Tag Archives: curlews

Owls, Curlews, Mergansers, and Willets: Spontaneous Birding Spectacular, Part I

4 Replies

Today, Braden and I would like to especially welcome our increasing number of international readers. Our posts are now regularly viewed by birders from more than a dozen different countries, and new countries seem to pop up every week. Thank you for your interest and we invite you to comment and share your own birding interests and experiences! Oh, and check out the quiz in the last photo caption!

I hadn’t intended my visit to central Montana last week to be a birding trip. Rather, I had been invited to Butte to speak at the annual conference of the Montana Library Association, and so had planned a simple, quick overnight. A few days before the conference, however, things got more complicated. Braden has heroically gone without a car during his first three years in college, but as he looked forward to his senior year, we all agreed it was time for his own wheels, and I had been doing a little “car scouting” while he finishes up his semester abroad in Costa Rica. Wouldn’t you know it, I found what looked like the perfect used vehicle in Billings. “Hm,” I thought, “if I got up early, I could drive to Billings on Thursday, look at the car, and make it back to Bozeman (most of the way to Butte) ahead of the conference.”

Long story short: I bought the car, and Friday morning, found myself with an entire morning to bird between Bozeman and Butte.

Brown Pelicans are my favorite birds, but American White Pelicans definitely make the top 100. Unlike their brown cousins, AWPEs prefer inland freshwater habitats for breeding. I’m guessing these might be heading to Bowdoin NWR near Malta, but they could be on their way farther north.

Three Forks ponds can be very hit and miss. I had actually stopped there on my way to Billings, but hadn’t found anything too notable except some American White Pelicans. This morning, though, I decided to try them again before heading up Bench Road. Was I in for a surprise! The first bird I spotted in Three Forks ponds was a bird I had never before discovered on my own: a Red-breasted Merganser! Not only that, I found seven more in the next pond over. These northern breeders pass through Montana only during migration—and not in large numbers—so I felt particularly fortunate to see them. The ponds, though, held other surprises.

Red-breasted Mergansers can be distinguished from Common Mergansers by their spiky “punk” hair-do, gray sides (here, under water), and of course, that reddish band on their breasts.

Beyond a much larger group of pelicans, I saw a good assortment of ducks and then spotted birds with bold black-and-white wings fly to an island in the second pond. Shorebirds, I thought excitedly, running back to the minivan for my spotting scope. Other than Killdeer and Spotted Sandpipers, I had never before seen shorebirds at Three Forks, and my pulse picked up as I focused in on a group of eight gray birds at the edge of the island. I quickly ran through all the possibilities in my head, examining their size, color, and bills. My conclusion: Willets! They were obviously migrating, and this was the first time I’d ever seen them moving through this part of Montana. Apparently, I was not alone as the birds’ timing landed them on the Montana Rare Bird alert for the day!

This group of eight migrating Willets surprised me by making the Montana Rare Bird Alert! They also tested my powers of ID elimination.

From the ponds, I headed up Bench Road. This was the first place Braden and I ever saw Burrowing Owls, and I hoped to see them again today—but didn’t hold out a lot of hope as I’d missed them my last couple of times here. The road, though, holds a wealth of other birds. In the lower stretch, I pulled over at the marsh to enjoy my first Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Marsh Wrens, and Cinnamon Teals of the year. It was the road’s upper stretch that most excited me, however.

Cinnamon Teal. Most stunning duck ever? Maybe not, but definitely part of the conversation!

As I climbed up over the first “bench,” I smiled at the many Horned Larks and Western Meadowlarks singing along the road. After a couple of miles, though, I thought I saw a larger bird landing along a side road. Could it be a Burrowing Owl? I turned the minivan down this sketchy, rutted path and after a couple of hundred meters saw a large shape in a field. It wasn’t a Burrowing Owl, but almost as exciting—my first Long-billed Curlew of the year! This greatly interested me because Braden and I had never birded this road so early in spring and I didn’t realize LBCUs would already be here. Turning the van around, though, I spotted four more calling in flight, obviously ready to get busy breeding!

There is something magical about seeing a large, majestic shorebird setting up a breeding territory in our nation’s grassy heartland!

I also encountered the first of three women who were birding as a team in their own cars. She said she had spotted a couple of Burrowing Owls earlier and that one of her friends was up on Baseline Road (which tees off of Bench Road) at a BUOW burrow. I decided to head there, but before I reached it, saw a medium-sized brown shape flying low to the ground across a field. I hit the brakes and raised my binoculars. “Yes!” A Burrowing Owl! Not only that, a second one hunched down next to it. I snapped a poor photo from my car, but didn’t want to disturb them by getting out. BUOWs, though, are incredibly adorable animals and these two had obviously excavated a burrow here at the edge of a field. I hoped the farmer would notice them and not unknowingly evict them!

Come plowing time, I am hoping the owner of this field spots the burrow of this delightful Burrowing Owl couple.

I continued up the road and sure enough found the other burrow that was staked out by the friend of the first woman I had met. The owls didn’t show right away, but soon popped up for a distant view. These appeared to be in much safer habitat than the field of the first pair. After fifteen minutes, I started the minivan back up, wishing the owls luck and hoping Bench Road would be a home for them for years to come. On my way back down the road, I stopped at the marshy area for one last treat—a great, brief glimpse at a Virginia Rail!

Montana birding at its finest, cruising (almost) deserted prairie roads for amazing grassland birds.

That evening in Butte, after my first talk at the conference, I paid my first visit to Butte’s Lexington Street ponds and wetlands, which were undergoing a major birder-friendly construction project. I set up my scope outside of a chain-link construction fence and saw a great variety of ducks, along with a Western Grebe—a bird that had never before been reported there! As I was packing up, I heard a familiar rattling call and turned to see two gorgeous Sandhill Cranes touching down a couple of hundred meters away. As wonderful as this all was, however, my spontaneous birding weekend had only just begun. Stay tuned for Part 2.

A teaser for our next post: Can you tell which white geese are of special interest and why? If so, send us your answers!

The Road More Pipit (Grassland Birding Part 2)

4 Replies

The burbling call of a Long-billed Curlew echoed across the dry fields as my dad and I stepped out of the minivan to listen. We stood on a dirt road about 20 miles west of Malta, craning our necks as we squinted at the sky, searching for a tiny dot that might be a Sprague’s Pipit. The unnamed road ran smack-dab through the middle of some of Montana’s best pipit habitat, and after missing several other prairie and marsh specialists at Bowdoin that morning (including Baird’s and Nelson’s Sparrows and Sedge Wren), we had come here for one last-ditch effort.

Even for us, it’s hard to get our head around the fact that Long-billed Curlews we’ve seen in, say, Morro Bay, California (above) fly to the grasslands of Montana to breed. We’ll take ’em, though!

Unfortunately, we had limited pipit experience to draw on. We’d only seen one before, in a thunderstorm on a road-turned-to-gumbo last July. Nick Ramsey had spotted that bird as we had frantically knocked mud off our car wheels, so we’d never even found the species by ourselves—making locating one now seem like a long shot. Thankfully, few clouds loomed on the horizon, meaning we probably wouldn’t have to deal with another thunderstorm.

Our search tactic involved conducting five-minute point counts every half mile, getting out of the car and listening for the birds. This was how most pipits had been detected on this road in the first place, and thanks to the science project I’d worked on last summer, I knew roughly how long to stay at each place before designating it “pipitless” and moving on. 

The first couple of points produced good birds, but nothing of exceptional interest. Vesper and Grasshopper Sparrows sang from the tufts of grass along the fence, and a few acrobatic Franklin’s Gulls spun in the sky above us. At places with more dense shrubbery the dry, buzzy trills of Clay-colored Sparrows joined the grassland chorus.

Our “Road More Pipit” also boasted the greatest numbers of Lark Buntings we’ve ever seen!

Then the scenery changed. Rather than parking next to fenced-off rangeland, the habitat on the left side of the road turned into a more natural-looking swath of native shortgrass prairie. As I got out of the car, I swore that I heard what eBird describes as the sound of “a cascading waterfall of tiny pebbles.” I’d been continuously playing the song as we’d driven between points to instill it in my head, so I couldn’t tell if what I’d heard was just my own brain playing back the song of a Sprague’s Pipit or not. Then, I heard it faintly again. As my dad grabbed his camera from the car, I set off into the prairie after the sound, flushing a pair of Ring-necked Pheasant from a bush. I climbed several ridges, watching my footsteps for rattlesnakes, until it sounded like the bird flew right above me. I looked up, and suddenly saw it—a tiny speck hovering in the blue space between the clouds, singing away.

Here’s a Sprague’s Pipit—Not! If we were to show you a photo of one, it would look like a tiny dot in the sky. This American Pipit, though, looks almost identical to its much rarer cousin, so we ask that you pretend.

After showing it to my dad we just stood there watching what would have been the most incredibly boring part of birding for many people—but not for us. The pipit never descended, and instead slowly drifted further and further away until it was out of sight. We’d found a Sprague’s Pipit on our own! Of course, we knew that they were in the area, but locating an individual bird was still no small task!

The pipit was just the beginning of the prairie species we spotted on that road. As we kept driving, we began to pass large numbers of displaying Lark Buntings, which flew up about five feet before floating down, compared to the pipit’s display hundreds of feet above the earth. We passed a cattle grate, flushing a quintuplet of Sharp-tailed Grouse, several of which posed on the side of the road for us. Some of the Lark Buntings flashed white rumps, revealing themselves to be Bobolinks instead, which had a very similar display to the buntings, and in a very short-cut grain field I spotted three Chestnut-collared Longspurs. We’d ticked off most of Montana’s prairie birds on just this one road! Thrilled and relieved by our success, we got back on Highway 2 headed west, ready for the birds of Glacier National Park.

There’s no better reason to celebrate than finding your very own Sprague’s Pipit—though maybe graduating high school comes close!

Great Grassland Birding

6 Replies

Please share this post. Prairie birds will thank you!

After our Montana Big Year last year, Braden and I opted not to simply chase a high species count this year. In 2021 we decided to a) explore new places b) find some new Life Birds and c) revisit favorite birds we’d spent time with before. When we set off on our five-day central Montana trip last week, however, neither of us realized what a rich grasslands experience we would encounter.

It began with an almost mandatory annual pilgrimage to Benton Lake NWR. We both tend to think of Benton as a place full of ducks, grebes, and other waterfowl—including a dependable pair of Black-crowned Night Herons—and we found these birds in abundance. Immediately upon entering the refuge, however, I hit the brakes for an unexpected surprise: a pocket of four Upland Sandpipers! While not rare, these ungainly-looking dinosaur holdovers always delight us, and to see four together constituted a birding bonanza. What’s more, we found three more UPSAs at Benton, along with the other great grasslands shorebirds Long-billed Curlews, Willets, and a lone Marbled Godwit.

Clockwise from above: Upland Sandpiper, Long-billed Curlew, & Willet

Our day had just begun, however, as we decided to try to find Stilt Sandpipers at a fairly isolated lake north of Grass Range. Again, we found the sandpipers, which were hanging out with at least nine Bald Eagles, but it was the grassland birds along the dirt roads that most impressed us. These included four more Upland Sandpipers, Western Meadowlarks, Eastern & Western Kingbirds, Lark Buntings, and at least four other kinds of sparrows. One of these was a drab bird Braden never expected to see on our trip—Brewer’s Sparrow. Though we were well within its range, we’d never found one in this area, which just shows how much you can discover if you get off the beaten birding path!

With their bold “pied” colors, Lark Buntings are one of our favorite grassland species—but spotty in many areas.

As we were approaching a left turn, I suddenly stopped and whispered “Look ahead.” About twenty yards in front of the car stood a Sharp-tailed Grouse—one of six we found on this particular route. Not only that, it posed beautifully giving us by far our best looks ever at this species. This species helped compensate for our miss on Mountain Plover, an unfortunately uncommon species extirpated from most grasslands by habitat loss or modification, especially the removal of bison and prairie dogs, and the conversion of short-grass prairie to many types of agriculture. Hopefully, we’ll find one next time!

Braden and I never turn down a grouse while birding, and this Sharp-tailed gave us one of our best looks ever.

My second favorite grassland bird experience of the trip happened two days later at Bowdoin NWR, when we had a wonderful experience watching a Grasshopper Sparrow singing on top of a stubby cactus. With my crappy ears, I can no longer hear this bird, but this one decided to give me a break by posing in full view where we could watch and photograph it. Which may leave you wondering what our BEST grassland bird experience of the trip might be? I’ll let Braden tell you about that next time!

Beginning birders often dismiss sparrows as LBBs—Little Brown Birds—but close inspection reveals a marvellous diversity of patterns and subtle coloration. Grasshopper Sparrows, for instance, are identified by their yellow faces and single thin brown line extending back from the eye.

Dynamic Spring Birding in Deer Lodge

6 Replies

Are you enjoying our posts? If so, we’d love it if you subscribe to FatherSonBirding by filling out the box down in the right-hand column—and urge your friends to sign up too :)!

When life hands you an opportunity—especially a birding opportunity—you’d better take it. We learned that the easy way last weekend when Phil Ramsey, dad of our birding buddy Nick, offered us a two-night stay at the Clark Fork Coalition’s amazing Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch. Phil couldn’t join us, but on Friday Nick picked Braden and me up in his truck, and off we went.

Thanks to Montana’s abundant spring daylight, we reached Deer Lodge with plenty of time to bird and after a quick dinner at 4Bs, explored the back roads leading south from the prison. Nick’s top target for the weekend was a long-shot, Greater White-fronted Goose, while Braden especially wanted to see his first Golden Eagle of the year. Me? I had my own goal: Long-billed Curlews, a species Braden and I had seen only once before in Montana. Altogether, Braden figured that for the weekend we might pick up eight new year birds while I predicted ten.

This was Braden’s and my first good look at an (intermediate morph?) Swainson’s Hawk and the bird cooperated beautifully, sitting on this post for a full five minutes.

As we drove, we spotted a number of nice, albeit expected, birds: Mountain Bluebirds, American Kestrel, and a scattering of ducks. We also got to observe a beautiful Swainson’s Hawk on a telephone pole—the first real surprise of the weekend. As we turned right, down a dirt road, however, I suddenly shouted “Look out there!” Sure enough, three Long-billed Curlews hunted insects under beautiful evening light. Before the evening was out, we would tally 20 more of these graceful bizarre-looking birds, a number of them dancing out their courtship rituals.

Several pairs of curlews were feeling especially frisky but the females seemed a bit antagonized by the attention. Maybe the males should have opted for dinner and a movie?

Part of the weekend package was a personalized tour of the ARCO superfund ponds with Gary Swant (see post “For Birders, Every Year is a Big Year”). Nick, Braden, and I had been lucky enough to bird with Gary the last Christmas Bird Count, but we were eager to see how spring species differed from the area’s winter visitors. As expected, waterfowl were out in full force—including Eared, Horned, Western, and Red-necked Grebes. We enjoyed Red-breasted Mergansers and Nick spotted a Sora, but the real surprise was the number of loons—eight, all told. “That’s easily the most we’ve ever seen together,” Braden exulted.

We saw at least twenty Red-necked Grebes during our day with Gary—and enjoyed every single one of them! It’s easy to see why.

Leaving the ponds, Gary took us to a place near Anaconda that we’d never birded: Dutchman’s Slough where, within minutes, Braden nabbed his top weekend target, Golden Eagle. Then we noticed three wading birds in the distance and assumed they must be more Long-billed Curlews. One of them was, but the other two were something we’d never seen: Marbled Godwits in the middle of a grassy field! After bidding a fond farewell to Gary, we rounded out the day with one more great score—Solitary Sandpiper in a large puddle on the south edge of Deer Lodge.

We were sad to be leaving the next morning, but an unseasonal snow storm urged us home. On the drive, however, we decided to stop at Rock Creek, the site of Braden’s Eagle Project (see post “Five Valleys, Many Birds”). Almost as soon as we got out of the car, we spotted three more stunning year birds: Chipping Sparrow, Hermit Thrush, and shockingly, Lark Sparrow. The latter two were most likely just migrating through and we felt lucky to nab them as they often prove difficult to find in Montana.

The Clark Fork Coalition’s Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch proved the perfect HQ for birding the spectacular Deer Lodge Valley.

So how did we do for the weekend? Well, we shattered our estimates for how many new year birds we might see, adding more than twenty to each of our lists. More important, the trip drove home a lesson for every birder: during spring migration, anything can show up—and does! Well, except for the elusive Greater White-fronted Goose! Sorry, Nick.