Category Archives: Songbirds

Birding Glacier National Park in the Hot Dry Fall of 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The “Hoax” of Climate Change and Birding the Rocky Mountain Front

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It’s remarkable that as the impacts of climate change rapidly accelerate across the planet many of our leaders have doubled-down on the myth that climate change is a hoax being perpetuated by “stupid people.” Here’s the thing: To realize how quickly and dramatically warming temperatures are changing our planet, you don’t have to be a climate scientist. You simply have to look around. 100- or even 1000-year weather events are happening every few years in many places, generating catastrophic winds, storms, flooding, and drought. Even since I moved to Montana thirty years ago, summers are hotter, winters are milder, and snowpack is disappearing more quickly. Especially in eastern Montana, drought conditions seem to be setting in for the long haul. Braden and I have seen dramatic evidence of this all over the state (see, for example, my post “Birding Glacier National Park in the Hot Dry Winter of 2024”). Two weeks ago, I had a chance to again witness severe drought when I birded the Rocky Mountain front from Freezeout Lake up to the east side of Glacier National Park.

**The DRY Dock of the Bay: A rapidly receding shore left this dock high and dry at Eureka Reservoir.**

I left Missoula Saturday at the modest hour of 7 a.m. Days are shorter by the end of September so there was less urgency to hit the road early. Just as crucially, Highway 200, which would lead me up and over the Continental Divide, can be a notorious kill zone for deer, elk, and moose at dawn and I thought that waiting an extra hour might keep me and my minivan from ending up in a crumpled heap by the side of the road. My later departure paid off. I managed to spot the two potential deer collisions with plenty of time to brake and after a quick stop near Browns Lake, I arrived at my first destination by 9:30.

I had debated whether to visit Benton NWR near Great Falls or head straight to Freezeout, but eBird reports from the latter proved more enticing so I cast my lot there. As they always do, my excitement levels rose as I passed the refuge headquarters and then turned left to scan the southern bodies of water. It had been a while since I’d visited Freezeout this time of year, and I wasn’t sure what to expect since many birds had undoubtedly departed for their southerly wintering grounds. Rumbling along the gravel road, I did scare up a few Horned Larks and a couple of Western Meadowlarks looking faded and shabby. I also saw that the entire area was as dry and crispy as I’d ever seen it. In good years, water can be found in ditches, shallow pans next to the roads, and elsewhere, but now it was confined to the main lakes on my right. Still, I could see birds on the water.

At the very southern end of the refuge, I spotted about thirty-five American White Pelicans along with some coots, barely identifiable American Avocets, and unidentified, distant ducks. I soon backtracked, though, to where I had noted greater potential.

I parked at a pull-out camping area next to a dike/road that led out between two of the large lakes. I couldn’t drive out there, so I shouldered my camera, binoculars, and spotting scope and did what every dedicated birder does: schleps! Am I glad that I did. Almost immediately, I noticed several small birds working some mud off to my right. I ID’ed a couple as Horned Larks, but had a hunch about others so I quickly set up my scope and indeed saw that they were American Pipits! I absolutely love these guys. In Montana, they breed at high altitude, but in spring and fall you can find them migrating through the lowlands. Unfortunately, I had missed them this spring, so that made it doubly sweet to see them now. Even better, it moved me one bird closer to breaking my all-time one-year species count record!

**American Pipits working the recently receded shoreline of one of Freezeout’s main lakes.**

As I resumed walking, I suddenly spotted a large raptor flying low and erratically over fields to my left. My first guess normally would be Northern Harrier, but this was my lucky day. The bird wasn’t a harrier, but a Short-eared Owl! It had been years since I’d seen one here and I couldn’t have been more delighted. These are some of my and Braden’s favorite birds, but we never know when we’ll encounter them. To emphasize the point, the bird was listed as unreported on the eBird filter (presumably just for this time of year), showing how unpredictable the birds can be.

**Another in my now-famous series of lousy Short-eared Owl photos!** **After all, I have a reputation to uphold!**

Another couple of hundred yards brought me close enough to set up the scope on the birds I was seeing far out on the water. There were groups of ducks, but those didn’t interest me. What did was a group of about forty or fifty shorebirds. Even with the scope, I wasn’t as close as I would have liked, but their very long bills, pale superciliums (the bands above their eyes) and “oil drilling” probing of the shallows said “Long-billed Dowitchers.” Then, I began to doubt myself. Their bills were so long and from a distance, I could imagine that some of them seemed slightly upturned. “Could they be godwits?” I asked myself, suddenly thrown into confusion. I kept studying them, eventually coming back to dowitchers. What cinched it is that when they took flight I could clearly see the single white stripes running down their backs. Godwits don’t have that. When they again landed, I realized that their numbers had also doubled to about ninety.

**Dowitchers always make me happy. I just hope that humans can get our act together in time to make sure they have enough water in the future.**

I spent almost an hour studying the water from the dike, and in addition to the Long-billed Dowitchers, I found four sandpipers that I thought were Baird’s Sandpipers but could have been Pectoral Sandpipers—they were just a bit too far away to be sure. I did ID several distant Black-bellied Plovers, too. The rest of Freezeout didn’t offer up much. I saw three Eared Grebes and a Canvasback hidden among scads of Canada Geese and intermolt ducks that were probably mostly Mallards. A stop at Priest’s Lake, however, yielded 2,500—you read that correctly—twenty-five hundred Ruddy Ducks! Ruddies, of course, are one of the BEST ducks, but I’d never seen even close to these numbers before. During fall migration, I guess they like each other’s company!

One of my birding goals lately is to try to bird new areas and on my way up to East Glacier, where I would be spending the night, I made two more stops: Eureka Reservoir north of Choteau and Lake Frances near Valier. Neither yielded anything exceptional, but I did pick up my First-of-the-Year Snow Goose, a single specimen at Lake Frances. What both places strongly reinforced was the critical water situation in this part of the world. Both bodies of water had retreated huge distances from their historic lake shores. It’s difficult to tell what percentage of water they’ve lost, but I’d guess that both were at least three-quarters empty.

**Lake Frances offered up the most visible impacts of what drought is doing to the Great Plains. I had to walk across a couple of hundred yards of former lake bottom to reach today’s shore.**

As I passed through Browning and turned toward East Glacier, I saw more bad news. Braden and I had driven this route at least a dozen times and every time we saw prairie potholes full of water. On this day, every one of those potholes stood bone dry until I’d almost reached East Glacier. This has dire portents for the future of our wild birds. Sure, rainfall goes up and down year to year, but the trend for the West is to get drier and drier. What happens when migrating birds head south and find no water at all?

This lone Snow Goose at Lake Frances brought me to within three birds of breaking my all-time one-year species count record—but it was small consolation for the dire water conditions I saw everywhere.

Honestly, I don’t want to find out, but it adds an urgency to act—and makes current attacks on clean energy both unconscionable and downright reckless. Why are such attacks happening? Just follow the money to the oil and car companies that continue to make trillions in profits while our planet suffers. These corporations have invested heavily in the current administration and are grinning ear to ear as POTUS rails against solar energy and windmills while he tries to sell our fossil fuels to a world that doesn’t want them. I generally try to keep FatherSonBirding apolitical, but if we want the next generation to have half of the beauty and diversity you and I have enjoyed, we have some urgent decisions to make. None of us has to change the world all by ourselves, but we each have to do something, whether it’s donating to causes working for a better planet or taking the plunge on solar panels, an electric vehicle, or eco-friendly hot water heater. The next generation may not ever thank us “stupid people” for what we’re doing, but we’ll know that the world will be better off for our efforts.

Records and Road Trips

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Need a good book to read? Birding for Boomers recently racked up its fifth award of the year and has been a hit at indie bookstores throughout the West. Why not help support our efforts at FatherSonBirding by picking up a new copy of “Boomers” or one of Sneed’s other books? Just click on one of the images to the right.

After a slow start, August saw the Collard family shift into hyperdrive as Braden drove to Southern California to take a job as a nature guide and camp counselor, and Amy and I saddled up the minivan to drive Tessa to her freshman year of college at Cal State Chico. Braden left a few days early so that he could bird the summer heat of Arizona before arriving at his job. It seemed like a (heat) rash thing to do, but his efforts paid off as he saw 201 species and scored 9, count ‘em, NINE Lifers! These included Montezuma and Scaled Quail, Lucifer Hummingbird, Buff-breasted Flycatcher, Gray Vireo, Cassia Crossbill, and Rufous-winged, Botteri’s, and Cassin’s Sparrow. Just listing the above stats, in fact, makes me hesitant to bring up my own relatively modest birding luck driving to California—but let’s back up a second.

Our drive to California—complete with a stop in Ashland, Oregon—promised to prove crucial to my quest to break my own one-year species record of 527 species. (Sadly, I did not pick up any Year Birds while watching this Shakespeare play!)

As mentioned in previous posts, both of us Collards are having record-breaking years. Braden’s World Species total for 2025 sits at an astonishing 833 species, thanks not only to trips to Mexico and Costa Rica, but his cross-country drives to Montana from Maine and his recent journey to California via Arizona. As for moi, when last I reported (see our post “Swift-ecta!”), I needed twenty birds to break my all-time one-year World Species total of 527. The thing is, twenty species this late in the year was looking a bit dicey. While it might be possible to pick up twenty more species here in Montana, I was counting on the drive to California to put a major dent in that number. Nonetheless, I birded hard before our departure and by the time we hit the road, my year total had crept upward to 512, leaving only sixteen species to break my record.

Normally, I would have thought, “Piece of cake,” especially since I hadn’t visited any West Coast states so far in 2025. But not so fast. Remember that little winter trip Amy planned for us last January (see post “Birding Victoria, BC”)? Well, believe it or not, in Victoria I had already nabbed Bushtits, Anna’s Hummingbirds, and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, removing three potential gimmes from the California trip. Even my Colombia trip with Roger (see post “Antpittas and Tody-Flycatchers”) had allowed me to pick up Acorn Woodpecker and Lesser Goldfinch, removing those bird potentials as well.

**The birds of Colombia, including this stunning Toucan Barbet, seen on Roger’s and my trip, are one reason my single year species record has crept tantalizingly to within reach.**

Nonetheless, I remained cautiously optimistic as Amy, Tessa, and I hit I-90 for our first stop of the trip, Portland, Oregon. We would spend only two nights there, but I wasted no time, getting up early the first morning to hit Broughton Beach along the Columbia River. My goal was to find cool shorebirds, and I did find both Least and Western Sandpipers—but no Year Birds. While there, though, I met a very nice birder named Ted who told me about another cool spot, Force Lake, and I decided to head over there. I was rewarded by Long-billed Dowitchers and Red-necked Phalaropes—but again, no Year Birds. In fact, the only Year Birds I nabbed in Portland were California Scrub-Jay in the backyard of my in-laws and Black Phoebe at another new spot I visited, Whitaker Ponds Nature Park. As we rolled out of Portland, I hoped that the rest of the trip would prove more productive.

I got turned on to Force Lake by another Portland area birder. It’s a place I’ll return to often, as it offers the best shorebird habitat I’ve found in Portland. Alas, it yielded no Year Birds on our recent trip.

Our next stop was Ashland, Oregon, where Amy had bought us tickets for the Shakespeare play The Merry Wives of Windsor and the musical Into the Woods. Both were excellent productions, but I felt so sleepy I barely made it through them without crashing to floor. Our first morning there, though, I hit another new birding spot, Emigrant Lake (South Shore). Here, I managed to nab three more Year Birds: Oak Titmouse, Bewick’s Wren, and California Towhee. My biggest surprise were a pair of Nashville Warblers. In fact, it’s been a great year for learning about these birds as I saw them migrating through Texas last April and now, making the return migration through California. (Though I must point out that this species has an unusual “bifurcated” distribution so the birds in Texas and California probably came from separate, distinct populations.)

**Finding Nashville Warblers along the shore of Emigrant Lake was one of the day’s best surprises.**

Chico greeted us with 104-degree temperatures, less than ideal for birding. Our major goal here, of course, was to get Tessa settled into university housing, but you know me. My first morning, I was up at dawn to explore Hooker Oak Park, a great city park I’d discovered when first bringing Tessa to check out Chico (see post “College Search Birding in California”) in 2024. This morning, the park did not disappoint. One of my favorite birds, Acorn Woodpeckers, were flying everywhere and I had a wonderful encounter with Anna’s and Rufous Hummingbirds, who put on a real show for me in a dry riverbed. As far as Year Birds go, however, my only score was a bird that happened to earn Bird of the Trip honors.

**I recorded more than two dozen Acorn Woodpeckers in Chico’s Hook Oak Park. Good thing they are one of my favorite birds!**

As I was leaving the hummingbirds and walking back down the dry wash, I glanced up at a medium-sized black bird landing high in the top of a pine tree. The bird showed a distinctive, tall peak on its head like it had styled its feathers with pomade, and at first I thought, “Is that a Stellar’s Jay?” Though I knew STJAs were common in the adjacent mountains, it didn’t seem likely that they’d be here on California’s Central Valley floor. However, as I stared at the bird—and three others that joined it—a wave of delight crept over me. I was looking at Phainopeplas!

**I love that the orange throat patch of this Rufous Hummingbird looks like an upside-down heart! Several of the birds were aggressively chasing each other—and a few Anna’s that were around.**

At first I didn’t believe it. While I knew that Phainopeplas lived in Southern California, I’d only ever seen the birds in Arizona and here in Chico they seemed wonderfully out of place. Quickly calling up Merlin on my phone, however, the range map showed a tiny, seasonal finger stretching up the Central Valley—and stopping almost exactly where I was standing!

**With their surprise appearance in Chico, Phainopeplas easily nabbed Bird of the Trip honors for our sojourn to Chico.**

These, of course, are the moments a birder lives for—amazing surprises in new places—and the encounter put a bounce in my step as I returned to the hotel for a day of getting Tessa ready for college. Alas, the PHAIs were the last Year Bird I managed to find on the trip. I returned to Montana at 520 species for my Year List. Since then, I’ve managed to add Clark’s Grebe to my list, but that still falls seven short of breaking my record.

Will I make it? Do I have any surprise opportunities up my sleeve to put me over the top? And what of Braden? Could he reach that magical 1,000 number for the year? Well, you know the answer: you’ll just have to keep reading to find out!

**A fun visit to Emigrant Lake south of Ashland, Oregon helped nudge me closer to breaking my all-time one-year species count record—but not close enough!**

Protecting Texas’ Globally Important Bolivar Peninsula—We Can Do This Now!

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Instead of your regularly-scheduled blog, we today invite FSB readers to join in on an urgent appeal to help protect one of North America’s coolest and most vital bird habitats—the globally important Bolivar Peninsula. Learn more and donate by clicking here—or on the Piping Plover below.

If you’ve followed FatherSonBirding—or read my books Birding for Boomers or Warblers & Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding—you know that High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula outside of Houston have played pivotal roles in Braden’s and my birding experiences. In these locations, the Houston Audubon Society (HAS) has worked tirelessly to obtain, restore, and protect vital habitat for both migrating and resident birds. On our first visit to High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula in 2016, Braden and I saw an astounding forty-five Life Birds in one day! These included everything from Scarlet Tanagers and Least Terns to Piping, Black-bellied, and Semipalmated Plovers.

**Braden and I saw our first-ever Piping Plovers on the Bolivar Peninsula, and I was lucky to see this endangered species again on a subsequent visit.**

Even though I live in Montana, I became an annual supporter of HAS shortly after that visit. Even better, I have been fortunate to visit the area three more times. Every trip has been a highlight of my birding career. Each time, I have seen gobs of amazing songbirds, shorebirds, and waders, and learned a ton about birds. Just check out some of my past posts about visiting the region:

Turkey Day Texas Adventures Part 1: Pursuing Plovers

Tangled!

Going Cuckoo for Fall Warblers in Texas

Anahuac Lifer Attack

Unfortunately, during my visits, I also have noticed an inescapable fact: the Bolivar Peninsula is being developed at an astounding rate and the reason is clear: beachfront property. During our first visit there, Braden and I noticed quite a few houses along the 25-mile or so stretch of the peninsula. On each subsequent visit, I was blown away by how many new houses had sprung up since my previous visit! On my most recent trip, this past April, I realized with dismay that the entire peninsula would soon be wall-to-wall housing developments.

**One of dozens of major housing developments that have sprung up on the Bolivar Peninsula since Braden and I first visited in 2016.**

I can’t even begin to explain how poorly-conceived this kind of rampant development is. Never mind that it has gobbled up some of the best remaining Gulf Coast wildlife habitat, it is virtually guaranteed that hurricanes will totally destroy these developments as they have in the past—and with increasing frequency thanks to climate change (see this Hurricane Ike story and this astonishing storm list). In fact, the ability of the peninsula in its natural state to block tidal surges, prevent erosion, and soak up storm water economically outweighs by far the short-term profits from this get-rich-quick development.

Rampant development in coastal areas not only destroys critical habitat, it greatly diminishes the ability of the coast to withstand hurricanes and other major storms. Though I’d love to enjoy a beachfront house like this myself, economically it is a lose-lose situation, both for homeowners and taxpayers, who often get stuck with paying the bills for disaster cleanup and rebuilding.

Still, the lure of fast profits is just too much here as it is in many other places. And that’s why I’m writing this post. Right now is one of our last best chances to protect what remains of this globally vital birding habitat. How? Currently, HAS owns and manages more than 3,000 acres of Bolivar Peninsula habitat—natural islands in an expanding sea of development. And yet, right at the entrance to their Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, a new development recently cropped up. Ironically dubbed the Sanderling Development, it threatened to wipe out critical habitat and destroy a buffer to the core of the Bolivar refuge. The good news? Through heroic efforts, HAS managed to raise $3 million to buy 25 acres of the land this past July. Now, however, they need another $3 million to complete purchase of the remaining 27 acres of the property. This land is so vital that for the first time in decades, HAS has issued a public appeal for funds—And that’s where we come in!

Just one of many Bolivar housing developments, the proposed Sanderling Development directly threatened the ecological integrity of the Bolivar Flats refuge right across the road. However, HAS still needs to raise $3 million to complete the property’s acquisition. Click on this photo to donate!

No matter where we live, securing this last bit of property should be a major priority for birders. Not only does it help provide essential stop-over areas for millions of migrating birds that spread out across the continent, it helps protect critical breeding and wintering habitat. Endangered Piping Plovers, Black Rails, and Red Knots are just three endangered species among hundreds of other species that use this important area.

**A fall Long-billed Curlew at Bolivar Flats—perhaps just returned from breeding in Montana?**

So how about it? Do you have $25 to chip in? $100? $1000? If you do, I can say with confidence that your money will rarely be better spent. Along with donating, why not plan a spring or fall trip down to the area? If you are fortunate enough to be able to do this, I can almost guarantee it will be one of the highlights of your birding experiences. You also will not have the slightest doubt that your investment in this area is one of the best you will ever make. To donate, CLICK HERE NOW!

And with that, I will sign off so I can make a contribution myself!

**Houston Audubon’s Bolivar Peninsula’s sanctuaries are not only vital for Texas birds, but for breeding birds throughout North America.**

Gray Flycatcher Science

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One of our goals at FatherSonBirding is to encourage support of scientists and nonprofits working to protect our planet’s many imperiled bird species. We hope that you will consider sending a donation to Montana Bird Advocacy, whose work is featured in today’s blog. You can do this by clicking here. It will be money well spent!

Late July often ushers in the birding doldrums. Having finished courtship and breeding, most birds get super quiet. They often disperse from their breeding territories, too, making them more difficult—or at least unpredictable—to find. But this year I was in luck: I had a writing assignment that would guarantee I see at least a few very cool birds.

**My best look yet at a stunning Ferruginous Hawk proved a delightful bonus to my day near Bannack.**

You may recall my unsuccessful June trip down to Beaverhead County (see post In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee) to visit with biologist Jeff Marks, founder of the nonprofit scientific research group Montana Bird Advocacy. There, Jeff and colleague Paul Hendricks are performing a long-term study on one of Montana’s little-known birds, the Gray Flycatcher. When I visited, Paul wasn’t there, but I also got to meet biologist and research assistant Nate Kohler, who has been playing a pivotal role in the study.

**The word “gulch” conjured up a much more verdant image to my mind, but as you can see it takes some pretty special adaptations to survive in this rugged country.**

Although my June trip allowed me to see many wonderful birds and interview Jeff and Nate, my intention to see the Gray Flycatchers got squashed by a freak winter storm. Worse, the storm wiped out a whole crop of nestling Gray Flycatchers. The good news? The adults had laid second clutches of eggs, and the babies were getting ready to fledge as I again headed down there the last week of July. This time, the weather would be ideal for seeing them.

Jeff and I headed out at 8:00 a.m. and made our way up Bannack Bench Road, which borders the study area. This was the third season of the study, and its purpose is to figure out some of the basic biology of a bird that scientists know very little about. To do that, Jeff, Paul, and Nate have been banding adult flycatchers with color bands that allow field identification and observation of individual birds. The birds have been a challenge to catch, but the biologists have managed to band about a dozen each year—and with fascinating results. I won’t reveal too much about those results here since I’m also writing an article for Montana Outdoors magazine that will be out next year. However, I will tell you that seeing where these birds nest and what they are doing was a thrill.

**Biologist Jeff Marks takes notes on a Gray Flycatcher nest in his Beaverhead County study area.**

When Jeff first told me they were working in a place called Sheep Corral Gulch, I imagined sagebrush plants bordering some kind of verdant riparian zone, perhaps lined with aspens or junipers. Imagine my surprise to see nothing but sagebrush in every direction! Gray Flycatchers breed throughout the Great Basin, but one of the fascinating things about them is that they choose different habitats in different places. In other states, they nest in juniper, pinyon pine, and even ponderosa pine, but in this part of Montana the birds breed almost exclusively in sagebrush plants along dry washes. One thing that these places share in common is that they have open ground for foraging.

**Color-banded adults allow Jeff and the Montana Bird Advocacy team to make detailed observations about mating and behavior of these little-known birds.**

In Beaverhead County, though, not just any sagebrush will do. The birds nest only in taller plants four to eight feet high—plants that can mainly be found growing in the (usually) dry main stream channels of gulches. This year, Jeff and his colleagues located about a dozen nests, one to two hundred meters apart, and as Jeff and I began hiking, it wasn’t long before we spotted an adult bird up ahead. Using GPS coordinates, it took only minutes for Jeff to locate the bird’s nest—a nest with babies!

“They will fledge any day now,” Jeff told me, “and it looks like both parents are feeding them.” Having two involved parents gives the nestlings a huge survival advantage, and as we watched, we saw a parent deliver a juicy grasshopper to its ravenous chicks.

**Most of the Gray Flycatcher nests were bursting with babies itching to head out on their own—after a few more meals from Mom and Dad!**

For the next three hours, I followed Jeff as we visited one nest after another, and most were jam-packed with two or three babies champing at the bit to head out on their own. We, of course, made sure to stay well back so as not to spook them out of the nests before they were ready.

**An unbanded adult Gray Flycatcher keeps watch on us as we move through its territory: “Move on. Nothing to see here, folks.”**

I thought we would see a lot of other birds as we hiked, but especially this time of year, the birds stayed out of sight. We saw a couple of Brewer’s and Vesper sparrows, and a single Sage Thrasher and Northern Harrier. What a contrast from a month earlier when I spotted Sage Thrashers and Brewer’s Sparrows almost everywhere I looked! Nonetheless, I couldn’t have been more thrilled to get these up-close-and-personal looks at one of Montana’s most uncommon species.

**Sage Thrashers were noticeably more elusive than only a month earlier, but this one did pose nicely on a fencepost along Bannack Bench Road.**

You may be wondering just where Gray Flycatchers can be found in Montana. That itself is a fascinating story, because they apparently arrived in our state only recently. The first official record occurred in 1999, and Jeff believes that the birds may only have reached the Treasure State as part of an expansion northward from the Great Basin that occurred in the 1970s. Their Montana strongholds are in Beaverhead and Carbon counties (see post Bear Canyon—Montana’s “Tropical Birding” Paradise), but it takes careful observation and listening to distinguish the birds from almost identical-looking Dusky Flycatchers. The fact that the birds are so restricted here in Montana, though, points out how important it is that we protect our fragile sagebrush communities. It also underscores the great value of the work that Montana Bird Advocacy is conducting, because only by understanding the biology of the Gray Flycatcher and other sagebrush species can we know how to protect them.

Please consider supporting the ongoing work of MBA by clicking here and making a donation. The flycatchers will thank you—as will generations of future birders!