Tag Archives: forest fires

Birding the Burn 2025

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In many ways, my own birding journey began with my book Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests. That’s when my birding mentor, UM Professor Dick Hutto, showed me the critical importance of burned forests and the spectacular birds that colonize them. It’s also when Braden and I began birding avidly. Since then, we have explored burned forests many times and they have become some of our favorite places to bird. Last week, we were excited to check out one of our area’s newest burns, last year’s Miller Creek fire area, about an hour from our house. To reach it, we headed all the way out Miller Creek and then wound our way up dirt roads until we reached the burn at Holloman Saddle. On the drive, we passed through terrific riparian and conifer habitat, and Braden could pick out Yellow and Orange-crowned Warblers, Swainson’s Thrushes, and Willow Flycatchers through the car window. At about 6,300 feet elevation, we reached the burn, parked, and began exploring.

Researching and writing Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests set me firmly on my birding journey—and propelled Braden and me to start birding burned forests. The multiple award-winning book is a great primer for kids and adults on many little-known aspects of forest ecology. To order a copy, click anywhere on this block!

Thanks to Dick’s tutoring, I had some experience sizing up burns and at first, this one didn’t seem ideal. Three birds essential to “opening up” a burned forest are Black-backed, American Three-toed, and Hairy Woodpeckers. These birds hunt wood-boring beetle grubs in the newly-charred forest and along the way, drill out cavities essential for other cavity-nesting birds. But Dick’s research had shown that Black-backed Woodpeckers need larger-diameter trees to nest in, and the forest that greeted us now mainly seemed full of smaller-diameter trees. I also saw stumps where larger trees had already been removed—another huge problem in human (mis)management of burns.

Braden trying to locate a promising bird call in the Miller Creek Burn.

Through decades of well-intentioned Smokey Bear messaging, we have all been taught that all fires are bad, bad, bad. Even when a natural fire does occur, the forestry Powers That Be have taught us that humans must somehow “save” a burn by salvage logging it. For those unfamiliar with it, salvage logging involves going into a burn and removing trees that retain commercial value. The problem? These trees are exactly the larger-diameter trees that woodpeckers need to drill out their homes and, in the process, provide homes for dozens of other animal species. Salvage logging also often severely compacts forest soils and removes the seed sources (cones of burned trees) needed for the forest to regrow. This means that we now have to pay people to replant the burn site—when the forest was already perfectly equipped to replant itself.

Left to their own devices—i.e. without “salvage logging”—most burned forests recover quickly—and with a much greater variety of plant and animal life than before.

Nonetheless, shortly after Braden and I began walking, we heard the distinctive drumming of either an American Three-toed or Black-backed Woodpecker. These can be distinguished from other woodpeckers because the drumming noticeably slows at the end. To find out which bird was drumming now, we began making our way down a steep hillside toward some larger trees, but the burned ground proved very crunchy and we may have spooked our quarry before we got eyes on it. Disappointed, we climbed back up to the road, and continued walking. Fortunately, the forest around us sang and flitted with bird life.

Almost immediately, we began seeing Mountain Bluebirds, one of Montana’s most spectacular species. MOBLs are well-known “fire birds” and their vivid blue plumage looks especially striking against the blackened trunks of a burned forest. Today, we saw these birds everywhere. During our three-mile walk, Braden recorded seven of them, but we both agreed we probably undercounted.

By popular consensus, Mountain Bluebirds are the most stunning “fire birds” you’ll find in burned forests. However, another common fire bird, Western Tanager, might challenge that opinion. Did you know that bluebirds are thrushes? They are relatives of at least four other popular Montana thrushes: American Robin, Swainson’s Thrush, Varied Thrush, and Townsend’s Solitaire.

Suddenly, a large shape took off from beside the road and spread its wings as it glided down into the woods. “Dusky Grouse!” Braden exclaimed. It was one of the birds he most wanted to see since arriving back in Montana the previous week. Hoping for a better look, we crept down after the bird and, sure enough, espied it sitting quietly in the shadows. We enjoyed it through our binoculars for five minutes and then slipped away, leaving it in peace.

Before heading out, Braden told me, “I really want to see a Dusky Grouse.” This one obliged perfectly—and it was the first we’d ever seen in a burned forest.

Except for the mystery woodpecker that had drummed earlier, we had not heard a trace of other woodpeckers, but what we did hear was astonishing: wood-boring beetle larvae actually munching away inside of the dead tree trunks! I’d been told that one could hear these, but with my crummy hearing, I didn’t believe that I ever would. Sure enough, in several places, we listened to these big juicy grubs take noisy bites out of the wood!

Score! While we watched, this Hairy Woodpecker extracted a juicy beetle grub from a dead tree.

Finally, we also heard tapping on a large tree ahead. Braden got his eyes on it first. “It’s an American Three-toed,” he exulted. We could tell it was a female by the lack of a yellow crown, and we settled in to watch this amazing bird. It was working its way down the trunk, flaking away burned bark, presumably to check for insects hiding underneath. Once in a while, it stopped and really began pounding away after a beetle deeper inside the wood. It sounded like someone driving nails into cement!

Even female American Three-toed Woodpeckers can be distinguished from Black-backed Woodpeckers by having some streaky white on their backs—though not as much as on Hairy Woodpeckers (compare with previous photo).

As we continued our walk, we also saw Hairy Woodpeckers and another three-toed, this one a male. Woodpeckers, though, were just some of the birds making use of the burn. We got great looks at Townsend’s Solitaires, Red Crossbills, American Robins, Dark-eyed Juncos, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Chipping Sparrows, and heard both Red- and White-breasted Nuthatches. Most of these are classic “burn birds” and we felt exhilarated to see them.

Though we didn’t get eyes on one in the burn, we did hear a White-breasted Nuthatch—and saw this one the day before up nearby Pattee Canyon.

At a couple of places, unburned green scrubby areas abutted the fire boundary, and it was fun to see birds dash from these green protected areas into the burn for quick meals or nesting materials before dashing back to safety. Many birds, in fact, love to “set up shop” at the boundaries of such two contrasting habitats.

We never did find a Black-backed Woodpecker, but that did little to detract from yet another great birding outing. We vowed to return to this spot the next few years, hoping that no one would move in to “save” this precious forest that didn’t need saving. On the drive down, we also stopped at some of the lower riparian areas for great “listens” at MacGillivray’s, Orange-crowned, and Yellow Warblers along with our favorite empid species, Willow Flycatchers. Amid the current chaos of the world, our burn bird outing offered a fun, revitalizing—and yes, inspiring—break. If you’re lucky enough to have a burned forest near you, we hope you’ll check it out.

We can’t prove it, but it seems to be a really good year for Orange-crowned Warblers—not always the easiest birds to see in Montana.

Birding by 5-Ton Truck: a 100-bird Quest

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Having missed out on Braden’s epic Glacier birding day because of, you won’t believe this, a job, I have struggled for ways to console myself. Fortunately, birding opportunities are dove-tailing nicely with my new temporary career: delivering fire-fighting equipment by truck to various fire camps around Montana and Idaho. As you’ve probably noticed, it is shaping up to be an unprecedented fire season with record, early heat and little rain in sight. Just another reason that we need to make climate change our number one priority as a species (see Saving Birds. It’s Time.).

On the personal front, however, this radical summer has provided me with an interesting, useful part-time job driving for the Forest Service, and I have to say, I’ve been impressed with their entire operation. As I began my job, though, I asked myself, “How many birds could I see just driving around Montana and Idaho through the fire season?” I decided to set a goal of 100 species for myself—a number that seemed optimistic for this time of year, especially since I would have few opportunities to venture off roads into wildlife refuges and other birding hotspots. Below is my interim report, but first I should lay out the ground rules that I have set for myself, and they are simple: every bird can be counted from the moment I leave for work until I get back. I can’t count birds at my house or on my street, but everything else is game. So how goes the quest?

Who knew I’d be drivin’ truck at my age, but as in most of my life, trying new things has led to new birding—and writing—opportunities!

Well, so far I have driven approximately 3,000 miles and seen 59 species of birds, or about one new species every 51 miles—far more than I expected at this point. Let’s start with raptors. These are birds I expected to do well with because, duh, they are big and easy to see, and they sit on telephone poles. Strangely, I have seen only one Bald Eagle since I began and no Goldens, but have been delighted with Red-tailed Hawks, Swainson’s Hawks, Northern Harriers, Osprey, and a Prairie Falcon. My best raptor? A Ferruginous Hawk that I passed three separate times on my way to Ennis before I could positively ID it at 70 mph!

I had to drive by it three separate days before I could ID a Ferruginous Hawk near Ennis (actual bird not shown), but it was a major score in my “birding by truck” goals to find one of these.

Songbirds promised to be the most difficult category because they are almost impossible to ID at high speed—and often at low speed! Still, I’ve lucked out with birds such as American Redstart and Evening Grosbeak around the ranger station in Seeley Lake, and good looks at Western Tanagers, catbirds, and other species along river roads. While my truck was being emptied down at the Goose Fire south of Ennis, I walked over to “pish” (make a fake bird sound, not doing, well, you know) some bushes and was flabbergasted to see a Lincoln’s Sparrow pop up in front of me—maybe my favorite “truck bird” so far.

Without a doubt my favorite sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow made my “birding by truck” list in surprising fashion while I was delivering a load to the Goose Fire crew south of Ennis. (Again, actual bird not shown—it’s hard to get bird photos while working another job!)

On my way back from the Dixie Fire camp in Idaho, I found myself at dusk crossing over Lolo Pass and needed a break, so I pulled into the visitor’s center to see if I could hear a Flammulated Owl. No luck, but White-crowned Sparrows and Swainson’s Thrushes called in the twilight, and suddenly I heard a deep sub-woofer sound. “My god,” I thought. “That’s a Ruffed Grouse!” It wasn’t. Later, after consulting with Braden, I realized I’d heard, appropriately for twilight, a Dusky Grouse. I hadn’t even known they made a similar deep-bass call. It pays to have a well-educated son!

Hearing a Dusky Grouse at, well, dusk at Lolo Pass taught me an important new bird call—and made an unlikely addition to my “truck list.”

The question remains: will I make it to 100? It’s going to take some doing, and I especially need to get into some large groups of waterfowl or migrating shorebirds or songbirds, but I remain hopefully optimistic. Stay tuned for the next installment! And yes, I would sacrifice my goal for a good, soaking rain!

A Week of Birding Therapy: Day One

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I know it’s hard to believe but even underpaid writers living in Montana can get to feeling down sometimes. Covid certainly has not helped the situation since it and the gut-wrenching economic and societal upheavals it has triggered make the future look blurry at best. In this kind of situation, however, birders have a distinct advantage over non-birders. Why? Because we can immediately step outside for a dose of birding therapy. Last weekend, in fact, I decided I needed not one day, but a week of birding to try to set things right. I began with a return to a place that in many ways inspired my and Braden’s journey into birding: the Blue Mountain Nature Trail just south of Missoula.

It’s always a good day when you see shooting stars in the wild. We tried planting them in our garden when we moved in 15 years ago and the deer loved them. Only one highly-protected plant survives!

The nature trail takes hikers through a twenty-year-old burn that in years past has been a birders’ paradise with plenty of snags for woodpeckers and a lush resurgence of native plant growth on the newly-sunlit forest floor. The trail, in fact, is where UM biologist Dick Hutto—an expert on the value of burns to birds—took me when I began researching my book Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests. At the time, Black-backed Woodpeckers still lived there, but I wondered what it would be like some eight years later. I was not disappointed.

Though the Black-backed Woodpeckers have long departed for blacker pastures, Northern Flickers still take full advantage of the burned forest twenty years after the blaze.

Though I arrived a week or two early for the crush of cavity nesters about to descend on the forest, seeing my first shooting stars and Pasque flowers of the year immediately cheered me up. And the birds, while not abundant, were of the highest quality. On my way up I saw a pair of Townsend’s Solitaires, and heard Cassin’s Finches and my year’s first Williamson’s Sapsucker, which I IDed both by its higher, forest-edge location and its almost halting, hesitant drum pattern. Moving on, I spent time with a Hairy Woodpecker and Northern Flicker, and at the forested saddle where I usually turn around, spotted my year’s first Cooper’s Hawk flying furtively and low to the ground.

Townsend’s Solitaires are hands-down one of our favorite Montana passerines and nest in the root balls of fallen trees. This makes them perfect burn birds.

I had hoped to hear an Orange-crowned Warbler, but alas, was probably a bit too early for those. Back near the road, however, I was rewarded by Red Crossbills and the year’s first look at a dazzling male Yellow-rumped Warbler. Satisfied with my thirteen species, I continued on to the car, planning my next day’s trip to the Missoula Cemetery to see what I could find. Unbeknownst to me, fate was about to deal Braden and me a radically different birding destination for Tuesday . . .

Six Months and 245 Birds

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It continues to be a crazy year for everyone, and we feel deeply for all of those who are being directly or indirectly affected by the coronavirus, either through their physical or mental health, loss of employment, or simply missing their friends and family. It stinks. One bright spot is that many people are rediscovering the simple pleasures of spending time outdoors, and for many, birding is a big part of that. A reminder that Braden and I have posted several bird-related educational videos on my YouTube channel, including a Birding Basics that introduces people how to bird and some common birds to look for. Our friend, ornithologist Dick Hutto, and his wife Sue Reel, have also been posting some great short tip videos for you to look at.

Cassin’s Kingbirds were one of seventy Year Birds we found on our epic Eastern Montana birding safari.

As you can see from our last post, we haven’t been blogging as much—but we have been birding. In fact, once we returned from Israel, we decided to shoot for 250 Montana birds as our goal for the year. We spent an exhilarating week taking an eastern Montana birding safari, during which we saw more than 180 species of birds—including about 70 Year Birds. Braden also has been conducting an independent bird-related science project for his upcoming senior year of high school. So how are we doing?

A great thing about climbing a mountain is that it can put you at birds-eye level with spectacular species you usually just see from below. Meet a Townsend’s Warbler!

By the beginning of this week, Braden had seen 243 species of birds while I was pegged at 234. Now for non-birders it might seem like a shoe-in for us to hit 250, but believe it or not, we were (and remain) more than a little anxious about our prospects. For one thing, we have seen virtually every one of the “easy” species there is to see in Montana. For another, birds are “quieting down” now that they are in the process of, or have already finished, nesting, making them more difficult to find. In other words, every new Montana Year Bird we get from now on will take significant effort, luck, or both. Undaunted, we woke early Wednesday morning to investigate a new birding location for us just west of the town of Lolo. A logging road led up into the high country from there, and even more intriguing, it passed through a two-year-old burn area where we hoped to see one of our most coveted species, the Black-backed Woodpecker.

On the day, we located five of the dozen or so common warbler species that breed in Montana, including this stunning Yellow-rumped.

It was a flawless day, and we pulled over a couple of times to listen for birds in green, lusher forest. Thanks to Braden’s sharp ears and ear-birding skills, we immediately picked up a host of species including several kinds of warblers, Swainson’s Thrushes, Warbling Vireos, and a surprise flock of Gray Jays (I refuse to cede this species to Canada!). Driving further, we finally reached a burn area where Braden had seen a Three-toed Woodpecker several days before. The burn had mostly smaller trees and I wasn’t optimistic, but Braden played a Three-toed drumming call and a Hairy Woodpecker immediately responded. Then, a blacker bird swooped in. “Three-toed!” Braden shouted. Ka-ching. A Year Bird for me.

Black-backed Woodpeckers aren’t endangered, but can usually only be found in burned forests 1-5 years old that have NOT been salvage-logged. This one immediately leaped into our Bird of the Year competition!

A mile or so further, we reached an even better burn area with larger-diameter trees. I pulled over and we played a Black-backed drumming call. Within fifteen seconds, a gorgeous female Black-backed arrived to investigate, but that wasn’t all. Another half-mile up the road, we found a yellow-crowned male! “A Black-backed! We found Black-backed Woodpeckers!” Braden exulted several times. They were our first since doing our Big Year in 2016. The day was far from finished, either. Over the next couple of hours, we added Sharp-shinned Hawk to our Year lists, and I added two more that Braden already had: Fox Sparrow and Golden-crowned Kinglet, both of which Braden found me by ear. We also found Wilson’s Warblers on their nesting grounds—our first time doing so near Missoula.

The day brought our totals to 245 and 239 respectively. Will we make it to 250? We’re finally starting to feel better about our prospects, but stay tuned. We still have a lot of birding to go!

Birding the Burn—Again!

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If you’ve followed our blog, you’ve probably realized that some of our favorite places to bird are recent burn areas—that is, burn areas that have not been destroyed by so-called “salvage logging.” I first fell in love with burn areas while researching my book Fire Birds—Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests. The book highlighted the fascinating work of biologist Dick Hutto, who showed what vital habitat burned forests are for more than one hundred bird species. Yesterday, after dropping Braden off for a Boy Scout leadership weekend near Seeley Lake, I decided to hit a burn area we’d visited with Dick last spring—the Morrell Creek watershed.

Burn areas provide outstanding habitat to more than one hundred species of birds. Unfortunately, so-called “salvage logging” destroys the burned forest by removing the larger-diameter trees that woodpeckers and other birds most need for food and shelter.

I had two ulterior motives for going there. One was to scout out a good place to bird with some kids next month. The other was to see one of Braden’s and my favorite birds, the Black-backed Woodpecker. As I was driving in, I was dismayed to find that the “salvage loggers” had already ruined a lot of the habitat along the road, but I eventually pulled over at a likely place to explore, one with larger-diameter dead trees still left standing.

Forget bluebird boxes! If you really want bluebirds to thrive, leave burned forests alone. Untouched burned forests may be the favorite habitat of these birds, providing food, shelter, and safety from squirrels and other small predators.

Right off the bat, I encountered large numbers of two favorite burn species: Mountain Bluebirds and Dark-eyed juncos, who seem to prefer burn areas to almost any other habitat. The bluebirds especially were going crazy. Twice, I saw groups of three (two males and a female, I think) chasing and mobbing each other, sometimes driving themselves to the ground. A territorial dispute? The birding equivalent of a bar fight over a girl? I wondered.

It didn’t take too long for me to hear woodpecker drumming and my heart raced as I hurried through the trees hoping to see a Black-backed. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the woodpecker until it was too late and spooked it before I got a good ID. Curses!

While Black-backed and Three-toed Woodpeckers get more attention, Hairy Woodpeckers are also burned forest specialists. If you have any doubt, just look at how well this Hairy blends in with its burned background. Like the Black-backed and Three-toed, the Hairy Woodpecker is “hard-headed” enough to drill into the rock-hard wood of newly-killed trees for wood-boring beetle grubs and to drill out nesting and roosting holes.

I kept walking through the forest, finding a great sense of peace from the sounds of Morrell Creek splashing below and from the dark, silent sentries surrounding me. Eventually I located another woodpecker drumming, but only snatched two blurry photos of it before it, too, flew away. My photos, though, did show a yellow crown, narrowing the bird to a Black-backed or Three-toed Woodpecker. Unfortunately, it was a crummy day for light and photography and the next woodpecker I saw was too backlit for me to identify. I did see a Golden Eagle circling above and an American Dipper in the creek below. A Hairy Woodpecker also posed for a picture. Finally, as I was about to leave, I heard more drumming. I grabbed my camera from the car seat and chased it down.

Success!

On a high narrow snag sat a beautiful male Three-toed Woodpecker drumming his heart out. It wasn’t a Black-backed, but I didn’t care. Three-toed Woodpeckers, like Black-backeds, are specialists of burned forests and I was delighted to meet up with this fellow—and even more delighted that he’d found a beautiful, blackened home.

Though lighting conditions stunk, I was delighted to finally get a good look at this Three-toed Woodpecker drumming on one of many awesome “drumming posts” to be had in the burned forest.