Tag Archives: woodpeckers

The Land of 10,000 Birds—and Deep-fried Snickers Bars

This year my daughter Tessa and I decided that for our daddy-daughter trip we should take Amtrak to the Land of 10,000 lakes. You got it. Minnesota! Our primary purpose was to visit my brother, his wife, and their two-year-old son, but we also timed our visit for an event I’d always wanted to see: the Minnesota State Fair.

For us Westerners, Red-bellied Woodpeckers are always a treat and I was glad to see a few during my week in Minnesota. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

I must be clear: this was not a birding trip, but as always, birding opportunities presented themselves and I came prepared. Especially since it was fall migration, I arrived in Minneapolis hoping to see a slew of warblers and other songbirds not easily found in Montana. My first morning there, while Tessa slept in, I stole my brother’s car and headed to a promising eBird hotspot, Westwood Hills Nature Center. I arrived optimistically, a feeling that blossomed when I encountered a group of birders who reported that they’d just seen more than half a dozen warbler species including Chestnut-sided, Black-and-White, Bay-breasted and American Redstart. Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived, the warblers vanished. Argh! I did find a Northern Waterthrush skulking in an overgrown pond and managed a Lifer, Philadelphia Vireo, but departed asking myself what could have been.

Sharks, not birds, were the highlight of the Minnesota State Fair!

Still, we had the fair to look forward to, and despite an incredible thunderstorm, made the most of it. We devoured the most delicious cheese curds ever, along with an entire bucket of cookies. My daughter also won a giant four-ton stuffed shark that we would have to drag back home on the train. And that deep-fried Snickers? Well, I wish I hadn’t done that.

My birding adventures weren’t over, however. My brother and his family happened to live only two blocks from the Mississippi River and on a whim I headed over there early the next morning. There, I ran into yet another terrific group of birders. Again, all the best birds deserted as soon as I arrived. “What the heck is going on?” I grumbled.

This was only my third time seeing diminutive, but spectacular, Black-and-White Warblers, and they alone satisfied my bird cravings for the trip. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Undeterred, I returned to the same spot the next morning, and this time my birding stars aligned. Right away, I found a flock of chickadees and settled in to watch them. Soon, I made a thrilling discovery: a Black-and-White Warbler gleaning insects in an oak tree! Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers arrived along with Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos. Even better, I saw three more warbler species: American Redstart, Nashville, and Wilson’s. As I was leaving, I also happened to take a photo of a weird-looking sparrow, but didn’t think much of it. That night, I boarded the train, happy both with our daddy-daughter experiences and my birding observations.

And guess what? When I got home, I showed Braden that weird-looking sparrow.

“Daddy,” he said. “That’s an Indigo Bunting!”

Uff-da! Minnesota, we’ll be back!

This surprise, drab Indigo Bunting provided an exclamation mark to my Minnesota birding outings. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Listers Anonymous Mid-Year Crisis Meeting

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Minutes from Listers Anonymous Meeting 7/1/18

Us: Hello.

Group: Hello!

Us: Our names are Sneed and Braden and we are Listers. It’s been exactly four hours and twelve minutes since we last posted on eBird.

Group: Amen!

Biologist Dick Hutto leads Listers Anonymous meeting with birders from Helena in the Rice Ridge Burn. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Us: I mean, we’re not just Listers. We love to watch birds and photograph them and write about them, but…

Moderator: Go on. We’re all friends here.

Us: Thanks. Yeah, but we’re also Listers. We like to keep track of how many birds we’ve seen in a given year, month, day—not to mention how many in every county and state and, well, you get the idea.

Woman with binocular strap scars on her shoulders: Oh, I know. Been there, Honey.

Us: The thing is, we’re really having a crisis right now.

Moderator: Go on.

Lister’s Dilemma: Great species, such as this Spotted Sandpiper, still abound, but NEW species are getting hard to find. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Us: Well, you see, last year we did a Montana Big Year. I recorded 207 species while Braden got 213. This year, I’m up to 196 while Braden has 204.

Man wearing birding vest, shaking his head: Have mercy. You are in trouble.

Us: We knew you’d understand. I mean most people, they don’t get it. They say, “200 species! Why that’s great! The year’s only half done and you’ve almost beat your old record already!”

Group: Lord, forgive them!

Us: Yeah, right? What they don’t realize is that the prime birding months are GONE! Sure, we need only ten or so species to break last year’s record, but seriously, it’s July! It’ll be a miracle if we can find that many in Montana the rest of the year.

Group: By the name of Sibley and Audubon, we feel your pain!

Us: What’s even worse, we aren’t even going to make it out to Far Eastern Montana this summer. No Upland Sandpipers. No Greater Sage Grouse. No Long-billed Curlews.

Woman with an arm tattoo “Big Year or Bust”: Children, you are in a fix!

Us: We know, but what can we do?

Moderator, polishing the lenses of his binoculars: Sneed and Braden, it’s one of the heaviest burdens for a Lister to bear. But you’ve got to fight it.

Group: Amen.

Moderator: You just can’t take “No” for an answer.

Group: Amen!

Moderator: You’ve got to keep getting out there, even when there’s less hope of finding a Year Bird than of getting a Democrat elected to Congress!

Group: AMEN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

For us, it seems like a record year for Lewis’s Woodpecker sightings, but would it be too much to ask to see a Black-backed? (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Moderator: You can’t give up. Every day and every night, you’ve got to sling your optics around your necks and follow every lead, examine every perch. And even in your darkest days, when not a new sparrow is spotted within a hundred miles of you, remember, we’re all in this together. Take strength from that, brothers.

Us: We will. Thank you. Uh, by the way, is anyone up for some birding?

(Sounds of trampling feet as the Listers stampede out of the building.)

Fire In The Hole!

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Braden here.

At 6:30 on Sunday, June 17^th, retired UM Professor Dick Hutto picked up my dad and me to go birding. In the passenger seat of Dick’s car was Dick’s former graduate student Hugh Powell, who was in Missoula to write an article for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Our mission was simple: see a Black-backed Woodpecker.

Townsend’s Warbler. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

We were headed to an area known as the Rice Ridge Fire (after a quick coffee stop), to the northeast of Missoula. The first time we had heard about this trip was at Montana Audubon’s Wings Across the Big Sky Bird Festival. A birder from Helena told us that Dick (who had an abundance of bird knowledge, specifically about birds that liked fire) was leading a field trip up to the burn and mentioned we might want to come along. My dad, who knew Dick well, jumped at the chance and asked Dick if we could get a ride up with him. Well, here we were.

At Seeley Lake, a large tourist area as well as great birding stop, we met the rest of the group, all birders of different experience levels from Helena. Knowing that this area was good for American Redstarts and Northern Waterthrushes, my dad and I persuaded the group to look around Seeley before hitting the burn. We quickly saw and heard 15 species, including the uncommon Willow Flycatcher, identified by its characteristic call, Fitz-bew.

We slowly made our way up Rice Ridge Road, stopping regularly to look for our goal, the Black-backed. The burn area had not been logged, thankfully, and every time we stopped Dick emphasized that it should not be logged, either—why not just cut trees near town instead? Burn areas have some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the country! (For more information on this, check out my dad’s book, Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests.)

Lincoln’s Sparrows are known for nesting in higher altitude wet areas. (Photo by Braden Collard)

No Black-backeds showed, but the birds did not disappoint—MacGillavry’s Warblers and Lincoln’s Sparrows skulked in the low brush, Bluebirds danced across the black trunks, and woodpeckers of many species drummed and called. On that one stretch of road we observed four species—Northern Flicker, Hairy Woodpecker, Williamson’s Sapsucker, and (new for the year) at least three American Three-toed Woodpeckers, the Black-backed’s slightly less burn-dependent cousin.

In one spot, sort of a mix of burn and old-growth with a creek running through it, we were amazed with the number of species. A dipper, nesting under the bridge. Great looks at a Townsend’s Warbler. Large numbers of Western Tanagers and robins, both burn-preferring species. Sharon Dewart-Hansen, a Helena woman who was first in the state for the year, pointed out a new call for us—the Whip Three Beers of the Olive-sided Flycatcher.

Dick was slightly disappointed at the low number of woodpeckers, saying they would reach their peak two or three years from now, but everyone else was ecstatic. It had been a great trip, Black-backed or not.

The number of American Three-toed Woodpeckers that are in burns is double that of those not in burns. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Celebrating Sapsuckers

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When each calendar year begins in Montana, Braden and I always wonder which birds we’ll see—and which we’ll miss. Many species are gimmes. For others, we really have to luck out. Then there’s a whole column of birds that lie in between these two extremes. For us, sapsuckers are in between.

Red-naped Sapsucker at Lee Metcalf NWR (photo by Braden Collard)

We have two kinds in Western Montana: Williamson’s and Red-naped. Both are migratory so we’re never sure when they’ll show up. This year, we just happened to make our first real effort at finding them on Earth Day, April 22. We headed to Pattee Canyon, a place we’d had good success with woodpeckers before, and followed our dog Lola up the mountainside.

At first, results were disappointing. For the first fifteen minutes, the only bird we spotted was a solitary robin. As we began discussing what the problem might be, however, we suddenly heard a loud, throttling, dribbling, drumming sound. Braden and I spun toward it.

“That sounds like a sapsucker!” I exclaimed.

“It sure does!” said Braden.

But what kind? Though we can pick out sapsucker drumming from that of other woodpeckers, we haven’t yet learned to distinguish Williamson’s from Red-naped—and we’d seen both up Pattee Canyon. Moments later, however, we got our answer.

Williamson’s Sapsucker bring ants to babies (photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

“Williamson’s!” Braden shouted as a boldly-colored male flew from one ponderosa pine to another. Within moments, we were immersed in a sapsucker extravaganza. We heard drumming from three different directions. Then, we saw two males squabbling over a female. It was by far our most spectacular sapsucker experience ever.

The next morning, we picked up Braden’s birding buddy, Nick Ramsey, and headed to what has become our favorite local birding spot, the gravel quarry. Though a chilly forty degrees, the sun cast a spectacular light over the Missoula Valley, and the birds did not disappoint. Within half an hour, our day count passed thirty species including a slew of other “In-between Birds” such as Sandhill Cranes, Common Loons, and Horned Grebes. As we walked along the Bitterroot River, however, fresh sapsucker drumming again startled us. We hurried forward and within seconds, Nick raised his camera and said, “I’ve got a Red-naped!”

Red-naped drumming on a Wood Duck box. The Wood Ducks paddled nearby, looking none too pleased! (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

For the next hour, we enjoyed a veritable Red-naped convention, hearing and seeing at least four or five of the birds, obviously flush with courtship fever. The only sapsucker day that could rival it? Our previous day with the Williamson’s! We finished our two-hour session with more than fifty species, including a dozen Year Birds.

In-between Birds rock.

Woodpeckers: Drilling Holes and Bagging Bugs by Sneed B. Collard III (Bucking Horse Books, 2018)

(To learn more about sapsuckers and other woodpeckers, check out my new book, Woodpeckers: Drilling Holes & Bagging Bugs!)