up lone Semipalmated, Spotted, and Solitary Sandpipers, along with a pair of Long-billed Dowitchers, all undoubtedly in migration. After that, we headed to Pablo NWR in hopes of some interesting water birds. We struck out on those—but were amazed to see more than 300 Bank Swallows resting on the dirt road. “They must be migrating, too,” Braden marveled, and I agreed. In fact, it has been a very lucky swallow year for both of us with, for example, great looks at large numbers of migrating Tree Swallows and Cliff Swallows. This was the first time we’d ever seen Bank Swallows in such numbers, though. From there, it was on to our primary destination: Kerr Dam.

Braden had never been to Kerr Dam before, and I’d just gone to the overlook, but the entire site reminded me of a throwback to gentler, more civic times, when people shared more of a vision for the common good. From the overlook, we looked down on the dam itself with the Flathead River backing up into Flathead Lake beyond. Below the dam, dramatic, highly eroded cliffs framed a dramatic canyon full of promising riparian habitat.

Braden and I both wondered what secrets the dramatic cliffs below Kerr Dam might be hiding!

From the overlook, we watched Ospreys and Braden said, “Look, there are some Violet-green Swallows. White-throated Swifts should be here, too.” Not two minutes later, he spotted a pair flying overhead, their sickle-shaped wings and white breasts clearly visible against the blue sky. “Uh-oh,” I said. “That means that we might have to go for the Swift Trifecta and find some Vaux’s Swifts.” Braden sighed in agreement. Darn those swifts!

But we had not forgotten our main target, Say’s Phoebes. “I’m guessing they are down there at the power station below the dam,” I said. “You up for going down there?”

“Sure.”

Squinting into the sun at the overlook to Kerr Dam, the Flathead River running south below the dam in the distance.

Winding our way down to the power station, we were greeted by a cluster of neatly-kept houses and a fenced-in area full of transformers and other “power stuff.” All of this was surrounded by an open, pleasant park-like setting that reminded me of my days working on the Pitt River dam network in northern California just after college. We decided to get out and walk around and immediately started seeing and hearing Western Wood-Pewees, American Goldfinches, robins, Eastern Kingbirds, and other songbirds. We hadn’t walked ten minutes when suddenly, some kind of flycatcher darted out in front of us to snag an insect.

“Say’s Phoebe!” I exulted, and Braden gave me a high five. There weren’t just one, but two, working the area around the fenced-in transformer area. “This is perfect for them,” I said. “Lots of insects and plenty of structures to nest on.” Alas, they didn’t care for our attentions and kept flying away as we approached, but they and the Black Swifts brought my global year total to 509 species—just nineteen shy of breaking my record of 527. Braden already had the phoebe for the year, but the Black Swifts took his global 2025 total to an astonishing 776 species! BUT . . .

This elusive Say’s Phoebe finally cooperated with me for 2025!

There was still that little matter of a swift trifecta on our minds. After a cultural stop at Richwines Burgerville in Polson, we made our way slowly back to Missoula. Nowhere did we see the third Western Montana swift, Vaux’s Swift. “Let’s go to Caras Park,” Braden suggested as we reached Missoula. “I see them there pretty regularly.”

We parked near the iconic metal salmon sculpture and walked out onto the grass below the Higgin’s Street Bridge. The sun was out by now and things were warming up. Cliff Swallows flew to and from their mud nests on the side of the bridge, but I didn’t expect to see any swifts. “There’s one!” Braden suddenly shouted. Sure enough, several birds with fast, mechanical wingbeats darted back and forth after insects above the Cliff Swallows. It was a final satisfying sighting on a totally surprising, remarkable July day in Montana.

Our Day’s Trip Report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/396651?welcome=true

The small size and “chopped off” tails of Vaux’s Swifts are solid ID features to distinguish them from both Black and White-throated Swifts. These wonderful little birds completed our Western Montana “Swift-ecta” and wrapped up one of our best birding days ever.

Sea of Grass (Book Review)

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This week, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve agreed on terms for a new book project with Mountaineers Books, publisher of my books Warblers & Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding and Birding for Boomers—And Everyone Else Brave Enough to Embrace the World’s Most Rewarding and Frustrating Activity. My new book, scheduled for release in 2028, emerged from the epic birding trip Braden and I took through eastern Montana last summer, and focuses especially on the shortgrass prairie and birds that live there. As is so often the case, I am not the only author to be thinking about this remarkable, highly threatened landscape. Witness the new release, Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie (Random House, 2025).

Sea of Grass is required reading for anyone interested in prairie birds and their futures.

In Sea of Grass, authors Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty have created an impressive work that covers the entire sweep of human understanding and conquest of the American prairie. The authors set the stage by giving us solid background on the richness and diversity of North American grasslands. They recount the geological and climatological conditions that created our great prairies. They give us a glimpse of the remarkable number of species that live both above and below ground, comparing our grasslands favorably to the biodiversity of rainforests and coral reefs. They also explain the incredible amount of carbon that these natural systems sequester.

Grain elevators stand as scenic symbols of the Midwest economy—and of continuing threats to our remaining shortgrass prairie.

What really stands out in the book are the chapters documenting the breathtaking exploitation and destruction of tallgrass prairie, and how technology has managed both to raise agricultural production and create almost unimaginable environmental problems. Even as someone who has followed environmental issues all of my life, I learned an astonishing amount. Have you ever heard of tile drainage? I hadn’t, but it is a drainage system that not only allows farmers to raise abundant crops on otherwise unsuitable land, but mightily contributes to funneling harmful fertilizers and pesticides into rivers, lakes, wells, and other water sources throughout the Midwest. Scientists have established clear links between agricultural practices and the enormous dead zones that occur every year in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, hundreds of cities such as Des Moines have to spend millions—probably billions—of dollars to try to remove harmful fertilizer residues from drinking water supplies.

The authors explain that while Iowa and other Midwest states have lost virtually all of their original tallgrass prairie to agricultural conversion, the arid nature of the shortgrass prairie traditionally rendered it unsuitable for growing crops. Instead, cattle was king on these lands—including much of the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming. Alas, genetic engineering and other technologies have now opened up these fragile, dry lands to farming. I had thought that the great era of prairie conversion had ended, but in the US we are now losing more than one million grassland acres to the plow every year.

The loss of more than a million acres of shortgrass prairie to farming each year not only threatens grassland birds like this Upland Sandpiper, but an ecosystem with a diversity rivaling that of tropical forests and coral reefs.

For anyone who cares about the incredible diversity found in these grasslands—including its remarkable suite of grassland birds—this is horrible news indeed. It also sheds a positive light on the importance of sustainable cattle ranching and “keeping grass in grass,” as one Montana biologist puts it. What makes the situation especially frustrating is that conversion of grasslands to cropland isn’t primarily driven by demand for food, but by billions of dollars of tax breaks, mandates, and other government subsidies for growing corn to produce ethanol. These subsidies arose from efforts to help America achieve energy independence. Instead, they have helped create a system that continues to destroy natural ecosystems while creating immense quantities of a product that we simply don’t need (see, for instance, this report from Wisconsin). Unfortunately, by driving up corn prices, the ethanol boondoggle has made many corn growers extremely wealthy and politically powerful, almost eliminating the possibility of rolling back this pork barrel waste of taxpayer dollars.

99% of Iowa’s tallgrass prairie was lost to agricultural conversion. Today, wasteful government farm subsidies for ethanol help drive the rapid loss of shortgrass prairie in Montana and other states.

Fortunately, the authors don’t leave us with a totally grim outlook for America’s remaining grasslands. Throughout the book, but especially in the final section, the authors detail a number of small-scale efforts to protect and restore grasslands as well as to reduce the incredible environmental costs of modern-day agricultural methods. In Montana, these range from the creation of American Prairie to the practice of rotational cattle grazing to tribal and ranching successes reintroducing bison back onto the landscape. I don’t want to reveal too much, but I’m confident you’ll find these and other efforts as fascinating and hopeful as I have.

Scientist Diane Debinski searching for rare butterflies at Iowa’s Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, one of a handful of projects to restore tallgrass prairie habitat. This project was the subject of my 2005 book, The Prairie Builders.

Although it gives fairly brief coverage to grassland birds, if you care about grassland birds—not to mention bison and grassland ecosystems in general—Sea of Grass is absolutely required reading. Especially if you live in or near the Great Plains, it provides vital insights into the huge economic and cultural forces at work in our region. As a bonus, the authors’ clean, entertaining writing style help make this one of the most worthwhile books you are likely to crack open this year.

Summary: A fascinating crash course on the biological, economic, and cultural history of America’s grasslands and the growing efforts to protect what’s left of these remarkable ecosystems.

Saying Goodbye to Lola, Our Birding Dog

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Today, our family sadly bids farewell to our beloved dog Lola. Those of you that have been regularly following FSB, or have read my book Warbler’s and Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding, will be familiar with Lola, but to honor her memory, I’d like to share her remarkable story in more detail.

The beginning of that story will always be shrouded in mystery. We adopted Lola thanks to the always-heroic and compassionate efforts of the Humane Society of Western Montana, and Braden’s sister, Tessa, was the driving force behind adding Lola to our family. For a couple of years, Tessa had gently expressed a desire to have another dog. Amy and Braden were on board, but I hesitated. For one thing, I knew that since I work at home, I would be the main caretaker of any new mammal in the household and I wasn’t sure I felt ready to add that responsibility to my list. Honestly, saying goodbye to our previous dog, our Border collie Mattie, had taken a huge emotional toll on me. Many people don’t hesitate to get a new pet when an old one has passed, but not me. I grieved long and hard for Mattie, and wondered if I were ready to invest so much of myself into a new companion.

We were so heartsick over the loss of our Border collie, Mattie, that it took a few years before we were ready to welcome Lola into our family.

Nonetheless, one afternoon three years after Mattie passed, I asked Tessa, “Hey, do you want to start checking out the Humane Society website?”

Her whole face brightened. “Really? To look for a new dog?”

We both thought that a black Lab would be perfect for our family—affectionate, but active enough to go on adventures—and about once a week, we searched the website for possibilities. Black Labs are so popular that a number of them became available, but each had some quality we thought would make them a poor fit for our family. One day, though, I was looking at the site by myself when Lola popped up on the screen. HSWM estimated she was about two years old and she had been found in Polson, Montana nursing eight puppies!

Over the years, Lola spent almost as much time in my office as I did—including time inviting me to play with her and her Whale.

I immediately called HSWM to find out if Lola was still available and got put through to the director, who actually knew me from some of my past author events. “Well,” she said, “Lola isn’t officially available yet because she and her puppies have been in quarantine for distemper.”

“Oh, is that serious?” I asked. I had heard of this disease but knew nothing about it. “It can be,” the director replied, “but Lola and her puppies have come through just fine. I’ve been keeping them all at my house, but if you’d like to see her you could come out this Saturday.”

One of my favorite Lola photos, with “her girl” Tessa amid spring Arrowleaf Balsamroots.

Immediately, my devious mind began imagining surprising Tessa and Braden with a visit to see Lola, and Amy agreed that it would be a fun idea. The night before, I told the kids, “We’re going on a little outing tomorrow morning.” “Where?” they asked. “Oh, just somewhere fun,” I said.

Hangin’ out in Sneed’s office, waiting for some action.

I’d like to claim that I stayed mum until we actually saw Lola the next morning, but once we climbed in the minivan I weakened and told them where we were going. “We’re going to see a dog?” Tessa asked. I’d rarely seen so much excitement in a kid, and a big smile also spread across Braden’s face. That excitement only increased when we pulled into the director’s long driveway and saw a slender black Lab trotting ahead of the director, returning from a walk.

Amy, Tessa, and Lola at the flourishing reclaimed Milltown dam EPA Superfund site.

“Is that Lola?” Tessa exclaimed.

“I think so,” I said.

We parked near the house and all piled out. The director had warned me that Lola had some issues with men, so I just sat down on the blacktop next to our car and waited for her. Without so much as a growl, she trotted directly to me to receive a vigorous helping of head pets and back scratches. As Amy and the kids approached and also began petting her, none of us had any doubt that this was our dog and that we were her family. With the director’s blessings, we took her home that day.

The day we picked up Lola to take her home! By the time we got there, only one of her puppies, Jagger, remained to be adopted.

I’d like to tell you that from that moment on, Lola’s integration into our lives was pure, smooth sailing, but . . . that’s not quite the case. HSWM believed that Lola had lived totally on her own for most of her two-year existence, and not surprisingly she came with some baggage. Almost from our first walk, we discovered that she viewed most adults with suspicion, and she reserved a special repertoire of warning growls and barks for tall men, skateboarders, bicyclists, and anyone carrying any stick-like object, be it a cane, broom, or baseball bat. It didn’t take a genius to conclude that in the past she had endured some hard treatment at the hands of people. It also meant that we had to be especially careful taking her out.

Lola’s first walk with the Collard Clan.

After a number of tense incidents, we finally booked some sessions with a dog trainer. These made all the difference, and steadily we were able to teach her to become less reactive to most of the kinds of people she found threatening. Steady doses of love and affection from Tessa and the rest of us also helped build up Lola’s trust in humanity.

Meanwhile, Braden and I were doing our first Big Year of birding, trying to pursue our personal goal of finding 350 species of birds for the year. We easily worked Lola into our birding adventures, whether it was up the Mount Jumbo Saddle, out at Fort Missoula, Blue Mountain, or Maclay Flat.

One of our first Lola birding hikes, up onto Mount Jumbo Saddle. Lola loved snow almost as much as she loved water.
Lola took great interest in this sudden appearance of ducks behind the Missoula YMCA. I’m not sure she ever learned to ID them to species.

It was during these adventures that we noticed something surprising. When we were out birding, Lola just naturally switched into “work mode.” She seemed to recognize that birding, like hunting, was a serious activity and part of her job in life. During these sessions, Lola proved amazingly responsive, obeying our commands without complaint. When we stopped, she stopped. When she smelled something, she paused in a classic “point”, one front paw frozen in an up position until we she saw us moving on. In this way, she became not only our newest family member, but Braden’s and my “birding dog.”

A wet morning birding hike with “her boy.”

During the next eight years, Lola accompanied our family on countless adventures—and led us on some that were strictly her own idea. She had a particular passion for chasing invasive squirrels and re-opened some of our local habitat for our native squirrels to move back in. I also brokered a deal between Lola and our neighborhood deer. In this U.N.-sponsored agreement, Lola was at liberty to chase the deer to the edge of our yard, but then had to halt—a deal to which she generally adhered.

Squirrel stare down in front of our house. I could leave Lola for fifteen or twenty minutes like this and she wouldn’t budge.

To be honest, she wasn’t that great at locating birds for Braden and me, but she did find Braden a gorgeous Dusky Grouse once and, last year, rooted out some Gray Partridges from the grass in the hills near our house. She was under strict orders not to try to catch any birds, and I think she was fine with that. Squirrels were much more fun!

Lola at one of our favorite hiking destinations, Mount Jumbo Saddle. Dozens of times in spring, Lola and I woke before dawn to hike up here and check on whether Vesper Sparrows and meadowlarks had returned!

We thought that Lola would be part of our family until she was at least fourteen or fifteen years old. This spring, when we learned that a lump in her mouth was an aggressive oral melanoma, we were at first shocked, and then devastated. Dr. Nicole, our wonderful vet at Pruyn Veterinary in Missoula, removed as much of the tumor as she could, and told us we could elect for radical surgery combined with taking her to Bozeman for radiation treatment—but also said that probably the cancer had already metastasized, limiting chances for success. We did end up doing two more lump “debulkings” to keep the tumor from preventing Lola eating and enjoying life, but mainly vowed just to give her the best remaining time possible.

Until cancer struck, Lola’s most serious injury came from an encounter with a sneaky, sharp tree stump buried in the snow. Despite its gruesome appearance, this wound healed quickly and we thought we would get plenty more years with her.

From then on, we tried to do something special with her every single day, whether it was taking her on one of her favorite hikes, down for a swim at McCormick Park, or to Dairy Queen for a “pup cone.”  It was truly a special time for all of us, but by about three weeks ago—three months after her diagnosis—I could tell that Lola’s energy was waning and that the cancer had probably spread to some of her vital organs. Finally, when our girl was obviously beginning to struggle and her appetite decreased, I made an appointment with Dr. Nicole for a home visit.

During her last couple of months, Tessa and I made sure Lola got to plenty of chances to swim after sticks, an activity that rated as one of her greatest joys in life.
Selfie on one of our last big hikes together.

On our final morning together, we all took Lola for a pup cup at Starbuck’s and then drove out to a local pond. Lola always loved car rides and I could tell she loved this one, especially surrounded by the rest of her pack. What’s more, at the pond, she actually went for a couple of little swims and joyfully chased little splashes we made with rocks while we alternated between laughs and tears. After hanging out at the pond, we took Lola home for lots of cuddles and a nap. As happy as she’d been at the pond, I could tell it had used up her reserves. Overall, we couldn’t have asked for a better last day with our dear sweet dog, and as Dr. Nicole eased Lola out of this life, we had no doubt that she was ready to say goodbye.

Alas, we are not ready, and will be grieving and remembering her as long as our own lives last, always grateful for her joyful, crazy presence in our lives. As a friend of mine once related, we buried Lola not in the ground, but in our hearts.

Lola on her very last outing, surrounded by her pack. We love you, Lola!

We encourage you to donate to the important work of your local Humane Society chapter and/or support both national and local animal welfare groups such as the ASPCA, Feeding Pets of the Homeless, and Dogster’s Spay & Neuter Program.

In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee

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Please support our efforts at FatherSonBirding by buying a *New* copy of Birding for Boomers or one of Sneed’s other books shown to the right—and by donating to Montana Bird Advocacy, a wonderful grassroots scientific organization doing novel and unique research on Montana birds.

Confession: Despite the title of this blog, the the main purpose of last weekend was not to find Green-tailed Towhees; it was to learn about a wonderful study of Gray Flycatchers with biologists Jeff Marks and Nate Kohler. However, as I set out Saturday morning, defiant of the grim weather forecast for the next day, I did have a secondary mission in mind—to find and visit with some of the birds in the arid southwest corner of the state. Over the years, these sagebrush areas, from Bear Canyon (see Bear Canyon—Montana’s “Tropical Birding” Paradise) all the way west to Beaverhead County, had become some of my favorite parts of Montana. I credit that partly to my own childhood living in the dry chaparral country of southern California, but I also just love the ecosystems and birds in this part of Montana. I’d have trouble calling myself a real birder if I didn’t get down there at least once each year.

Since you’re pressing me on the issue, I also had a third objective for this trip—to move closer to breaking my all-time one-year species record. The record belonged to 2017, when our family traveled to Ecuador and Peru and I recorded a total of 527 species for the year. This year, thanks to last-minute invitations to Colombia (see THIS POST) and Texas (see THAT POST) I unexpectedly found myself at 498 species—perilously close to setting a new record. That task loomed more difficult than it might appear since once spring migration has passed and breeding season gets underway, it becomes much more difficult to find new species. Still, a trip to the southwest part of Montana promised to nudge me closer to this new goal, and my first target was one of the state’s coolest birds: Green-tailed Towhee.

On Braden’s advice, my first real birding stops of the trip were along the Jefferson River before Lewis & Clark Caverns.

Green-tailed Towhees winter in the American Southwest and Mexico, but generally breed in the the Great Basin region of the West, including southern Montana. Though the birds are not strictly rare, I could count the number of times I had ever seen one, and I felt eager for another GTTO encounter. To find this bizarre, poorly understood beauty, I hit I-90 at dawn and steered toward Lewis and Clark Caverns, two-and-a-half hours to the east. To entertain me along the way, I had checked out an audio version of Eat, Pray, Love, a book that invites all kinds of snarky comments but, I found, actually proved moderately amusing. On Braden’s advice, I pulled over alongside the road leading to the caverns and was rewarded with a wonderful assortment of river and cliff birds including Rock Wren, Lazuli Buntings, and White-throated Swifts. Once inside Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park itself, I focused on finding Green-tailed Towhees.

While Lewis & Clark Caverns did not give up its Green-tailed Towhees, I did get nice looks at a Rock Wren and Lark Sparrow.
A Lark Sparrow in the campground of L&C Caverns State Park.

I struck out. I spent a good hour and a half checking along the road, up around the main parking area, and in the campground. Merlin’s Sound ID picked up a putative GTTO song at one point, but I neither heard nor saw a trace of the bird.

I have to admit that this made me feel like a total failure. I mean, here was my first target bird of the trip, and one that shouldn’t be that hard to find, and I totally “whiffed” on it, as Braden might say. I didn’t plunge into despair exactly, but it definitely put a damper on my mood as I began questioning just what I thought I was doing out here pretending to be a birder! Well, I thought, maybe I’ll have better luck at my next destination.

Which happened to be Birch Creek Road north of Dillon in Beaverhead County. Several years before, Braden and I had found our lifer Thick-billed (formerly McCown’s) Longspur on this road, and once again, the road delivered. I’d driven only a mile before I saw a suspicious dark shape on a fence. I actually didn’t think it was a Thick-billed, but my binoculars revealed otherwise. “Yay!” I exclaimed, feeling the weight of my earlier “whiff” lifting slightly. A few minutes later, I was examining another TBLO when I noticed a large shape sitting in a field about one hundred yards away. “Clearly a hawk,” I thought, “but what kind?” The answer: the best kind, at least for my goals for the trip—a ferruginous hawk. This was another bird I needed for the year and one that isn’t always easy to find in the state.

A desperate flight photo of the Ferruginous Hawk as it flew away.
One of Montana’s coolest and most handsome songbirds, Thick-billed Longspur.

Digging out the peanut butter sandwich I’d made earlier, I tooled down I-15 for my next destination, Clark Canyon Reservoir. Braden and I had only ever birded here once before, and as near as I recall, we hadn’t found much, so I kept my expectations low. I stopped at one overlook and was surprised to see a Common Loon on the water below, along with a Double-crested Cormorant and a couple of Ring-billed Gulls. Violet-green swallows swirled around me and, as always, they brought a smile.

Snaking around the reservoir, I approached a sign for Horse Prairie Campground and spontaneously swerved left onto a dirt access road. The reason? Tall, healthy-looking sagebrush! Hm, this just might have one of my other target birds for the day. Almost immediately, I saw a really cool bird that had not been on my target list—a Common Nighthawk peacefully chillin’ on the split-rail fence. The bird barely blinked as I fired away with my camera through the car window from only thirty feet away.

The first of three Common Nighthawks I spotted chilling on the wooden fence leading down to Horse Prairie Campground.

Creeping slowly forward, I heard a song I didn’t recognize—which was no great surprise in itself, but I did have a guess of what it was. Sound ID confirmed it: Brewer’s Sparrow! This bird loves healthy sagebrush and makes up for the world’s dullest plumage with a vigorous song that bewitches any birdwatcher who hears it. A few moments later, one even sat still long enough for a decent photo. Check. Another target bird—but not the one I expected to find here!

One of Montana’s drabbest birds, the Brewer’s Sparrow has an enchanting song.

I kept driving slowly toward the campground and spotted a medium-sized, slender bird up ahead. Wishfully, I thought it might be a Say’s Phoebe—another bird I happened to need for my year list—but it flew off before I got close. As I pulled into the campground, though, two brownish birds were chasing each other around. I assumed they were robins, but when one landed on a “Day Use Only” sign, I realized with a start that it was exactly the bird I had hoped to find here—a Sage Thrasher!

Sage Thrashers are so flighty that seeing one on a sign was about the last thing I expected!

Braden and I have never met a thrasher we didn’t like, but Sage Thrashers hold a special place in our birding hearts. For one, they’re the world’s smallest thrashers—which is why I mistook them for robins or phoebes. For another, they are charismatic songsters and often are the most common bird you see in sage country. As I sat in the car, in fact, I counted three more Sage Thrashers around me. Whoo-Hoo!

One of our favorite Montana birds, Sage Thrashers seemed to be everywhere I looked this afternoon.

Later, on the road where I was to meet up with Jeff Marks and Nate Kohler, I encountered seven more Sage Thrashers! It was a veritable thrasher party—by far the best experience I had ever had with these good-looking birds.

Unfortunately, the next morning, heavy rain and spitting snow kept me from seeing Gray Flycatchers with Jeff and Nate. More on that in another post. Almost as bad, I began the drive home without a Green-tailed Towhee under my belt and no expectations of seeing one. But bless Nate Kohler’s heart. He told me about a canyon I should check out on the way home. It was still raining when I got there, but I drove slowly and stopped frequently, listening and watching. Lazuli Buntings chattered everywhere and I saw a good variety of birds—but no towhee. Finally, I put on my raincoat, got out of the car and played a Green-tailed Towhee song. Almost immediately, a small shape darted up out of the sagebrush—the bird I was looking for! Not only that, it held still long enough for a photo—but the story hadn’t quite finished.

I worked hard for this Green-tailed Towhee—only to find that it wasn’t a year bird after all!

Once I got home and posted all of my checklists for the trip, I was surprised that eBird hadn’t added GTTO to my year list. What’s going on? I thought, and did a quick search to see if I had somehow seen one down in Texas and forgotten about it. Nope. What I did forget was the rare vagrant GTTO I had seen in Victoria, BC during Amy’s and my January trip (see Birding Victoria, BC)! So this one was not a year bird after all, but still a lot of fun to see. Meanwhile, my year list swelled to 503 species thanks to the Thick-billed Longspur, Ferruginous Hawk, Brewer’s Sparrow, Sage Thrasher, and a Prairie Falcon I had spotted the afternoon before. Not exactly the trip I expected, but one I already cherished.

Braden’s Maine to Montana Birdventure, Part 1: A Day in “The County”

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Today, FSB kicks off Braden’s accounts of his truly remarkable spring birding trip from Maine to Montana. This adventure would take him to an astonishing variety of habitats most of us never get to experience. Along the way, he would drive 5,000 miles, visit nine states and provinces, and record 264 bird species, seven of them lifers. He begins this series with a visit to Maine’s arguably wildest and most inaccessible county: Aroostook.

Twenty-four hours after walking across the stage of the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor and receiving my college diploma, I was alone in a tent in Northern Maine. I’d gone to school in the state for four years, but never experienced it in the summertime, those three months when Maine is at its best. Now, with an abundance of time, I could leisurely make my way back to Montana instead of the six-day dash I’d done across the country last August. Because of this distant deadline, I’d arranged to spend a week in Maine birding and exploring following my graduation, and there was no better place to start than with one of the two counties I’d never visited: Aroostook County.

A Cedar Bog up in Aroostook County! This one shimmied with Palm and Magnolia Warblers.

Known simply as “The County” to locals, Aroostook is by far the largest and least populated part of Maine. The County contains a large portion of the state’s agriculture, mostly located on its eastern flank, whereas the rest is coniferous forest. Aroostook’s high latitude and cooler climate create a haven for many boreal species of birds that have receded from their more southerly haunts because of warming and excessive logging that promotes regrowth of a different, unsuitable habitat. This northern conifer forest is also a hotspot for the primary topic of my dad’s previous post: warblers.

Warblers, in fact, were a major factor in my decision about where to go to school. I wanted to go to college somewhere where I could see as many warblers as possible, and Maine fit that bill perfectly. With almost thirty species of breeding warblers (nearly triple what Montana, a state twice the size, has) there is no better place to be, and that is especially true of Aroostook County, where most of them could be found. Lying in bed the night of Monday, May 12th, I felt nervous. It was still fairly early as far as migration goes. What if the birds weren’t here yet?

This was my camping spot in Aroostook County, on a backroad in northern Maine!

On Tuesday, May 13th, my worries were settled when I woke up to the sound of a Nashville Warbler singing above my tent. I dressed as quickly as I could and set off down the logging road I’d driven in on, my ears receptive to any and all of the birds sounding off in the surrounding woods. Every level of the forest had songsters belting out their tunes: Ovenbirds from the ground, Black-and-white Warblers from spruce trunks, Magnolia Warblers from ten-year-old firs and Yellow-rumped Warblers from high in the canopy. Present in lower numbers were species like Blackburnian Warblers, Black-throated Blue Warblers, and American Redstarts, all likely early representatives of their species, most of which were still farther south, booking it north.

Magnolia Warbler in a spruce tree.

I was especially excited about the two Cape May Warblers. While I’d seen a fair number of Cape Mays before, I’d rarely seen them in their breeding colors and I’d never heard them sing before. This is because of their distributions. While I’d encountered many of the East Coast warblers on their breeding grounds during my time in Pennsylvania, I was hundreds of miles too far south for Cape Mays, which use contiguous spruce-fir forest and are mostly confined to Canada. These warblers (which are named after Cape May, New Jersey, where they neither breed nor spend the winter) are particularly dependent on an insect known as spruce budworm. Budworms are spruce parasites, and their populations are cyclical. During outbreak years the insect infects and ravages thousands of acres of spruce trees before the population crashes. Cape May Warblers, Bay-breasted Warblers, and Evening Grosbeaks, therefore, all have populations that rise and fall with the populations of this insect.

A “Myrtle” Yellow-rumped Warbler, which is the subspecies that lives on the East Coast!

Besides agriculture, the main industry in Aroostook County is logging, and understandably, the logging industry is not the biggest fan of an insect that defoliates thousands of acres of their crop. Unfortunately, the industry’s historical response to spruce budworm outbreaks (which, remember, are ecologically “normal” and important for the birds dependent on them) has been to clear-cut hundreds of hectares of infected forest. Spruce-fir forest is a mature ecosystem that takes centuries to develop, however, and the forest that grows back after these clearcuts is not coniferous but deciduous. This is a major reason why many spruce budworm-specialists, like Cape May Warbler, and many other birds found in boreal forests, like Canada Jays and Black-backed Woodpeckers, have retreated from much of southern Maine in the last hundred or so years. Their habitat has simply disappeared.

I saw evidence of this as I birded The County. Sure, there was a lot of seemingly healthy spruce habitat. There were also massive empty lots, covered in nothing but slash and debris. The forests were filled with birds, while the lots had almost none. It almost seemed apocalyptic. At least the empty lots provided good views of Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak, rising in the distance.

Again, though, the forests DID have birds, and not just warblers. Many migrants had not yet arrived (namely the flycatchers, of which I saw very few), but I recorded dozens of Ruby- and Golden-crowned Kinglets, Blue-headed Vireos, and Winter Wrens. Ruffed Grouse drummed from wet thickets, Hermit Thrushes foraged in the road, and I even got to see an American Goshawk bomb overhead at a million miles per hour, chasing something or perhaps just trying to give me as least satisfying a look as possible. In the evening, a walk along a side road yielded incredible, up-close views of Canada Jays, or “Whiskeyjacks” as they are known colloquially. These subtle, white-and-gray corvids landed in the trees less than five feet from me, curiously searching for insects while paying me no mind.

A photo of a Canada Jay that I took with my phone!

After a night and a day spent in The County, I headed back south to investigate the other corners of Maine I had yet to explore. Stay tuned!

What the forest looked like in Aroostook!