Tag Archives: shorebirds

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!

Fighting Our Way into Fall Migration!

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Spring migration traditionally sparks furious activity by both birds and birders. If you want to see a ton of species, you’d better hit spring migration—and hit it hard. Fall migration, on the other hand, is often pretty much ignored. At least Braden and I ignored it until the last couple of years. Then we discovered that we’d better get our tail feathers out there in fall if we want to see  some key species—especially shorebirds.

You wouldn’t think that Montana would be a great place for shorebirds. After all, shorebirds like, well, ocean shores, don’t they? Sure, but a surprising number of shorebird species pass through Montana every fall on their way to their wintering grounds. That doesn’t mean that finding them is easy! Especially here in western Montana, finding shorebirds can take persistence and dedication. We began our fall shorebird pursuit last week with a trip up to Ninepipe National Widlife Refuge, about an hour from our house. We were especially hoping to find a Short-billed Dowitcher, a rare Montana visitor that we still needed for our Year List. And guess what? No dowitcher. I did add Least Sandpiper to the year’s tally, and we enjoyed a terrific visit with a perched Peregrine Falcon, but clearly, (more) desperate measures were called for.

As the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always find the birds you want,” but we’ll take a visit with a Peregrin Falcon on any outing!

A few days later, Braden and I left the house at 6 a.m., heading for Helena, where large numbers of shorebirds had been reported during the past week. We made stops at Lake Helena and the Helena Valley regulating reservoir and saw some nice birds, including some pelicans, but . . . no shorebirds.

One of the great difficulties of IDing shorebirds is that they are often far, far away, necessitating hours hunched over a spotting scope. Unfortunately, our scope is not the best, either. Swarovski or Zeiss or Leica, are you listening??? We’d be happy to mention your name in the next ten posts for a free scope!

Heading south, we reached the day’s major destination, Canyon Ferry Lake. After spending thirty minutes on a fruitless search of one area, we finally reached the place hundreds of shorebirds had been reported just two days earlier. Thankfully, a few—a very few—still remained. That, however, was only the beginning of our challenge because this time of year, shorebirds are even harder to identify than usual. Mixed in with adults that are losing their breeding plumage are countless juveniles who, frankly, are a real pain in the butt to ID. Fortunately, Braden had been studying like crazy and was able to pick out Baird’s, Semipalmated, and Least Sandpipers—and a Year Bird for both of us, Pectoral Sandpiper. Hooray—but where had all the other shorebirds gone?

After much searching, we finally located a flock of Baird’s Sandpipers at the Willow Creek Reservoir near Harrison—along with a nice raft of American Pelicans behind them.

We decided to chase them by driving to a place neither of us had ever birded—Willow Creek Reservoir about thirty minutes south of Three Forks—and there, we found at least some of the missing Baird’s Sandpipers that had been farther north before. In fact, we found a flock of 64 of them, along with a pair of beautiful American Avocets. Even better, hiding among them were two “Semis” and a Western Sandpiper—another Year Bird for us! We drove the long route back to Missoula tired but satisfied. Fall migration doesn’t have the glamour and wow factor of spring, but for the patient, it can reap a beach full of rewards.

It takes some real sleuthing to discern and ID sandpipers, but Braden found this Western Sandpiper (center) and the Semipalmated Sandpiper (behind it) among a flock of 64 Baird’s Sandpipers (the other two birds)!

Winter Birding in Israel, Part III: Eilat and the Red Sea

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Our condolences to all those affected by the coronavirus—including those forced to cancel their well-earned vacations. We offer some small consolation by traveling to southern Israel to explore amazing birds of the desert and Red Sea. Enjoy, and don’t forget to share this with your birding buddies. Next week: Wadi Rum and Petra.

After our fabulous day in the Hula Valley, I rewarded myself by—you guessed it—catching the flu. Really. Not my first choice, but after a day in bed, Braden and I continued as planned and headed to Jerusalem for three days. The highlights were seeing a Eurasian Hoopoe on the walls of the Old City and grabbing a new Life Bird, Tristram’s Starling, literally on the Western Wall. Then, mostly recovered from my illness, we headed to more fertile birding territory: Eilat and the Red Sea.

The International Birding and Research Center (to the left of the closer salt ponds) and nearby Holland Park offer welcome relief to the hustle and bustle of Eilat.

For those who don’t know it, Eilat is on a major flyway between Africa and Asia and Europe. Some estimates place the number of birds flying through at half a billion per year, and it is especially known for raptor migration. Alas, Braden and I were not visiting during migration, but we still hoped to see some new and cool species. Our first full day there, we caught a cab to the International Birding and Research Center just north of town. The center is on the site of the former city dump and located next to expansive ponds used for salt manufacture. Since 1993, however, the sanctuary has been aggressively rehabilitating the site—something that was still very much in progress when we arrived.

Without a doubt one of our trip’s most spectacular birds, the Green Bee-eater had perched firmly atop our Must See bird list.

In short order we were rewarded with a double-handful of Life Birds, including Common Ringed Plover, a pair of Common Greenshanks, Blackstarts, Bluethroats, a Green Bee-eater, Marsh Sandpiper, Rock Martin, House Crow, Long-legged Buzzard, and Braden’s Bird of the Day, a Great Gray Shrike! As a bonus, four Greater Flamingos lounged in a salt pond in the distance.

While there, one of the center’s guides confidentially told us that even better birding might be had at a place called Holland Park, a short mile or so walk away. Braden and I set off through the desert—only to end up at a kibbutz nowhere near the park! Some nice kibbutzniks straightened us out, so we resumed our hot march south along the highway. And that turned out to be a great thing because right next to the road, we spotted our only Hooded Wheatears of the trip.

This Hooded Wheatear introduced us to a totally new group of delightful birds that we’d only been vaguely aware of before the trip.

Holland Park. What can I say? I think this may be my favorite birding location of the entire trip. Hiking up a dry wadi filled with interesting native plants, Braden and I quickly left the bustle of Eilat behind and felt like we were in authentic habitat. We found only two additional Lifers—Sand Partridge and Mourning Wheatear—but the Blackstarts, Palestinian Sunbirds, Sardinian Warblers and other birds kept us plenty entertained. And our day’s birding hadn’t quite finished.

Israel’s extensive development of its tiny Red Sea shoreline doesn’t leave much room for wildlife, but these shorebirds found refuge behind a fence in a shipping yard. Center are two Common Ringed Plovers. Lower and Upper Left are Kentish Plovers, with Little Stints in between.

That afternoon, Braden cajoled me into taking a walk from our hotel along the Red Sea so that we could look for White-eyed Gulls. We found them, but also happened upon a huge group of Kentish and Common Ringed Plovers, Little Stints, and Dunlins huddled down against a stiff afternoon wind blowing up from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. All in all, it was an amazing day of birding—and far from the last of our trip.

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Dynamic Spring Birding in Deer Lodge

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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.