We’re sharing our most recent birding adventure in reverse order. The day before chasing the wily White-Tailed Ptarmigan, Braden and I had an incredible outing at Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge (see also The Best Prairie Day Ever). Normally a go-to place for grassland birds and waterfowl, Benton didn’t seem likely for the birds we most wanted to see—shorebirds. Were we in for a surprise! Here’s Braden’s report.

Visiting the Pacific Ocean this summer and having several great days of birding there did nothing but increase my drive to find shorebirds. Between Monterey, the Bay Area and Point Reyes, I had seen species like Red Knot (my lifer), Black and Ruddy Turnstones, Red and Red-necked Phalaropes, Short-billed Dowitchers and more. Now, I was ready to see these and other species during my short stay in Montana before heading back to college in Maine. However, seeing shorebirds along the ocean, where there were miles and miles of great habitat for thousands of birds to choose from, was one thing. In Montana, shorebirds were often hard to find, even during their peak migration in August and September. Two autumns ago, my dad and I had birded hard, visiting the Ninepipe Valley half a dozen times as well as Helena and Three Forks in a quest to find shorebirds. While we had found most of our target species eventually (including finding Baird’s and Pectoral Sandpipers a handful of times and Western Sandpiper once), we found very low numbers across the whole season and missed our main target species, American Golden-Plover. This was fairly normal for Western Montana.

This year, on our way to Glacier National Park for an entirely different bird (see In Search of the Wily White-tailed Ptarmigan), my dad and I decided to seek shorebirds at refuges along the Rocky Mountain Front. I’d seen several reports of large numbers of Stilt Sandpipers at Freezeout Lake in past Augusts, and so we thought maybe we could find some of them there. And so, two days after I arrived home from California, we woke up at four in the morning and headed for Great Falls.

Unfortunately, we didn’t find that much at Freezeout. A few yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpipers picked the mud along the shoreline of the ponds, and we ran into a small flock of Baird’s Sandpipers right at the end of the driving loop. Overall, the refuge—famous for its spring Snow Geese—had been disappointing. However, that didn’t really matter given that we had gone to Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge first. 

Benton Lake normally did not seem to have good shorebird habitat. Every May, when we would come here to get our Upland Sandpipers and Chestnut-collared Longspurs for the year, we would drive by cattail marshes and open grasslands—not mudflats. The drought in the West this year had been changing everything, though. Bowdoin, one of the best refuges in Montana, had such low water levels that ducks were hard to come by. At Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, the ponds on Duck Road had disappeared by May. The upside? Some lakes that previously had been terrible for shorebirds suddenly had extensive mudflats filled with millions of tasty invertebrates for these arctic migrants to feed on. Which is what happened at Benton Lake.

In fact, as soon as we arrived at the first pond, a large flock of small shorebirds lifted off from some distant mud, speeding over another flock feeding in the shrinking lake. My dad set up the spotting scope and we quickly determined that both of these flocks were primarily composed of one of Montana’s most common fall shorebirds, Baird’s Sandpipers. As we scanned these favorite sandpipers, we marveled at how much individual variation there was within each group. Though every bird was of the same species, each differed slightly in color, size, shape or bill length, allowing us to learn about what features confirmed a bird as a Baird’s. Soon, I noticed several more Baird’s on the shoreline next to us less than ten feet away, allowing us to get even better views and great photos. However, Baird’s were not the only species out on the mudflats. During my scan of one of the more distant flocks, I spotted a taller sandpiper, with a longer, more curved bill and thick supercilium.

“Stilt Sandpiper!” I yelled, and my dad was able to glimpse the species before the whole flock took off again. That same flock held a few peeps that I struggled to identify, debating whether the bills were long enough for Westerns or if the colors were right for Least or Semipalmated. Despite having some practice with peeps, they always manage to confuse me.

We moved on to the next pond, where more shorebirds waited. More Baird’s flew circles around us, and we spotted a huge group of dowitchers lifting off in the distance, complete with both species of yellowlegs. Solitary Sandpipers foraged on the shore, alongside Killdeer and a few Leasts. Near the end of the final lake, I spotted two Pectoral Sandpipers, another one of our targets, picking invertebrates off the rocks right next to the car alongside our only Wilson’s Snipe of the day! We’d never had better looks or photos of any of these species, and never in these high numbers! At least the drought was creating some good.

Our most astounding discovery happened as we were picking through another flock of Baird’s Sandpipers, searching for something unusual. As I looked up, I spotted three striking black and white birds flying towards us, and my heart rate jumped. They landed a short distance away, and I stared at them through my binoculars: three Black-bellied Plovers, still completely in breeding plumage! While we’d seen these birds in Montana in previous years, we’d never had such an experience with their breeding colors! They hadn’t been on my radar at all, either, though perhaps they should have been.

My dad and I had finally done it. This was the shorebird experience we’d been hoping to have in Montana for years, and Benton Lake, not any other famous shorebird hotspot, had been the place to provide it for us. The next day we’d leave the prairie behind and head for the mountains of Glacier, though hopefully our year of shorebirds wasn’t quite through!