Tag Archives: adventure travel

250 Montana Birds or Bust!

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In our last post, I explained how close Braden and I had come to reaching our goal of 250 Montana species for the year. Braden, in fact, had reached 245 birds while I pulled up the rear with 239. Now, as some of your comments pointed out, 250 species would seem like a slam dunk with six months to go in 2020, but not so. Not only had we exhausted our supply of “easy birds”, but another large birding safari seemed unlikely—until, that is, Braden and his birding buddy Nick Ramsey came up with the idea for a Big Day. The plan? To get up before dawn and drive 500 miles, birding Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, the Swan River Valley, Glacier National Park, all the way to Malta, home of Bowdoin NWR. Insane? Yes. Would we do it? Definitely!

None of us knew how many species we might see in a day. Our record for a day in Montana was only in the 80 or so species range, but we’d never attempted anything like this and hoped we might get as many as 150. Alas, the weather gods frowned on us the morning of June 30, with steady drizzling rain. Undaunted, we set off, missing a number of target species here in Missoula and near the National Bison Range. At Ninepipe NWR, however, we hit Short-eared Owl City! Braden and Nick both still needed SEOWs for their Year Lists, but neither of us had ever seen one at Ninepipe until I spotted one about a month ago. This morning, driving Duck Road in the rain, we hadn’t gone a mile before Braden shouted, “There’s an owl!” In the next three miles, we saw NINE MORE! Maybe they should call the refuge Nineowls?

**Our first Big Success of our first Big Day was to hit the Short-eared Owl Jackpot at Ninepipe NWR.**

After missing LeConte’s Sparrow at Swan Valley (but seeing lots of Lincoln’s Sparrows), we headed to Glacier, where my top priority of the trip just might be located: Harlequin Duck. With the coronavirus raging, we didn’t know what kind of traffic we might expect, but the poor weather ended up a blessing as we cruised right into the park and made record time to Avalanche Creek. Still, none of us really expected to see a Harlequin Duck as the males had fled and breeding was probably winding down. We walked out onto the beach on the river, though, and sixty seconds later, we all saw a duck flying downstream. It was a female Harlequin! Even better, it landed fifty feet from us! None of us could believe it. After admiring the beautiful creature, we walked around a bit, picking up the eerie calls of Varied Thrushes, but failing to get our pie-in-the-sky target, Black Swifts. Still, our stop a success, we headed back out to West Glacier and began the six-hour drive to Bowdoin, picking up new birds all along the way and ending up with a day’s total of 119 species—a personal Montana record and not bad given the weather.

**One of my favorite all-time birds, this Harlequin Duck was just waiting for us as we zoomed into Glacier National Park during our (first) Big Day!**

Of course, the problem with doing a Big Day that finishes up in a place like Malta, Montana, is that you have to get back home again! Not surprisingly, we spent two days finding our way home—and not without some adventures that included Braden almost stepping on a rattlesnake, almost getting our minivan permanently mired in mud far from civilization, and getting a rear tire blowout—fortunately, just at an exit in Butte.

**On Day 2 of our, ahem, Big Day, we had some of our best experiences with nesting shorebirds—including the spectacular American Avocet at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge!**

“So did you make your 250 birds?” you may be asking yourselves. Well . . . YES! Braden finished the trip with 255 species for the year while I slipped in there with 251. Which begs another question, “What now?” Well, fortunately birding is fun, interesting, and educational even without keeping track of lists. Every day, in fact, we see cool birds and learn more about them. Will we object if our species counts climb higher in the next six months? No way, but do we need them to? Naw. Birds are great any time and in any season—even if we’ve seen them before.

Winter Birding in Israel, Part II: Valley of the Cranes

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This week, enjoy Braden’s Part II of an Undetermined Series of Posts about our recent birding adventures in Israel and Jordan!

Over the next few days, our host family showed us around Northern Israel. We explored Akko, a seaside town with a great market full of delicious Arab and Jewish food and tall, Crusader-era walls. In Haifa, we took a drive around Mount Carmel and dined on amazing pizza and fantastic pistachio ice cream. My dad and I even spotted a Eurasian Griffon soaring over a residential area, a rare species of vulture that nested in the Carmel range.

**A lone Eurasian Spoonbill enjoys refuge in the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, once part of a vast wetlands that covered much of north-central Israel.**

After sightseeing, though, we were ready to do some serious birding. One day, my dad, one of our friends named Noam and I hopped on the train to Haifa (spotting flamingos feeding in salt ponds on the way), where we were picked up by our host’s brother Barak and father Avi. We headed north, stopping only to grab a snack at a roadside falafel & humus stand overlooking the vast Sea of Galilee and its nearby canyons and mosques. Soon, though, we left the mountains, driving past agricultural fields filled with Common Cranes. Eventually we arrived at the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, and were greeted by a large, modern visitor center. The best way to sightsee the refuge was to rent a golf cart, and that we did, setting off around a lake at Formula 1 speeds—about 10 miles per hour. We were soon greeted by hundreds of cranes, as well as various tactics that farmers used to prevent the birds from eating their crops. Every few minutes a gunshot, firework or horn would echo across the landscape (the birds were protected, don’t worry), and we even glimpsed a few people chasing the huge flocks.

**In the Hula, we got our first great look of the trip at what would prove to be one of our Top Five favorite Israeli birds—the White-throated Kingfisher.**

Before reaching the main lake, we stopped at a forested spot and were immediately astonished to see not one, but two birds that we’d been hoping to see: a White-throated Kingfisher and a Eurasian Hoopoe! The large kingfisher showed off its azure wings as it scanned the ground for rodents, while the hoopoe foraged quietly like a flicker, probably looking for ants. Spur-winged Lapwings, birds with sharp patterns of black and white on their wings, stood right by the path, unafraid, and almost every bird in the area allowed us to snap sharp, close-up photos. Before leaving we spotted a pair of European Goldfinches, chirping cheerfully despite their “sunburnt” faces.

At the lake itself bird activity increased substantially. Raptors were abundant, including Black and Black-winged Kites, Eurasian Marsh-Harriers, Common Buzzards and Eurasian Kestrels, all flying over the marshes. One kestrel even posed for us on a sign, devouring a mouse right in front of us! The species diversity of ducks was low, but those that were here, primarily shovelers, mallards and teal, foraged in the fields in huge numbers, and Eurasian Coots, Eurasian Moorhens and Little Grebes floated on the water. Shorebirds and waders also were present, and we spotted a few Glossy Ibises, Black-winged Stilts, Ruff and a single Eurasian Spoonbill by the shoreline. Gray Herons, Great, Cattle and Little Egrets and Great and Pygmy Cormorants topped every bare branch and island in the area.

**As this Eurasian Kestrel can attest to, there’s nothing like a good stretch after tearing the head off a mouse!**

At a lookout a helpful naturalist pointed out several harder-to-see species to us, including Black-tailed Godwits and Northern Lapwings hiding in the distance among the huge numbers of cranes. I snapped photos of several raptors that flew by, later identifying them as eagles! The two we spotted were Booted and Greater Spotted, just a small percentage of the eagle species the Old World supported. Pied Avocets floated on the waves of the pond like ducks.

Sing along with us: “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not the same. One of these things—” Oh, you get the idea. It’s hard to blend in with 30,000 Common Cranes!

We completed our loop, tracking down cranes for better photos and spotting a Common Kingfisher skulking in the brush back at the visitor center, the only one we’d see for the rest of the trip! This little refuge, surrounded by farmland, was all that remained of the huge wetlands that had once covered much of this area and supported hippos, ostriches and cheetahs. While much of the diversity of the past had disappeared, Hula still provides habitat for thousands of birds during all seasons and efficiently allows the public to experience them. The day had not disappointed.

All photos and text on FatherSonBirding.com are strictly protected under U.S. copyright law. To request permission to use, contact Sneed at sbcollardiii+2@gmail.com.

Winter Birding in Israel, Part 1: Neighborhood Birding

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Alert: the hackers are back. We’ve had a number of suspicious sign ups recently so if you really have subscribed in the last three months, please shoot Sneed a confirmation email at collard@bigsky.net and I will make sure that you stay subscribed. Meanwhile, feel free to share this post with all the wonderful birders in your lives. Thanks!

If you are an avid fan of FatherSonBirding—and let’s face it, who isn’t?—you’ll know that Braden and I recently had an adventure of a lifetime in Israel and Jordan. Over the next few posts, we’d like to share that adventure, starting with ordinary neighborhood birding, and what any casual visitor might expect to see in Israel in January.

**The Hooded Crow not only was our first Israeli bird, it was one that would provide constant entertainment and companionship throughout our trip.**

Before flying to the Holy Land, Braden and I had already learned the value of studying up on birds of a new area, so when our flight touched down in Tel Aviv at 2 a.m., we hit the ground running. Well, sort of. First, we got on a train and traveled to our friends’ house in the pleasant coastal town of Binyamina. As soon as we’d showered and eaten breakfast, our hosts’ 14-year-old son, Noam, led us out on a tour of the neighborhood.

Now, I have to preface this by saying that Israel is the only place I know where if you go out birding, you not only have a chance of encountering some amazing historic site, you are almost guaranteed it. Only a block from his house, Noam led us to a remarkable Ottoman well that was 400-plus years old. Braden and I would have been more in awe if we weren’t already mesmerized by the variety of birds we were seeing! Our first Israeli bird? Hooded Crow, a handsome and charismatic corvid that would become a regular companion on our trip. This was soon followed by other delights including Great Tits, White-spectacled Bulbuls, Graceful Prinias, and Common Chiffchaffs, none of which we really expected to see! The most “crowd-pleasing?” The Palestinian Sunbird, an analog to American hummingbirds. We saw several, in fact, hovering to slurp up the nectar of some bright red flowers.

**The Middle East’s “hummingbird”, the Palestinian Sunbird. The convergence of both habits and appearance of these guys with our own hummers is remarkable.**

Once we passed the Ottoman well, we headed out to open farmland where we encountered a totally different suite of birds, starting with the same Rose-ringed Parakeets we’d seen in Amsterdam literally hours before (see our post “Layover Birding in Amsterdam”). Here we also encountered a charming little flycatcher called the European Stonechat—another frequent companion for our next two weeks. In the distance, we saw our first Black-winged Kite and Common Buzzard—Europe’s “Red-tailed Hawk.” Near a pond, we spotted several Glossy Ibis in flight and then came the punctuation of our first birding experience: a flight of four Great White Pelicans that flew right over us.

**Besides having a great name, the European Stonechat is a great behavioral study as it behaves very similarly to American flycatchers.**

Our first bird list totaled a satisfying twenty-one species, many of which we wouldn’t have recognized if we hadn’t done our homework ahead of time. Best of all, there was much, much more to come! Stay tuned . . .

**The appearance of pelicans overhead both floored and delighted us!**

Turkey Day Texas Adventures Part 1: Pursuing Plovers

The Land of 10,000 Birds—and Deep-fried Snickers Bars

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This year my daughter Tessa and I decided that for our daddy-daughter trip we should take Amtrak to the Land of 10,000 lakes. You got it. Minnesota! Our primary purpose was to visit my brother, his wife, and their two-year-old son, but we also timed our visit for an event I’d always wanted to see: the Minnesota State Fair.

For us Westerners, Red-bellied Woodpeckers are always a treat and I was glad to see a few during my week in Minnesota. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

I must be clear: this was not a birding trip, but as always, birding opportunities presented themselves and I came prepared. Especially since it was fall migration, I arrived in Minneapolis hoping to see a slew of warblers and other songbirds not easily found in Montana. My first morning there, while Tessa slept in, I stole my brother’s car and headed to a promising eBird hotspot, Westwood Hills Nature Center. I arrived optimistically, a feeling that blossomed when I encountered a group of birders who reported that they’d just seen more than half a dozen warbler species including Chestnut-sided, Black-and-White, Bay-breasted and American Redstart. Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived, the warblers vanished. Argh! I did find a Northern Waterthrush skulking in an overgrown pond and managed a Lifer, Philadelphia Vireo, but departed asking myself what could have been.

Sharks, not birds, were the highlight of the Minnesota State Fair!

Still, we had the fair to look forward to, and despite an incredible thunderstorm, made the most of it. We devoured the most delicious cheese curds ever, along with an entire bucket of cookies. My daughter also won a giant four-ton stuffed shark that we would have to drag back home on the train. And that deep-fried Snickers? Well, I wish I hadn’t done that.

My birding adventures weren’t over, however. My brother and his family happened to live only two blocks from the Mississippi River and on a whim I headed over there early the next morning. There, I ran into yet another terrific group of birders. Again, all the best birds deserted as soon as I arrived. “What the heck is going on?” I grumbled.

This was only my third time seeing diminutive, but spectacular, Black-and-White Warblers, and they alone satisfied my bird cravings for the trip. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Undeterred, I returned to the same spot the next morning, and this time my birding stars aligned. Right away, I found a flock of chickadees and settled in to watch them. Soon, I made a thrilling discovery: a Black-and-White Warbler gleaning insects in an oak tree! Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers arrived along with Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos. Even better, I saw three more warbler species: American Redstart, Nashville, and Wilson’s. As I was leaving, I also happened to take a photo of a weird-looking sparrow, but didn’t think much of it. That night, I boarded the train, happy both with our daddy-daughter experiences and my birding observations.

And guess what? When I got home, I showed Braden that weird-looking sparrow.

“Daddy,” he said. “That’s an Indigo Bunting!”

Uff-da! Minnesota, we’ll be back!

This surprise, drab Indigo Bunting provided an exclamation mark to my Minnesota birding outings. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)