Category Archives: Warblers

Braden’s & Nick’s Epic Florida Adventure: Day One

From Sneed: Following our Accidental Big Year last year, Braden has set out to really smash his Big Year record of 335 birds in 2022, with a goal of at least 400 species. He and I got a great start in Montana on New Year’s Day, but that was nothing compared to the trip he just took with our recent guest blogger, Nick Ramsey. As soon as Spring Break began, he flew to New Orleans where Nick picked him up and they embarked on a break-neck marathon birding expedition the length of the state of Florida. Here is Braden’s first installment of this epic adventure.

I awoke at dawn, no more than five hours after I’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat of Nick Ramsey’s gray-gold Honda Pilot named Betsy, parked on a sandy road surrounded by Longleaf Pines in Apalachicola, Florida. Nick was already outside, overturning logs and branches in search of herps—reptiles and amphibians—and he greeted me as I climbed out of the car, as did his dog Dixie, a mutt the size of an obese squirrel, who marked my jeans with the first muddy smears of the trip.

“We’re not that far from the pin,” said Nick, his binoculars and camera slung across one shoulder. “If we just walk along this road and then bushwhack a little, it should be pretty easy to find.”

We set off along the sandy road, and birds I hadn’t seen or heard in years belted out melodies: Pine Warblers, Northern Parulas, Carolina Wrens and Tufted Titmice. While this trip’s main goal was to seek out birds, it doubled as a general nature expedition, and right now we were on the hunt for salamanders. Following directions Nick’s friend had sent him, we walked through oaks and pines until coming across a small seep in the forest. Nick immediately stepped into the water, his sneakers sinking up to his shins, and began overturning logs.

“I got one!” he soon shouted, shoving his hand into the muck and pulling out a small, dark gray amphibian. It was the threatened Apalachicola Dusky Salamander, a creature whose range was almost entirely confined to this small part of Florida and a nearby part of Georgia. This had been Nick’s main amphibian target of the day, meaning that we’d already achieved one of many goals we had talked about for the trip.

**Although our expedition was bird-focused, that didn’t mean we could ignore other great Florida flora and fauna—including endangered Dusky Salamanders!**

Birdwise, I’d compiled a list of about a dozen or so species that I wanted to see while I was down here. For this Pineywoods section of the state, my main targets were Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman’s Sparrow and Brown-headed Nuthatch, a bird that had eluded me several times already. Unfortunately, while the area surrounding the salamanders’ habitat was indeed filled with Longleaf Pine—which all three of these species needed—there were neither mature-enough trees nor grassy-enough ground for any of them. Further south, though, we hoped to see the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay, as well as Snail Kites and Limpkins, two species well-known for their dependence on apple snails. White-crowned Pigeon was a goal in the Florida Keys, as was my number one target for the trip: the notoriously difficult Mangrove Cuckoo. I also wanted good looks at Burrowing Owls and Sandhill Cranes while, as a veteran Florida birder, Nick’s goals oriented more towards Miami exotic species, specifically White-winged Parakeet, Red-whiskered Bulbul and Spot-breasted Oriole. Besides this, we just hoped to see as many birds as possible—and we’d already made a good start.

After picking me up from the New Orleans airport the day before, Nick had driven us to the largest, ugliest lake in Louisiana in search of a Brown Booby someone had reported on Facebook just minutes earlier. Lake Pontchartrain had all of the color and none of the appeal of chocolate milk, stretching out of view so that it looked just like the Gulf of Mexico. The Brown Booby, a species that lived in the Gulf, had thought so too, and we’d found the bird surrounded with Brown Pelicans and Double-crested Cormorants perched on some sort of piping running into the water. After this early success, we had gone to a bar where I tried Cajun food for the first time. All I can say is that, if there were boudin balls in Maine, I would never eat another dining hall meal again.

This uncommon Brown Booby on Lake Ponchatrain kicked off our epic adventure in style.

After spending our first of many nights in Nick’s car in Apalachicola, we woke to the Dusky Salamanders, and also discovered a Southern Toad under a small log. Then we drove to our next pin, a pull-off on the side of the highway where we were rewarded with pitcher plants, sundews, and introduced Venus flytraps. The rest of the day we devoted to birding. As we cruised the entrance road to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Nick called out the songs of White-eyed Vireos, which sounded like those of the Cassin’s I knew quite well mixed with random “chuck” calls, as they emanated from the forest. We pulled into the Visitor Center Parking Lot, finding ourselves in classic old-growth Longleaf forest. Here, large patches of palmetto and young pines stuck out from the scrubby understory, and Nick immediately began overturning dead fronds to look for Pygmy Rattlesnakes. The young Longleaf Pines looked just like tall, extra-green tufts of grass, a really strange feature unique to this conifer.

**White-eyed Vireos would provide a new and pleasant serenade for me on many parts of our adventure.**

With few birds at the Visitor Center, we drove to Helipad Landing. Red-cockaded Woodpeckers had been reported here, and a large field of brambles served as a wintering site for Henslow’s Sparrows, LeConte’s Sparrows, and sometimes, Yellow Rails. In true Nick Ramsey fashion, Nick set off across the field in hopes of flushing one of these species while I stayed on the road with Dixie. Again, we didn’t find much.

“Don’t worry,” said Nick as we walked back to the car, “Wait until we reach the ponds. We’ll see so many birds that we won’t know what to do with them.”

Always-impressive Anhingas would keep us company for much of our trip to the Keys and back.

As we rounded a corner towards one of the ponds, however, we were met with an unexpected sight: save for a few Pied-billed Grebes, the water was almost completely deserted. We saw not a single duck, much less the huge wintering flocks St. Marks was known for. Apparently, this year was not the first year that winter waterfowl numbers had been low in Northern Florida. Climate change had rendered conditions more suitable for ducks to winter further north, and thus, the ducks had no need to continue their southward migration. We did spot a few more birds that I hadn’t seen for years at this spot, called the Stoney Bayou, including Anhingas, Little Blue Herons and a Boat-tailed Grackle, but felt a bit disappointed. Thankfully, as we continued to drive things began to pick up.

Nick abruptly stopped the car as we were driving around a pond. “I can’t tell if that’s the call of a Prairie Warbler or a Hooded Warbler. Do you wanna get out and look for it?”

I did, camera-ready, given that Prairie Warbler would be a lifer while Hooded would be flagged for the area. An Eastern Phoebe sat on a snag underneath an Anhinga sunning itself, and I scanned the bushes behind them for yellow birds that might be skulking there.

“Oh crap, it’s both!” shouted Nick from the car behind me.

I hadn’t seen a Hooded Warbler since my Dad and I did our Big Year in 2016.

Sure enough, a bright male Prairie Warbler hopped into view above the phoebe—my first lifer of the trip! And below it, a beautiful male Hooded Warbler hopped onto a log floating in the water, chasing insects around as it dodged and wove between overhanging branches.

The birds continued to multiply as the road reached the ocean at a place called Lighthouse Pond, and we walked around it, tallying waders and seabirds as they flew over our heads. St. Marks was well-known as the wintering site for a single American Flamingo, and we spotted it way out in the bay with its head tucked into its feathers, resembling a pink lollipop sticking out of the ocean. At Lighthouse Pond I also spotted our first American Alligator, floating suspiciously near a Tricolored Heron, and I decided that I would keep a running tally of these cool critters. Back at the Visitor Center, we ran into a mixed flock of warblers, gnatcatchers and vireos foraging in the pines above us. There I spotted my lifer Yellow-throated Warbler alongside parulas and Black-and-White Warblers, and Nick pointed out our first target bird of the trip, a Brown-headed Nuthatch squeaking as it climbed up a nearby tree.

Two for lunch? I hope these waders (Tricolored & Little Blue Heron) know what they’re doing.

At the Panacea Unit of the Wildlife Refuge, known for its old-growth pine forest and extensive saltmarsh, we struck out on Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Bachman’s Sparrow, arriving at the saltmarsh just as the sun began to set. We did spot three Wood Storks, and heard were the raucous calls of Clapper Rails, both species I’d never observed before! Soon enough, Nick waded out into the marsh, flushing up both Seaside and Nelson’s Sparrows for brief looks. An American Bittern lifted out of the marsh as the light grew gray, and we feasted on celebratory sandwiches as we drove through the night towards the Atlantic Coast of Florida, where we’d be crashing at Nick’s grandmother’s vacation home. Despite it not being a particularly lucky day, we’d observed almost 100 species at St. Marks alone, setting a great tone for the rest of the trip. However, we had no idea what was to come in the next five days as we planned to traverse the entire length of Florida and back.

Brown-headed Nuthatches were a lifer for me—and far from the last for this trip!

My Accidental Big Year

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If you’ve been a loyal fan of FatherSonBirding, you probably know about Braden’s and my 2016 Big Year in which we saw 337 species in the American Birding Association (ABA) region in a calendar year. Since then, we have never set out to topple that record even though, with our vastly improved birding skills and knowledge, it would be a relatively easy thing to do. In fact, a couple of times we have come perilously close without really trying thanks to trips to Texas, California, and in Braden’s case, a band trip to Hawaii. When I received two invitations to Texas for this fall, however, I thought to myself “You know, maybe it’s time to give this a shot.”

Mind you, it was still a long shot. When I left for The Hummerbird Celebration in September I had managed to scrape together only about 260 species in Montana, Idaho, and Washington for the year, and knew I’d have to go BIG that first trip to Texas. I did, scoring about fifty Year Birds—but still left myself more than 20 birds short in perhaps the toughest time of year to bird. “Still,” I thought, “if I can somehow get ten or twelve more species on my second Texas trip, I might get within striking distance.”

I knew I would need help.

I’ll take a blurry Lifer any day—including this beautiful Brown-headed Nuthatch. By the way, this bird brought my ABA Life List to 498 birds! Only two hours later, I got number 499, Monk Parakeet! What will be 500?

My trip last week unfolded when I was invited to give a keynote address at Houston Audubon’s (HAS) annual Avian Affair fundraising gala (more on that in my next post). As you probably know I love HAS and was honored to accept, but I brazenly asked my hosts if there was a chance anyone could take me birding when I arrived. Before I knew it, a team of expert birders, all HAS board members, had been assembled with the express goal of helping me tackle my Texas “needs” list! In fact, within twenty minutes of my arrival, Bill Matthews picked me up at the airport and whisked me off to our first stop, the W.G. Jones State Forest—home to some of the state’s most accessible Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.

To be honest, I didn’t think we’d find the RCWOs since they can forage over a large area, but I was also hoping for a Life Bird, Brown-headed Nuthatch. As we began walking around the forest, we found no woodpeckers near their roosting trees, so decided to take a longer walk down a trail. Very little stirred, leaving me feeling that maybe we wouldn’t see much—until, that is, we had walked about half a mile. Then, all of a sudden, Eastern Bluebirds were flying everywhere. Other Year Birds soon surrounded us—Carolina Chickadees, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Tufted Titmice, Pine Warblers, and oh joy, Brown-headed Nuthatches!

My W.G. Jones eBird List.

Though Braden and I had seen Monk Parakeets in Israel before the pandemic, this was my first ABA Monk Parakeet. Bill Matthews mentioned that the severe freeze in Texas earlier in the year had pared down the parakeets’ numbers significantly.

We left without RCWOs, but I was elated with our finds. Bill hadn’t finished with me, though, as we stopped by a roosting Eastern Screech-Owl in a neighborhood nesting box and two Monk Parakeets behind his wife’s studio. By this time, Bill’s fellow board member and well-known bird guide Glenn Olsen joined us, so after the parakeets, we adjourned to Molina’s Cantina for some great Tex-Mex food and to plan our next day’s conquests. Unfortunately, the next day proved a lot tougher than the first, but we still were able to hear a Limpkin—a rare visitor to Texas—at Sheldon Lake, and see some incredibly cool Brown Boobies on a “tower of power” at Baytown Nature Center, accompanied by yet another great birder and HAS board member, Skip Almoney.

**World’s Most Cooperative Owl? This Eastern Screech just may take the prize!**

With a total of 8 Year Birds, I was fairly satisfied as I actually did some work the following day, speaking to fifth-graders at Western Academy—and saw Year Bird #9, Scaly-breasted Munias! Glenn Olsen was not satisfied, however, so on my last morning, he picked me up early before my flight and we headed back out to W.G. Jones, meeting up with another great HAS board member, Eric Mayer, out at the site. Again, I didn’t think we’d see the woodpeckers and we didn’t. After an hour, in fact, it was time to head back to the car so Glenn could take me to the airport. As we approached the parking area, though, Glenn shouted, “Woodpecker!” I got my binoculars on a black-and-white bird landing on a pine tree and guess what? Red-cockaded Woodpecker! It was a great way to finish up a great trip, and left me with a flock of wonderful new friends—and only 11 birds to break my record. Will I make it? Good question. While in Texas, I missed four or five migrating rarities in Montana and it appears they have left the state. I will keep up my quest, however, so stay tuned!

**I was a doubter, but this Red-cockaded Woodpecker really wanted me to break my Big Year record!**

Going Cuckoo for Fall Warblers in Texas

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In a remarkably fun coincidence, as Braden was immersing himself in Life Birds migrating through Maine, I happened to be observing migrating songbirds in Texas following my recent trip to the HummerBird Celebration in Fulton-Rockport. For the trip, I had a number of goals, including shorebirds and raptors, but seeing migrating warblers perched at the top of my list.

Departing Rockport after HummerBird, I immediately headed to what has become a second home for us while in Texas: Winnie. Winnie is not a lot to write home about, a small town dominated by fast food joints, gas stations, hotels, and donut shops. So why go? Simple. It is surrounded by incredible birding including High Island, the Bolivar Peninsula, Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, and my first destination upon waking the next morning: Sabine Woods.

**Because it takes more effort to reach, Sabine Woods is less visited than High Island, but it can offer up a delicious smorgasbord of birding during migration seasons.**

Birders usually flock to coastal Texas in April or May during the height of spring migration. This being fall, my expectations were tempered as I drove east to the vast petrochemical complex of Port Arthur and then south toward Sabine Woods, a tiny preserve owned by the Texas Ornithological Society. Only one other car was parked outside of the entrance and I soon met its owners, a nice birder couple from Austin. They, too, had just started birding, and while we chatted, we saw both Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and a Black-and-White Warbler, boosting my hopes for a productive morning.

**Less shy than most warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers delight Braden and me wherever we find them!**

Setting off on my own, the woods seemed quiet except for some Blue Jays calling and the scuffling of hundreds of toads hopping through the dead leaves. After about a hundred yards, however, I suddenly saw a flash of yellow land on a branch and raised my binoculars. Prothonotary Warbler! I smiled because this was the first eastern warbler Braden and I ever saw together during our Big Year back in 2016. As I continued to walk, however, the birds were few and far between. I ended up at a marshier area in the back of the preserve and through some hard birding managed to find a Common Yellowthroat and, with the help of Merlin’s Sound ID, an Acadian Flycatcher. It wasn’t until I ran into Howard Davis, a volunteer from Golden Triangle Audubon, that my luck really began to change. He showed me one of the three drips on the property and, sure enough, I discovered a trio of warblers there: Black-and-White, Wilson’s, and Northern Parula. Still, these were all birds I had seen several times before, and I wanted something new. Something unusual!

**Drips—artificial water sources for birds—are a photographer’s friend, especially when it comes to photographing tiny, fast-moving warblers such as this Black-and-White.**

At another drip, Howard and a second birder pointed out the first great score of the day: my Lifer Painted Buntings! Sure, they happened to be females and/or juveniles, so I didn’t get to see the glorious breeding plumage of a male, but I was elated even as I headed off alone again, doubtful I’d see anything more. Then, near where I’d seen the Common Yellowthroat, I spotted another flash of yellow. I got my binoculars up just in time to focus on my first ever Canada Warbler—the thin necklace around the throat a giveaway for the ID! Walking farther, my luck continued as I got a great look at my first Hooded Warbler since 2016.

By this time I’d been birding hard for three-and-a-half hours, so I sat under a tree near the entrance to review my final eBird list and enjoy the Blue-gray Gnatcatchers that frequented the clearing. As I sat there, though, I spotted something large and gray in a nearby tree. At first I thought it might be a jay or dove. As I stared at its partially-concealed form, however, my previous study paid off and a bolt of recognition split my skull: Yellow-billed Cuckoo! It was a great way to wrap up an inspiring session. Braden and I had unsuccessfully searched for cuckoos many times in Montana and Texas without success. Suddenly, to have one appear right in front of me, well, I felt I had earned it!

Sneed’s Sabine Woods List

**My Lifer Yellow-billed Cuckoo was totally absent from my radar—and put a delightful exclamation mark on a productive morning of Fall birding.**

Note: Only days before my visit, a group of birders had counted twenty species of warblers in Sabine Woods. Such sightings and our own experiences are really changing Braden’s and my opinions of fall birding. While we used to pretty much write off the fall, it has now become one of our favorite birding seasons, whether in Maine, Texas, or Montana.

A Tornado of Warblers (Braden’s first report from Maine)

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My dad and I were hungry. Not for food; we’d already eaten at a fabulous breakfast place in Bar Harbor following the cancellation of our whale-watching trip (which we weren’t all that disappointed by). No, my dad and I wanted warblers.

Earlier that week we’d gotten a taste of the eastern warblers we’d heard so much about, nabbing Common Yellowthroat, Yellow, and a nice Black-and-White Warbler in Massachusetts. The day before today we’d gone to Taylor Bait Farm, a well-known hotspot in Orono, Maine, where the University of Maine (my new home for the next few years) was located. The farm was fairly productive, nabbing us a few cool county birds like Solitary Sandpiper and some Great Egrets. The best part about Taylor Bait Farm, however, was the warblers—specifically, a bright, nonbreeding male Chestnut-sided Warbler that posed for us below eye level for thirty seconds before diving back into the bushes! It was a first lifer warbler in several years, and probably the best-looking one in terms of nonbreeding plumage. During our whole outing at Taylor Bait Farm, we saw a few more Chestnut-sided Warblers and Northern Parulas, and got a really poor look at a Palm Warbler, another lifer, in a tree above us.

**Chestnut-sided Warbler proved our Bird of the Day when my dad and I visited the Taylor Bait Farm in Orono.**

But it wasn’t enough. Furthermore, we had ended up at Acadia National Park, which was known for its beautiful views and seabirds, not its warblers. My dad and I started driving around the main park loop, stopping at parking lots to try to pick up some of the eastern seabirds that we needed. After a few stops with nothing but eiders and Great Black-backed Gulls, we finally got our dose of Atlantic birds with a few Black Guillemots floating offshore and a distant Northern Gannet flying through the sea fog, both lifers for my dad. Unfortunately, it looked like that very fog was going to limit our chances of seeing things like shearwaters and storm-petrels from shore.

At the third parking lot, as we piled out to scope the beach, I happened to look up at a tree just beginning to turn yellow and I spotted a small yellow bird foraging in it. I brought my binoculars to my eyes and yelled, “Daddy! There’s a Blackburnian Warbler above you!” As he looked up, I started to see that the Blackburnian Warbler, a species we hadn’t seen since 2016, was not the only bird above us. There were passerines flying between and feeding in trees all around us.

We started calling out names as we followed the mixed flock.

“Red-eyed Vireo! Black-and-White Warbler! American Redstart!”

**One of our favorite songbirds, Black-and-White Warblers have become almost commonplace for me since moving East.**

As the flock moved into a group of conifers I glimpsed one of our target species for the trip feeding on the left side of a spruce. “Magnolia Warbler, get your eyes on it!”

We left the parking lot (and the people wondering what we were gawking at) and walked into the woods, continuing to see if we could pull more warblers out of the already insane mixed flock. I spotted several “Baypoll” warblers at one point, a group that includes Blackpoll and Bay-breasted Warblers that look notoriously similar in fall. Finally, I watched one long enough to see a hint of a bay-colored side, identifying it as a Bay-breasted. The mixed flock, in total, had 14 species including 8 species of warblers—more than we’d ever seen in any flock in Montana!

https://ebird.org/checklist/S93635091

Unfortunately my dad had to fly home a few days later, but the warblers weren’t done with me yet. September, the best birding month in much of the east, had just begun, and the University of Maine campus happened to be located next to some perfect habitat for warblers during fall migration. I began birding a trail near my dorm, called the Cornfield Loop, several times a week to search for my other eastern target species: Canada Warbler, Cape May Warbler and Philadelphia Vireo.

The hits came fast. After about a week of scoping the area out, I started seeing large mixed flocks of migrating warblers coming through and in one spot had both of my first two targets within a few trees of one another! My reaction for both of them was the same: I can’t believe this bird actually exists! Warblers became the norm, and I got used to listening for chickadees in order to tell me if there might be something else nearby. Red-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos, Northern Parulas, American Redstarts and Common Yellowthroats popped out of every piece of plant life available, and one marsh yielded huge flocks of sparrows every time I walked through it. Seeing familiar warblers was also a treat: I found both Nashville and Wilson’s during my walks, the latter of which isn’t the easiest to find in the east. Here is one of my lists:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S94686023

**It is odd seeing warblers, such as this Wilson’s Warbler that my dad and I see fairly frequently in Montana, back here in Maine—especially since they are more difficult to see here.**

It wasn’t just the Cornfield Loop that had warblers; campus was covered in them. Several mornings I left my dorm for breakfast to be greeted by Black-throated Green Warblers foraging in my face. One night as I walked back from a movie with friends, I began to wonder what all of the high-pitched chips I was hearing were. Could they be sleeping chickadees? No, that doesn’t sound right…and then it hit me. The east was known for its nocturnal migration, and the University of Maine sat right in the middle of the Atlantic Flyway. This meant that the chips I was hearing were the nocturnal flight calls of hundreds, maybe thousands of birds passing over in the dark on their way south to Texas, Florida and beyond! I stared up at the stars, hoping to catch a glimpse of a silhouette as one of these migrating champions flew over.

I got my Philadelphia Vireo by mid-September, pointed out to me by a non-birder friend.

“Hey,” he asked, “What kind of warbler’s that?”

Before I even had my binoculars up I could see the yellow breast, dark eyeline and cute demeanor of a species I’d been dreaming about finding in Montana ever since my friend Nick first alerted me to it. “Philadelphia Vireo, nice find!”

**Philadelphia Vireo has definitely been one of my favorite new eastern birds, and I’ve seen them multiple times right on the Cornfield Loop right across from my dorm!**

On one walk about a week ago, I was running through the options in my head as to what warblers I still needed for Maine. I had not yet found a Tennessee or Blackpoll Warbler, which was kind of funny considering those were two species my dad and I have found the last few springs in eastern Montana. I was also somehow missing Black-throated Blue, a supposedly common bird that I still needed for my life list.

Suddenly, I spotted a skulky, heavyset passerine fly into a bush near me, making heavy calls. It was acting a lot like a Common Yellowthroat, by far the most common warbler on campus, but I continued to watch it just in case it was one of the rarer species. Sure enough, it briefly popped into view before flying over the trail and out of sight. It flashed me a very dark chest spot contrasting with a complete gray hood as it flew, what I would have called a MacGillivray’s out west. That meant that I’d just scored a Mourning Warbler—MacGillivray’s eastern counterpart and a supposedly much more difficult bird to find. No way!! While Mourning had been on my radar, I hadn’t expected to get it or any of the rarer warblers given that I’d just gotten to Maine less than a month before and was still very content with the common birds.

**Though not as flashy as many other species, Palm Warbler surprised me and my dad, and was a welcome addition to our Life Lists.**

This past week I’ve gotten both Blackpoll and Tennessee Warbler on the Cornfield Loop, bringing the total number of warbler species of seen in Maine to 20, all of which I’d seen in a month compared to the sixteen species of warblers I’d seen in Montana across seven years of birding. I still don’t have Black-throated Blue (though it is definitely still possible), but unfortunately warbler migration is beginning to die down here. Just yesterday eBird marked my report of American Redstart as rare, meaning that a few species are beginning to leave for good. The warblers are now moving through much of the southern United States, including Texas, which you may get to hear about soon from my dad!

Are you ready for . . . the QUACH?

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My dad walked back to the car, frowning. “Well, unfortunately it looks like we’re gonna have to go birding somewhere else today.”

I sighed, frustrated. We’d been trying to bird Swiftcurrent, in east Glacier National Park, for years, and we’d still never gotten a normal birding session there. Most years it had been closed, like it was today, because of COVID-19 or construction. The year we had gotten to bird, it had been pouring down rain, and while we scored an incredible experience with a pair of Harlequin Ducks in Lake Swiftcurrent, those were basically the only birds was saw. Now, not birding Swiftcurrent drastically decreased our chances at Boreal Chickadee, a bird we’d been wanting to find for as long as I could remember.

Reviewing our options, we could just immediately head south and hope to bird Two Medicine, and possibly arrive in West Glacier earlier than expected to look for Black Swift and Harlequin Duck. I wanted to go somewhere new, however, so we headed north towards the closed Canadian border crossing. Hopefully we could find some cool habitat, possibly with Boreal Chickadees, though that species had rarely been reported from that area of the park. Along with it being a cool bird, the main reason my dad and I wanted the chickadee so badly is because in terms of Montana lifers we’d been completely skunked during the rest of our trip, missing American Golden-Plover, Broad-winged Hawk, Magnolia Warbler and more. We’d gotten cool birds, like Sprague’s Pipit, but none of them had been new species for us.

**As we learned in Glacier National Park this summer, birding the road less traveled almost always leads to great surprises.**

After taking a short loop through the most desolate plains we’d seen yet in Montana, we turned towards Glacier’s mountains again. As we drove, the habitat shifted, first to stunted aspen forest and then tall, dense spruce-fir forest. It was a habitat I’d never seen in the state, if at all: the southernmost reaches of the vast boreal forest that stretched across Canada. As we crossed back into the national park, my dad spotted what was probably a robin, but we pulled over anyway—I was excited to see what birds were singing from this new habitat.

A Northern Waterthrush echoed from the side of the car as we got out, and several Brown-headed Cowbirds whistled from the tops of trees. Every single bird was a surprise to us, since we really had no idea what to expect. And despite the fact that we hadn’t truly entered the mountains yet, my dad’s altitude app told us that we were at more than 5000 feet!

Suddenly my dad turned around. “I just heard a chickadee.” I spotted something flit to the top of a tall spruce about fifty feet away, and raised my binoculars. While it was still too far to tell what kind, I was definitely staring at a chickadee, so I grabbed my camera from the car and hurried over to where there appeared to be a pair of them. Once we drew closer, I raised my binoculars, registering salmon flanks and a brown cap.

It was one of if not the first time I’d ever said the F-word in front of my dad! It was like my brain had exploded, I’m not sure whether from the fact that the birds were Boreal Chickadees or from the fact that we’d managed to find a new Montana species at last on this trip. The chickadees bounced around the spruces for a while, then disappeared.

After recovering from the shock, my dad and I hugged and got back in the car, intent on seeing what else we could find along this paved-yet-empty road. Starting at the closed Canadian border crossing, we drove south doing five-minute point counts along the road like we’d done searching for Sprague’s Pipit the day before.

**Seeing a White-crowned Sparrow on its alpine breeding grounds gave us new appreciation for this relatively common species.**

The most common sparrows were White-crowned Sparrows belting confusing songs from every level of the trees, and while Yellow and Yellow-rumped Warblers were present, they were at least equalled in number by Wilson’s Warblers and Northern Waterthrushes, neither of which were common in Missoula. Amazingly, we picked up Boreal Chickadee at two more points, getting much better looks and photos of three more pairs. They were one of the more common species here, too, and were by far the most common chickadee, though we also picked up a lone Mountain and a possible Black-capped, the latter from a lower altitude aspen area. Canada Jay was the most common corvid, though we also saw a single Steller’s. Another treat were two boisterous Olive-sided Flycatchers, well-known boreal forest breeders, calling and posing for us.

In the wetter areas we found Fox and Lincoln’s Sparrows, Tree Swallows and Warbling Vireos. Red-breasted Nuthatches, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Pine Siskins and Chipping Sparrows greeted us at most stops. We also got a Varied Thrush, which was a surprise as we were probably about two miles from the easternmost limit of its breeding range.

**What? A Mountain Chickadee near a Boreal Chickadee? What was this songbird madness???**

I’d recently read a book about the lack of birds in the boreal forest, and while there definitely was lower diversity than say, the wet second-growth of West Glacier, it was not as if there weren’t any birds. At most stops we picked up at least three or four species singing or calling.

After drinking our fill of the boreal forest and saying goodbye to the chickadees, we headed south along the eastern edge of Glacier National Park. We stopped at a good-looking, alder-filled riparian area for lunch, picking up new species for the day like Black-headed Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting and our first-of-year MacGillivray’s Warbler, then got onto Highway 2 again, back in familiar territory.

When we reached West Glacier, though, we discovered something tragic—you had to have a permit to enter the park, a new rule they’d employed to counter the insane surges of tourists they’d had the past few years! Thankfully, we could enter without a permit after 5 p.m., but still it was sad that the days of entering Glacier easily may be over.

**Since we know them mostly from burn areas, this Olive-sided Flycatcher at a roadside pullout proved a special delight!**

We parked by the old park entrance to wait until five o’ clock, and while my dad took a nap I wandered around the healthy mountain-riparian forest along the milk-blue Middle Fork of the Flathead River. As I hiked, I suddenly heard more chickadees calling, and in a dense patch of Lodgepole Pine I found them: Chestnut-backed Chickadees!

Earlier in the day, after seeing the Boreal Chickadees, I’d mentioned to my dad: “Just you wait. We’ll somehow manage to see three of the four chickadee species and have trouble finding a Black-capped.” Black-capped, of course, is well-known for being not only the most common chickadee in Montana but also one of the most common birds here, period.

Suddenly, my fear had come true: I’d seen the three most difficult chickadees in one day, but had not yet seen a Black-capped (while again, we’d possibly heard one up by the Canadian border, it had not been a positive identification so we hadn’t counted it). I rushed back to the car to wake my dad.

“Let’s go find some cottonwoods. I need to see a Black-capped Chickadee.”

As we drove around West Glacier (the town; the park hadn’t opened yet), I rolled down my windows, straining to hear any piece of a chickadee call. We pulled into a fishing access parking lot surrounded by cottonwoods and began walking, though the birds were fairly quiet. Four in the afternoon was about as bad a time as you could go birding, yet here we were, trying to find one that we saw in our backyard every single day. I promised to myself that if we found a Black-capped, I would memorize its scientific name, Poecile Atricapillus.

After admiring a gorgeous male Rufous Hummingbird that posed for us, I heard a chickadee call from behind me. Then, a sharp-looking Black-capped flew towards us, landing mere inches from us on a branch! I’d done it! I restrained myself from hugging the chickadee and instead gave my dad a high-five in celebration of the Quad-Chickadee Day I’d had—or, as my dad officially christened it, “the Quach.”

Note: “Quach” is a registered trademark of FatherSonBirding, legally protected throughout the solar system. Anyone using it will be subject to massive fines and stern looks. Not really. But you heard it here first!