Tag Archives: corvids

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magnolia Warbler in a spruce tree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the forest looked like in Aroostook!

Target Birds and a Shocking Surprise in the Texas Hill Country (Texas 2025 Part 3)

After spending two glorious birding days along the east Texas & Louisiana coasts (see “Peveto Woods, Louisiana: Spring Migration Hotspot.”), I returned to San Antonio for my four minutes—yes, you read that right—four minutes of work to promote my book Birding for Boomers. While there, I reprised my now-sort-of-famous birding route along San Antonio’s Riverwalk (see our post “Birding San Antonio’s Riverwalk—Are You Nuts?”). Once again, I found birds—but not enough to write another blog about it. As soon as I finished my speaking gig, though, I headed west into the Texas hill country. Why? To try to find two birds Braden and I had talked about our entire birding careers.

Leaving San Antonio, I drove two hours to the hot, fairly flat town of Uvalde and booked myself into a Hampton Inn. That afternoon, I picked up a few nice birds in the town’s Memorial Park including another Yellow-throated Vireo and my first—and only—Green Jay of the trip. I also grabbed an excellent Tex-Mex meal at El Herradero de Jalisco restaurant. The next morning, I hit the road before dawn.

One bonus to birding is that we birders invariably get to see spectacular sunrises and sunsets. As I headed north, I witnessed an unforgettable sizzling orange sunrise on one side of the car while an equally spectacular orange full moon set in the west. It boded well for what would be arguably the most important—and most demanding—birding day of my trip: my quest to find Black-capped Vireos and Golden-cheeked Warblers.

Anyone who has been birding for more than a couple of years has probably heard of these two Texas specialties. Of the near-threatened Black-capped Vireo, Braden simply says, “It’s the best vireo.” Quite a statement considering how cool other vireos are! The bird winters in Mexico, and its primary breeding range lies in central Texas—though it technically extends from far northern Mexico to southern Kansas. The endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler winters in Central America and far southern Mexico, but breeds exclusively in central Texas.

According to eBird lists, Lost Maples State Natural Area is one of the most reliable places to find both Black-capped Vireos and Golden-cheeked Warblers.

As usual, I felt a bit skeptical of my ability to find these birds. Call it psychological protection against failure. Nonetheless, I did have a plan. After scouring eBird hotspots, bar charts, and birding lists before the trip, I settled on Lost Maples State Natural Area as the most reliable location to find both species. Indeed, when I pulled into the parking lot, I met a couple who had staked out a bush where they had seen a Black-capped Vireo the previous day. “We saw Golden-cheeked Warblers in that tree about fifteen minutes ago,” the woman added, motioning to a nearby oak tree. I briefly pondered waiting around for either species, but the canyon before me beckoned and I reasoned I could hang around the parking lot later if need be.

I immediately loved Lost Maples, especially since its habitat reminded me of the chaparral and oak woodland I’d grown up with in Southern California.

I headed up the park’s East Trail and immediately felt at home in the scenic canyon’s xeric landscape full of oaks, junipers, mesquite, and other classic Western vegetation. I also realized that I had tackled some tough birding! Birdsong rang out all around me, but I got few glimpses of actual birds. Thank god for Merlin’s Sound ID, which I ran multiple times to get an idea of what might be around me: an impressive list that included Canyon and Carolina Wrens, Olive Sparrows, Yellow-breasted Chats, and at least four (other) kinds of vireos. Finally, however, “Black-capped Vireo” popped up on Sound ID and I stopped to seriously scour the nearby vegetation. Over the next five minutes, I got a brief glimpse of a Blue-headed Vireo and good looks at a White-eyed Vireo.

I had to work hard for actual bird sightings at Lost Maples, but managed a great look at a White-eyed Vireo—one of five vireos on my checklist for the day.

Finally, I saw the distinctive black head and white spectacles of the bird I most hoped to see: a Black-capped Vireo! Soon, I saw another. The birds definitely did not want to strike a pose and I followed them as they flitted almost frantically from bush to tree and tree to bush. I finally managed a couple of ID photos, and then just tried to relax and observe them. It was a good moment, and I felt glad I hadn’t just waited around the parking lot hoping for one to appear.

I was so glad that I hadn’t waited around the parking lot to find my Lifer Black-capped Vireos!

That left the Golden-cheeked Warbler. Sound ID had picked it up a couple of times as I hiked the canyon, but it wasn’t until I was back in the park next to my car that I began to figure out the bird’s song. With my imperfect hearing, it sounded like a high-pitched buzzing trill—a lot like an insect, but distinct from any other bird calls around me. Soon, I found myself standing for five minutes directly in front of an oak tree as a Golden-cheeked sang repeatedly.

I never saw it.

This frustrating experience repeated itself several times. I eventually added the bird to my eBird list (“Heard only”), but I was not a happy camper and I thought I might remove it later. As shy as they were, the Black-capped Vireos had been publicity hogs compared to the Golden-cheekeds! Knowing when I was beaten, I headed off to some bird feeders set up in the park about a mile away. There, I tried to console myself with leisurely views of Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jays and Scott’s Orioles. I also told the bird hostess about my lack of success actually seeing a Golden-cheeked Warbler. “Any suggestions?” I asked.

While pondering my next moves, I spent a pleasant half-hour watching Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jays and Scott’s Orioles at the Lost Maples bird feeders.

“Well,” she said, “I’d head up the East-West Trail right here until you come to the ponds about a mile on. Just keep scanning the trees as you walk.”

By now, the heat had built into the low 80s. Another hike did not sit high on my priority list, but darn it, I hadn’t come all the way to the Texas hill country for nothing! Slinging my camera and new Vortex Viper 8X42s over my shoulders I resolutely started marching.

Fortunately, a number of beautiful oak trees provided shade to parts of the trail. I kept stopping frequently and soon enough began hearing more Golden-cheeked Warblers. Again, they absolutely refused to be seen, even when I seemed to be standing right in front of them! As I was scouring one oak tree, though, I detected movement and a flash of yellow. My excitement rose . . . but something didn’t look quite right. Finally, I got my binoculars on the bird and I realized what it was. This wasn’t a Golden-cheeked Warbler. For me, it was even better: my lifer Yellow-throated Warbler!

My Bird of the Day wasn’t actually the Black-capped Vireos or Golden-cheeked Warblers I’d set out to find. It ended up being my Lifer Yellow-throated Warbler—a complete surprise!

I couldn’t have been more thrilled. On other trips, I had hoped to see one of these birds multiple times without success, but today, it hadn’t even been on my radar! The bird was every bit as beautiful as a Golden-cheeked, and a quick look at the Merlin app confirmed that I was indeed within its breeding range—but just barely. According to Cornell’s Birds of the World, it has a relatively small, disjunct breeding range in central Texas separate from its more extensive breeding range across the Southeast. While fortunately not endangered or threatened, this bird had assumed an almost mythical status in my mind and to see it now . . . well, it felt exhilarating.

I felt both grateful and relieved to finally see a single Golden-cheeked after multiple GCWAs had taunted me all day!

Long story short: I finally spotted a single Golden-cheeked Warbler after spending almost an hour standing in front of trees where one or another GCWA sat singing and taunting me. While I had hoped to add just the Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler to my life list during my entire Texas week, I had now seen an amazing seven lifers. Even better, having tracked down the BCVI and GCWA, I now had the entire next day to pursue one more. Check out the next post for details!

Shopping for a great new pair of binoculars that are reasonably priced? Be sure to check out our recent (unpaid!) review of Vortex Viper HDs by clicking here!

Birding in Oaxaca, Mexico (report by Braden Collard)

As our final post for February, we feature a glimpse of Braden’s amazing winter break trip to Oaxaca (pronounced “wah-HA-kah”), Mexico with our friend, and now birding guide, Nick Ramsey. If you like tropical birds, we’ve got more treats coming your way—but we won’t spill the bird seed just yet. Meanwhile, if you’d like to support FatherSonBirding, please consider buying some of Sneed’s books—or supporting a bird conservation group of your choice (see our post “Saving Birds. It’s Time.”).

No words can capture the feelings of shock and disbelief that Nick Ramsey, Garrett Rhyne, Eugene Huryn and I felt when an adult male Red Warbler materialized in a bush in front of us. We’d originally pulled over to admire the view of Oaxaca City from several thousand feet up and, no surprise, had begun to notice birds the instant we got out of our rental car. Nick, who had been birding and traveling around northern Central America and Mexico for the last few weeks, pointed out the distinct high-pitched call of a Mexican Violetear, hidden somewhere in the foliage below us. Downslope, a large mixed flock of warblers was passing through, and we started to pick out species as they foraged on the ends of conifer branches—Hermit Warblers, Townsend’s Warblers, Olive Warblers, a Mexican Chickadee—species that birders could find in the western United States. Then the Red Warbler appeared, and we all lost our minds as we scrambled to take pictures of it against its light green backdrop.

One look at a Red Warbler and you know why we lost our minds seeing it!

Camino la Cumbre, the road we’d turned onto ten minutes earlier, is one of Oaxaca’s more famous birding locations, and for good reason. As we continued driving up the road, which featured tall pine trees growing alongside ten-foot tall century plants, we stopped any time we heard or saw birds, which was often. Collared Towhees, White-eared Hummingbirds, Brown-backed Solitaires and more species we had on our target lists made appearances alongside the road, in habitat not all that different from what you might see in the middle elevations of California’s Sierra Nevada. Besides the Red Warblers, though, our biggest targets were a pair of species known for traveling together—one of the world’s largest wrens and one of the world’s smallest jays. The Gray-barred Wrens didn’t take long to find, and we bumped into several flocks of them, not skulking close to the ground like many US wrens do, but fifteen feet up in oak trees, picking through epiphytes in search of insects.

One of our biggest first-day targets, Gray-barred Wrens, proved easy to find. One of the world’s largest wrens, they are surprisingly visible at mid-tree level.

As we wound higher and higher up the road, the birds improved—as did the view of Oaxaca City below us. We’d flown in the previous day, and spent that evening and the following morning stalking through the scrubby, lowland habitat in search of other specialty birds, endemic only to dry valleys in south-central Mexico: Dwarf Vireo, Ocellated Thrasher, Bridled Sparrow. We’d been planning the six-day trip, which fell perfectly into my winter break, for several months, but only at the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport had I met Garrett and Eugene for the first time. Nick knew them from his time at LSU, and had brought us all together to see a small portion of the birds Mexico had to offer. And boy, did Mexico have a lot of birds to offer.

Bridled Sparrows remind one of the Five-striped and Black-throated Sparrows many US birders eagerly chase through Arizona.

The Mexican state of Oaxaca is positioned so that it includes both the dry tropical forest of the Pacific and the rainforests of the Caribbean. More importantly, it is home to a variety of mountain ranges and dry valleys, each far enough apart so that different bird species can be found in each area. This diverse array of habitats means that Oaxaca is one of the most diverse areas in Mexico, and we planned to see the full extent of this diversity on our intense six-day itinerary.

We at FatherSonBirding always feel gratified that so many birds are named after us, including this Collard, I mean, Collared Towhee.

Camino la Cumbre was a major target area, and after an hour or so, we rounded a particularly foggy bend in the road, got out of the car, and laid eyes on our other major target: Dwarf Jays. Dwarf Jays are only known from the pine-oak woodland in the mountains north of Oaxaca, and thus the species was quite high on our target list. These tiny blue corvids were in the company of several Gray-barred Wrens as well as a Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireo, a vireo that has evolved incredibly similar plumage to a Chestnut-sided Warbler, and we watched the mixed flock forage for a while, in awe of these birds we’d only seen in books before. We snagged a few more pine-oak species, including a beautiful male Bumblebee Hummingbird and a pair of particularly skulky Golden-browed Warblers, then continued north to our next birding location. In the following days, we would be driving down and then up the side of another mountain range into the cloud forest, then down into the rainforests of the Caribbean slope.

I unfortunately did not get a photo of a Dwarf Jay, so this Unicolor Jay will have to do!

Almost as exciting as the number of life birds all four of us were getting were the huge quantities of North American birds we saw at every stop! When I’d been in Costa Rica (see Braden’s post on El Copal and his other Costa Rica posts), the common neotropical migrants were eastern birds like Chestnut-sided Warbler and Wood Thrush, species that I’d gotten to know the summer before in Pennsylvania. But in southern and western Oaxaca? Half the birds were Montana species! In several locations we came across triple-digit numbers of Violet-green Swallows, as well as roving mixed flocks of orioles and Western Tanagers.  Our first morning of birding yielded a group of more than a hundred Cassin’s Kingbirds, and we found MacGillivray’s, Wilson’s, and Orange-crowned Warblers foraging low in bushes while Townsend’s and Hermit Warblers hunted higher up, near the tops of pine trees.

A Brown-backed Solitaire.

These species reminded us that Mexico is, after all, a part of North America, even though American birders and citizens seem to forget that frequently. The birds and habitats in parts of Oaxaca mirror what you might encounter on a warm February day in southeastern Arizona. Plus, ABA birders spend hundreds and thousands of dollars driving and flying across the country to see rarities like Slate-throated Redstart or southern Texas specialties like Altamira Oriole . . . and yet, for a similar amount of money, they can fly just a little bit farther to where these birds are not only common but joined by hundreds of other spectacular tropical species. If there’s one thing I was sure of, even on Day One of our Oaxaca trip, it’s that I would be coming back to Mexico.

Our Oaxacan Birding Crew (left to right: Eugene, Garrett, Nick, and Braden) on Camino la Cumbre.

This post is written, photographed, and edited by human beings!

Birding Glacier National Park in “The Hot, Dry Winter” of 2024

Our thoughts go to all of the Californians getting hammered by unprecedented rains right now, and we hope that you are all staying safe—and preferably indoors. While the Southwest is getting one historic climate event, Montana has been getting another: record heat and dryness. Both of these add a heightened sense of urgency to tackling climate change by reducing greenhouse emissions and promoting renewable energy. And, of course, these events are certainly impacting birds. Last week, I had a chance to explore one of our nation’s most pristine areas to see what the birds are doing.

Even before I moved to Montana in 1996, I had visions of visiting the Many Glacier Valley in the depths of winter. In college, I had spent the best summer of my life working as a cook at Swiftcurrent Motor Lodge, and had returned to the valley many times since then—but never in our darkest, coldest season. What would this wonderland be like covered in snow and ice? Last week, almost fifty years after working there, I got a chance to find out. The only thing missing? Winter itself.

I had been invited to spend four days visiting with pre-K through grade 1 students in Browning, Montana, a trip I looked forward to for many reasons, including the chance to learn more about Blackfeet culture and explore the area. As a bonus, I would be working mainly in the afternoons, freeing up the mornings for birding and other activities. As the librarian and I put together the trip, however, I never imagined that I would be visiting during an unprecedentedly warm winter in which temperatures were breaking records daily and the landscape stood almost devoid of snow.

On the drive to Browning, I stopped at the Freezeout Lake wetlands complex near Great Falls and counted several thousand Canada Geese and Mallards. To my surprise, the geese were flagged as rare on eBird for this time of year. Why? Because the lakes are almost always frozen in January and February, but this year large areas of open water shimmered, inviting both geese and ducks.

The disturbing presence of open water at Freezeout Lake is attracting its share of Canada Geese and Mallards this “non-winter.”

Reaching the outskirts of Browning, I turned right for a side trip to Cut Bank. In a normal winter, this entire area would be covered in snow, providing a chance to find Snowy Owls, Snow Buntings, and other typical winter birds. Not today. Driving mud and gravel back roads, I was lucky to find a solitary Rough-legged Hawk on a telephone pole. I did flush one group of 15 smaller birds that I assume were Horned Larks, but nothing else of note. In fact, the main birds I was seeing were the stalwart ravens, magpies, House Sparrows, starlings, and pigeons.

When Thursday rolled around, my birding hopes rose as I got up early and drove toward Babb, the entrance to the Many Glacier Valley on the east side of Glacier National Park. I had no idea how much of the road was open, but made it to the park boundary at Lake (reservoir) Sherburne dam. There, I parked and donned my camera and binoculars.

The Lake Sherburne Reservoir at the Glacier National Park boundary, where I began my jaunt into the Many Glacier Valley.

I couldn’t have asked for a more astonishing day. By 9:00 a.m., temps had reached into the mid-30s and were rising rapidly. Despite an extremely dry winter, a thin layer of snow covered the spectacular peaks of the continental divide and full sunlight created an unparalleled, dazzling landscape. As an extra “cherry,” a waning gibbous moon slowly sank toward 9,300-foot Mount Allen. I paused to take a deep breath and appreciate that I was probably the only person on earth observing this incredible scene. Then, I set out.

A raven greeted me as I stepped into the park, but I wondered if I would see any other animals. Would a grizzly bear be taking a mid-winter stroll on a day this warm? I didn’t know, but spotted no other critter as I walked half a mile along the reservoir. I didn’t have a great deal of time, so I turned around after 20 minutes, and as the day continued to warm, a few birds made an appearance. I heard Black-capped Chickadees and a woodpecker drumming in the distance. Then, a grouse burst out of some stunted aspen trees to my left. I desperately watched it flying away, looking for any ID clues, but alas, I just don’t know grouse well enough to be sure. The bird was gray, however, and the habitat was wrong for Ruffed and Spruce Grouse, rendering a 95% probability of Dusky Grouse, but since I wasn’t sure, I didn’t record it on eBird.

Despite the incredible scenery, I was feeling a bit thwarted bird-wise, and calculated that I had time for another hour of exploration, so I drove back out to Babb, turned left, and then left again on the road leading to the Canadian border and Waterton Lakes National Park. My mission? To find Boreal Chickadees! In fact, I was driving the very road where Braden and I had discovered our lifer BOCHs three years before (see post “Are you ready for . . . the QUACH?”). That had been during early covid days when hardly a soul traveled the road. Would I be able to find any birds today?

My first chickadee sighting along the road proved to be a mixed flock of Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees feeding on knapweed seed pods—perhaps for insect larvae. Cool, but not the object of my quest.

The road wound its way up through scenic pastures and aspen groves, climbing steadily until it reached conifers—all under the magnificent gaze of Chief Mountain. As before, I passed not a car along the way. I pulled over twice and played the calls of Boreal Chickadees, but no bird responded. Then, I actually saw a flock of chickadees up ahead and eagerly braked to a halt.

Not BOCHs. Instead, a mixed flock of Mountain and Black-capped Chickadees, with a Red-breasted Nuthatch joining them.

One of Glacier’s most iconic mountains, Chief Mountain stands watch over the northeastern part of the park, including the road up to Waterton Lakes National Park.

Undeterred, I continued, and soon stopped for another flock of Black-cappeds. I wondered how much exploring I had time for, but passed a Border Patrol truck and soon was forced to stop at the closed boundary of Glacier National Park. Turning around, I again parked to play a BOCH call with no luck. The Border Patrol truck approached and the agent rolled down his window for a chat. I told him what I was looking for and asked him if he saw many birds along this stretch. “Some Stellar’s Jays,” he answered, “but not a lot else.”

I thought the road to Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park might be open, but alas, no. Fortunately, the chickadees were on my side of the boundary!

I wished him a good day and continued driving back toward Babb. Before the road began descending again, a large pull-out opened up on the left and I stopped one last time. Not expecting much, I played a BOCH song and made some pishing noises. Within moments, six chickadees surrounded me! Boreal Chickadees!

With their curiosity and handsome features, Boreal Chickadees may just seize the title for Most Delightful Chickadees.

The chickadees were much more curious about me than their congeners (animals in the same scientific genus, i.e. the Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees). The Boreal Chickadees flew back and forth above me and called from nearby branches. I even nabbed some decent photos. I spent ten or fifteen minutes with them, barely believing I was having such a great experience with these elusive, high-altitude and high-latitude songbirds. It once again renewed my appreciation for living and birding in Montana, since this region is one of the few places this species dips into the United States from its main distribution in Canada.

This Boreal Chickadee might have been auditioning for the Chickadee Choir with how much it called to me.

Feeling satisfied and grateful for such a marvellous morning, I headed back to Browning, spotting only a few ravens and Rough-legged Hawks along the way. No matter. The BOCHs and breathtaking views of the Many Glacier Valley had made this a day I would never forget. Now if we can only get some snow.

Amazing Birding in the Adirondacks

The silhouette of Mt. Marcy, New York State’s highest peak, loomed in the distance as I bouldered the final steps up to the summit of Whiteface, the state’s fifth highest mountain. Upon reaching the top, I removed the bug net I’d been wearing, since the wind up here kept away the blackflies that plagued the rest of the alpine forest blanketing the mountain’s slopes. As a Peregrine Falcon soared by the cliffs underneath me, I picked a lichen-covered rock on which to take a seat and scarf down a PB&J sandwich.

Growing up in Montana, I didn’t know that scenery like this could be found in the East.

Ever since hearing about them, I’d always wanted to visit the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York, and as I munched away on my sandwich, I listened to the dry rattle of a Blackpoll Warbler from a stunted Balsam Fir thirty meters downslope of me. These warblers, which I’d never before observed on their breeding grounds, were one of the reasons I had driven up this mountain to begin with. Whiteface had extensive alpine habitat perfect for these high-altitude or high-latitude breeders. Several minutes later, an even bigger avian star sang to my right: a Bicknell’s Thrush.

The thrush’s descending song sounded like the musical representation of a loud whisper, and stood out sharply from both the sounds of other alpine bird species and the hikers complaining about the steep path to the summit. Bicknell’s Thrush, like the other Catharus thrushes, has a unique and haunting song that has caused many an American naturalist to write about it. Unlike the other thrushes in its genus, however, Bicknell’s has a tiny breeding range, encompassing only the highest mountains in the northeastern United States and the nearby Canadian maritime forests. Only 100,000 or so of these birds exist in the wild, and the region I was sitting in is a major stronghold for the species. 

The Adirondacks are a stronghold for Bicknell’s Thrush, a vulnerable species that breeds only in a few select areas of the northeast and winters in the Caribbean.

Whiteface Mountain may be only the fifth tallest peak in the Adirondacks, but it is by far the most visited by birders and other wilderness lovers. Franklin D. Roosevelt is to thank for this. Roosevelt, as the governor of New York and later the president of the United States, launched the building of a road to the peak of the mountain, providing jobs during the Great Depression as well as something arguably more important: access for all to a place that only the fit and the privileged could previously reach. Thanks to Roosevelt and his road, anyone can experience the thrill of being on top of the world—and hearing the ethereal songs of Bicknell’s Thrushes.

As far as ecosystems go, the Adirondacks hold two extremes not found farther south: the alpine forest home of Bicknell’s Thrushes and Blackpoll Warblers, and boreal bogs occupied by Black-backed Woodpeckers and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers. Before driving up Whiteface, I’d visited one of the area’s most famous bogs, the Bloomingdale Bog, to try my luck at the latter two species as well as a variety of others that were either less common or completely absent from the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania where I’d been working the last two months.

Biting insects not shown!

After parking at the entrance to the bog trail and coating myself in a three-inch layer of bug spray, I headed into the woods, and immediately recognized that the songs emanating from the brush and the trees differed from what I was used to in the Poconos. In Pennsylvania, a day with a White-throated Sparrow was considered a treat. Here, by comparison, their “Old-Sam-Peabody-Peabody-Peabody” echoed from every branch. Nashville Warblers dominated the chorus, barely allowing any other warbler species a chance to speak, and I spotted a few Hermit Thrushes hopping along the path. Half a mile from the parking lot, the trees gave way to large, wet meadows full of Alder Flycatchers, Common Yellowthroats, and the flies they fed on. Unfortunately, the flies fed on me, too, although the bug net around my head provided some defense.

My long weekend treated me to my best looks ever of Magnolia Warblers!

Hiking the trail, it took about an hour to find my first target, and it flew right up to me. While I’d seen Canada Jays before, I’d never seen them on the East Coast, and the bogs of the Adirondacks are a well-known spot for these northern breeders. So well-known, in fact, that visiting birders regularly feed Canada Jays at the Bloomingdale Bog—something that this bird evidently knew when it chose to perch only a feet from my face. After determining that I had no morsel to give, it retreated back into the conifers, but not before I’d gotten dozens of great pictures of it.

It’s a bit mind-blowing to see Canada Jays in the East after growing up with them in Montana.

The Black-backed Woodpeckers, a northern species that I’d seen in my home state of Montana, proved more difficult to observe. Several times, I spotted woodpeckers flying from stands of dead trees a second too late, with only a distant call confirming that these were Black-backeds. My frustration was short-lived, however, as a third one of my target birds revealed itself to me about three miles down the trail.

In Montana, Black-backed Woodpeckers are found almost exclusively in newer burn areas. It was odd to see one in a bog.

Speaking of Montana, most of the birds that birders target in the Adirondacks also occur out West. One exception: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, the last widespread Empidonax flycatcher I had yet to see in the United States. After some false alarms from similar-sounding Least Flycatchers, I finally nailed down a Yellow-bellied singing and flycatching from a bush adjacent to a wet meadow. I snapped a few photos of the life bird, admiring its darker yellow belly and thick eye-ring that set it apart from the other possible flycatchers in the area. Of course, the main identification feature I used to tell it apart was its song, a brief “che-bunk”.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Lifer!

The Bloomingdale Bog and Whiteface Mountain filled up my birding meter for the day, and I returned to Lake Placid, the mountain town where my AirBnB was located, to spend an evening relaxing and exploring the small downtown. Two themes stuck out in the store names and art pieces of the town, and they were both seasonal. Firstly, Lake Placid had been the site of not one but two Winter Olympic Games, and a large museum and shopping mall had been erected in the middle of town to remind all tourists and residents of this. The AirBnB I would be staying at for three nights sat next door to the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, and I drove past several event sites including a large ski jumping complex.

Walking through a bug-filled bog is a lot more tolerable when you’re treated to scenery like this.

Every business not named for the Olympics had the number “46” in it somewhere. I learned from a small magazine in the Lake Placid Public Library that this referred not to the 46 presidents (to date) of the United States, but to the 46 “High Peaks” of the Adirondacks—those over 4,000 feet. Inconveniently, three of the mountains had been subsequently shown to be less than 4,000 feet while another 4,000-footer had been completely overlooked. Nonetheless, mountaineers ignored these revisions and focused on the original 46. According to the magazine, approximately 13,000 people from ages 8 to 76 had climbed every peak to become a member of the “46ers Club”. Many of these 46ers finished by climbing Whiteface Mountain so their families could drive up and join them on the summit.

Of even greater interest than the 46ers Club, Chimney Swifts wheeled over downtown, while Mirror Lake State Park held a pair of nesting Common Loons. In fact, I would soon find out that every lake or pond in the area seemed to have its own breeding pair.

The next morning I found myself scanning the tall snags at the start of Blue Mountain Road for Olive-sided Flycatchers, another scarce boreal breeder that lived in the Adirondacks. I couldn’t locate any, but did manage to have a phenomenal time birding the twenty-mile dirt road that wound its way through three types of forest up to a town close to the Canadian border. Much to the delight of the mosquitoes and flies, I drove slowly with the windows down, listening and scanning for any boreal bird that wanted to show itself. My primary target was Spruce Grouse, which I did not see, despite seeing many signs of them—literally! This species is extremely range-restricted and endangered in the state of New York, and the only place it can be found is exactly where I was searching. On one part of Blue Mountain Road, I saw a sign posted every hundred meters about how sightings of Spruce Grouse should be reported immediately, as well as detailed guides to distinguish them from the much more abundant Ruffed Grouse (one of which I did see). I wasn’t too beat up about missing Spruce Grouse, though, since I’d seen a few in Montana and hoped to try again in August with my dad. Plus, I recorded fifty other species, including fifteen species of warblers and another Canada Jay. On one trail I walked I spotted moose tracks and a weasel!

There will be a test later!

That evening, I canceled my plans to relax and headed out in search of two target species that I hadn’t seen yet: Olive-sided Flycatcher and Boreal Chickadee. For an hour I walked a stretch of high-altitude highway where the chickadees had been reported but to no avail (although I did get to watch a very cooperative Black-backed Woodpecker forage for bugs), and visited a bog divided by an old railroad track that most certainly did not have Olive-sideds. I can’t be too upset, I thought as I drove into a sunset the color of a Blackburnian Warbler. While I’d missed a fair number of my targets, I’d gotten to cross a destination off of my bucket list as well as add a place to my “must return to” list. The Adirondacks definitely had that atmosphere of wilderness that so few places have these days, while at the same time having significantly fewer tourists than a national park. I knew I’d be back.