Tag Archives: Montana

2020 Wraps, 2021 Underway!

Our loyal followers have undoubtedly noticed that our posts have slowed in the past year. While we have been birding as much as ever, Braden has less time to write as college looms, and I too am busy plotting what I want to do when I grow up. Nonetheless, we want to wrap up 2020 for you and give you a taste of 2021 so far.

**Sneed’s Bird of 2020, the Northern Hawk Owl, a Lifer we found on Braden’s seventeenth birthday. May his 18th bring him as much birding luck!**

2020, in fact, was an epic year for Team Collard. It kicked off with our amazing trip to Israel and Jordan, and once back home we embarked on a mission of seeing 250 species in Montana. For perspective, my previous Montana record was 222 species in a year and Braden’s was 225, so we knew that we had our work cut out for us. Astoundingly, we surpassed 250 by last August, leaving the question, how high could we go? For me, the answer turned out to be 267, and for Braden, 274! With Braden probably heading out of state for college next fall, it seems unrealistic we could equal that number for 2021, so we’ve invented some new goals for ourselves.

Goal #1: to end the year with an eBird checklist in every Montana county. (Braden still has nine counties to bird in and I have ten.)

**2021 has already brought us amazing owl sightings including this Northern Pygmy-Owl near Bozeman and this studious Great Horned Owl in Meagher County, a new birding county for us.**

Goal #2: to see birds we’ve never seen in Montana before.

Goal #3: to reach a Montana Life list of 300 species (currently Braden is at 293 while I am just behind at 289).

How are we doing so far? Even though it is still January, we are making progress on all fronts. Last weekend, we embarked on a thousand-mile, three-day birding safari to the center of the state. We added Meagher County to our eBird list, and added two Montana Lifers: White-winged Crossbills in Bozeman’s Sunset Hills Cemetery and Pine Warbler—a bird that shouldn’t have been within 1000 miles of Montana—at a feeder in Red Lodge. We had hoped to add at least two other species, but the birding gods were against us. The White-winged Dove in Bozeman that has lit up the Montana birding boards got eaten by a Sharp-shinned Hawk about half an hour before we saw it! Or more accurately, we saw the bird being devoured! We had also hoped to see our first Gyrfalcon, but despite searching the White Sulphur Springs area for more than six hours, the majestic predator was a no-show. Sigh.

Thanks to the generosity of Susan Hovde, who not only discovered but has been feeding him, we were able to spend a glorious winter morning with this out-of-range Pine Warbler—a Lifer for Braden and Montana Lifer for me!

Nonetheless, we found a lot of other great birds and met some terrific other birders. In the process, we set a January species record with still a couple of weeks to go. We do not know what the rest of 2021 has in store for us, but we will keep you updated as we are able. In the meantime, we wish you peace and health, and offer our hopes that this year will see some meaningful progress not only in saving birds, but in protecting this incredible planet we all share.

**Though not much to look at from a distance, we were thrilled to see our first-ever White-winged Crossbills in Bozeman’s Sunset Hills Cemetery!**

Smokin’ Birds

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As always, we appreciate you sharing this page, and hope that all of you are staying healthy and sane during these difficult times!

Very Unhealthy. That’s what Missoula’s air quality had been pegged at for the last five days, thanks to smoke from the catastrophic fires raging across the West. Braden and I were supposed to stay indoors, but faced a huge problem: fall migration, when waves of birds were traversing the state. Birds we could only see now. What to do? Simple. Go birding.

Unlike our past few outings, we decided to stick to the Missoula Valley, and began by heading out to Frenchtown to see if we might catch a rare Sabine’s Gull or Greater White-fronted Goose. We arrived at our intended water-filled gravel pit and what did we see? Exactly one American Coot on the water. Then, we spotted some action in a few sad-looking invasive trees along the road. We sauntered over to discover a delightful assortment of American Goldfinches, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Lincoln’s Sparrows, along with a surprise Red-naped Sapsucker, a species we thought would be long gone by now. A duet of American Pipits flying overhead capped off our visit.

**Even though Yellow-rumped Warblers are our most common Montana warblers, it’s so much fun to see them moving through in big fall groups.**

After an uneventful stop at the Frenchtown Slough, we headed to our main destination, Mocassin Lane. This road is always hit and miss for us, but in previous years runoff irrigation has created muddy pools that sometimes attracted shorebirds. Since we’d had fairly dismal luck in our last few outings, we harbored no real expectations, but we hit the jackpot! Setting up our spotting scope, we identified a surprising assortment of ducks, and then focused in on our real treasure: shorebirds. “There’s a ton of Wilson’s Snipe out there,” Braden said, scanning slowly. “Oh, wait. I’ve got a Pectoral Sandpiper!” In fact, there wasn’t just one, but 17—the most we’d ever seen at one time. It was also the most snipe—13—we’d ever seen in one place. Other delights included a lone Red-necked Phalarope and more than twenty pipits. It was a great chance to study birds we rarely came in contact with, and we spent a good hour enjoying them.

**How many shorebirds do you see? This photo perfectly encapsulates how challenging it is to detect, observe, and identify species. See what you come up with—answer at the end of the post!**

https://ebird.org/checklist/S73744019

**Our outing yesterday was by far our best look ever at Pectoral Sandpipers. The striped breast and yellow legs are distinguishing marks for these handsome birds.**

After our big shorebird score, we thought we’d exhausted the day’s luck, but at Council Grove State Park we again landed amid a great assortment of birds including the Nuthatch Trifecta (Pygmy, White-Breasted, and Red-breasted), another Lincoln’s Sparrow, and a late-season Spotted Towhee. The highlight? A Merlin and American Kestrel perched face-to-face on a bare branch. We couldn’t tell if they were trying to make friends or face off like Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef in a spaghetti western. Either way, it was a great cap to a great day that netted us 55 species, firmly sending us into record territory for September birding. Meanwhile, our Montana Big Year totals now stand at 256 species for me and a whopping 263 for Braden. Take that, fire smoke!

**Falcon Stand-off: “A bird with a rifle will win over a bird with a pistol any time.”**

Shorebird Answer: Well, I count at least nine shorebirds in this photo including at least four Pectoral Sandpipers, one Killdeer, and four Wilson’s Snipe—with a couple American Pipits thrown in for good measure!

250 Montana Birds or Bust!

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As always, we encourage you to share this post in the hopes that it might keep education rolling during these difficult, unprecedented times. Thank you!

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.

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!

Listening to Birds

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Please follow Braden’s and Sneed’s birding adventures by subscribing to FatherSonBirding.com using the box on the right below. As always, feel free to share this with other birders, bloggers, editors at big high-paying publishing houses—anyone you wish!

Last week, to celebrate the final days of summer, Braden and I did something we’ve always wanted to do: bird banding. This, however, wasn’t just any bird-banding session. We were lucky enough to accompany the team of biologist Debbie Leick, whom we first met during last year’s Christmas Bird Count.

**When Braden and I got to hang with them, Debbie Leick and her bird banding and recording partners had a productive morning, capturing thirty birds of fourteen different species.**

Debbie works for MPG Ranch, a wonderful operation that supports a host of restoration and academic science. Debbie’s project? To see if she and her crew can count migrating birds by listening to their flight calls with a large array of microphones spread throughout the Bitterroot Valley. Before she and her team can start counting birds, however, they have to be able to distinguish their calls.

**Birds in Bags! Birds extracted from mist nets are kept warm in bags while awaiting banding, measuring, and for a lucky few, recording.**

Braden, Debbie, and I joined the University of Montana Bird Ecology banding crew at a trapping station up Miller Creek. The team had set up mist nets to capture birds, and when we arrived, the action was in full swing. A Swainson’s Thrush, Yellow-rumped Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, and a surprise (to us) Northern Waterthrush kicked off the bird parade. Some of these were recaptures, as evidenced by the bands around their legs. New or recaptured, each bird was carefully removed from its net, weighed and measured, and released. Some birds, however, got special treatment.

**This MacGillivray’s Warbler submits to a thorough health inspection by expert warbler wrangler Sasha Robinson before being banded, measured, and released back into the wild.**

When we caught a Townsend’s Warbler, Debbie’s colleague Boo Curry (and yes, no typo there) led me and the bird to a PRS or Portable Recording Studio. The warbler was gently placed in its own soundproofed recording booth and then Boo piped in some warbler calls (a bird’s version of elevator music) to see if she could get the Townsend’s to respond.

**A Townsend’s Warbler prepares to audition for Debbie’s flight call library. It passed with, ahem, flying colors.**

It did! In fact, it was the team’s first successful flight call recording of the season. Which just goes to show how painstaking field biology can be. The work of Debbie’s team, though, has great promise to improve not only our counting of migrating birds, but our understanding of them. Stay tuned for more when Braden and I follow up on their progress at a later date!