Prairie Ice

Birding Montana opportunities

2012-01-30T14:18:00.001-07:00

Lazuli Bunting

This summer I will be involved with a couple of birding adventures in Montana so if you are interested in seeing some great birds and incredible landscapes, check these out -

In late May I will join David Sibley at the Pine Butte Swamp Guest Ranch for their Birding the Mountains and Prairies With David Sibley Workshop. I will do the introductory few days of the workshop and then David and I and Keith Hansen will co-lead the rest of the week. David will then co-lead a second workshop with Keith Hansen. Here is a link for David's posting on the workshop (he does a great job of describing the pace and expected birds) and a link to Keith Hanson's website.

McCown's Longspur

What can I say. I led this workshop a few years ago and really enjoyed the staff, the people that joined me at the workshop, and the place. I feel very privileged to be asked to do this again, but even better, I get to work with David and Keith this time around. Oh and the birds - Pine Butte is wonderful location to base a birding workshop from. There is relatively easy access to a wide variety of habitats within a short drive of the ranch and on the ranch property as well. Hopefully we can even find Northern Hawk-Owls like they did in 2010 as well as Long-billed Curlews, McCown's Longspurs, and Lazuli Buntings. Did I mention that I am really excited about this workshop? I am assuming that most people reading this will be familiar with David Sibley (Sibley Field Guide to the Birds of North America and more), but Keith Hansen is also a great bird artist and has been a favorite of mine for many years. Keith has a great talent for imagining unique perspectives for his subject and then rendering them in a accurate and artistic way. My favorite is an illustration of a Prairie Falcon flying over a Greater Sage-grouse lek as see from above and to the right of the falcon. Two great bird artists and me.
For a complete itinerary, description, and price check out the workshop link above.

Another opportunity to experience Montana birding with an organized group, this time traveling around a good chunk of the eastern part of the state, is a tour run by Peg Abbot with Naturalist Journeys.

Black-tailed Prairie Dog

I will be helping Peg out for a few days as she tours around some of the places I know best - the prairies of Eastern Montana. The details can be found here. This promises to be a great tour full of wonderful prairie wildlife including the possibility of observing McCown's Longspurs, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Sprague's Pipits, Baird's Sparrows, and Long-billed Curlews - all while standing in one spot! Not just one individual either!

Baird's Sparrow

There is also a good chance that while we are standing there a Ferruginous Hawk or Swainson's Hawk might fly over or the Marbled Godwit will come holler at us. Lots of other great prairie wildlife will be found on this trip I am sure.

American Bison

Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide

2012-01-18T19:21:00.008-07:00

Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide. Steve N.G. Howell.

Cloth 2012 $45.00 ISBN: 9780691142111 520 pp. 975 photos and figures. 66 maps.

Perhaps the best way to begin this book review is to repeat a quote that Howell included in the front pages - "The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." from Isak Dinesen because this book certainly made me feel the need for a salt water cure for my longing to be at sea, observing these birds again, this time with this book in hand.

Howell packs so much information into this book. It begins with the Preface, a concise overview of our knowledge of seabirds in general and continues in the "How to Use This Book" section where Howell explains the general outline of this work, including how the book will treat the confusion of common names this group of birds has accumulated as a result of their rather dynamic taxonomic status, names often at odds with current AOU standards. However, I think that H0well presents "a realistic course" through this confusion with the taxonomy and common names he uses. My favorite is the use of Steller's Albatross for the species currently known as the Short-tailed Albatross; a name that epitomizes Howell's belief in using names that "evoke a sense of ocean exploration and discovery". Even the Acknowledgements contain an impressive list of who's who in seabird knowledge from throughout the world.

Early on Howell recommends that the reader takes time to read the Introduction, but this plea is in the "How To Use This Book" section, which like the Introduction, is an often overlooked part of any book so I am going to repeat the recommendation here - READ THE INTRODUCTION. Howell's Introduction is a excellent primer on tubenose birds, oceanography, taxonomy, field identification, bird topography, molt and conservation. All of this is discussed in the context of the seabirds he focuses on in this book, but so much of the information can be applied to birds and birding done away from the ocean that this is well worth the price of the book by itself, even if you never see a tubenose in you life.

However, this book isn't even close to being done with the good stuff at the end of the Introduction. Howell follows with seventy species accounts of the species of petrels, albatrosses, and storm-petrels found within 200 nautical miles of the North American shoreline from Alaska to Panama, including the Caribbean. This is nearly half of the currently recognized tubenose species in the world. Each species account is thorough and includes a species overview of identification summary, taxonomy, names, and status and distribution sections, followed by a field identification section that includes portions on similar species, habitat and behavior, and a description of the bird in flight and on water along with molt information. Following the text is a series of photos depicting the species and often similar species as well. Also included is a distribution map. Often the species accounts also open with an evocative photo depicting the species at a distance. The species accounts are full of identification tips gained from what I can only imagine are countless hours at sea observing these birds. Tips such as noting the relative heavy body and narrow wings of the Hawaiian Petrel for navigating the windy North Pacific versus the lighter body and broader wings of the similar Galapagos Petrel which inhabits less windy tropical regions. Howell has also included a couple of my favorite tidbits of seabird history including the inland record of the Manx Shearwater in Montana and the fact that Steller's Albatross used to breed in the Caribbean.

This book is large and heavy, which somewhat limits it's usefulness in the field, but I am willing to overlook this given the density of information contained within. My only other wish for this book was something that I probably wouldn't have noticed if Howell hadn't pointed it out for me. In the Townsend's Shearwater account Howell has inserted a plate of this shearwater and three similar species painted by one of my favorite field guide artists, Ian Lewington. When I saw this plate I wished that there would have been more of them in this book, just to illustrate what the idealized versions of the different species might look like to compare with the excellent selection of photos. But the book is already big enough and I am not sure what Howell would be able to give up to include more information and keep the book size somewhat manageable.

Howell has done a tremendous job throughout this book in evoking a sense of ocean exploration and discovery through seabirds and I think that he succeeds admirably in his goal of synthesizing the present knowledge of tubenose identification. He has also succeeded in fueling my desire to experience the magic of pelagic birding again, to be back on the ocean and wonder about the lives of these iconic and mostly little know wanderers of the open ocean.

Montana Snowy Owl

2012-01-18T19:15:00.001-07:00

When I was back in Fort Peck before Christmas, I was able to find a few of the many Snowy Owls that have been reported across the U.S. this winter. One day Laura and I found seven owls on a drive in south Valley County. No Snowy Owls this far south yet.

Yellowstone River Edge Ice

2012-01-17T17:38:00.001-07:00

Rough-legged Hawks again

2012-01-16T16:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I got to get out north of town with my friend Jeff. We didn't find much except for a large number of Rough-legged Hawks. One bird we found was sitting in the grass next to a spring (above).

But the bird that was the most fun to watch we first observed on a steep dive into the dense grass next to the road just ahead of us. We watched it emerge from the grass shortly after it disappeared, but it didn't look like he was carrying anything in his talons. We lost track of it as it flew south and we were distracted by another bird. We found him again just down the road on a fencepost and it was apparent the it had indeed captured a small mammal of some sort.

We watched as his finished the meal in just two large bites, then flew back over the grassy area to look for more.

Billings, Montana Sunrise

2012-01-15T16:29:00.002-07:00

We have had some amazing sunrises and sunsets the last few weeks. Most of the time I haven't had my camera with me, but I did this morning.

Tanzania Wildlife Management Area program

2012-01-13T08:40:00.003-07:00

This video describes the Wildlife Management Area concept in Tanzania that I was involved with in 2010. Much of it was filmed in the Enduimet WMA where I taught the village game scouts how to contuct resource monitoring. The video is quite well done and describes the challenges the WMA's are facing and includes a number of people I worked directly with at Enduimet or at USAID.
It was wonderful and very rewarding work, but I feel that we had just begun to get our training to the point where it would be effective and then we left with no follow up. It's not just that I didn't get to go back to Tanzania either- I really felt that we were making a difference and really just getting started. The people that I worked with were very appreciative of us being there and I don't like the feeling that I have not been able to follow up and help out more.

The Crossley ID Guide Review

2012-01-08T19:36:00.001-07:00

The Crossly ID Guide: Eastern Birds by Richard Crossley.
Published by Princeton University Press (a review copy was provided to me by Princeton University Press). Cloth Flexibound. 2011. $35.00 ISBN: 9780691147789 544 pp. 7-1/2 x 10 10,000 color images.

This guide has been out for a while and has garnered a fair amount of press and hype. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about it being able to live up to the promise of being a "revolutionary" field guide before I even saw it despite the author being a co-author on another guide that I really grew to like after initially having some hesitation (The Shorebirds Guide). I am inclined to be more critical of anything that is over-hyped and I have hesitated to do this review because I wanted to see if my initial bias would temper over time like it did with the Shorebirds guide.
I was not overwhelmed by my initial impression of the book although there were aspect of the book that I liked. I was surprised by the size of the book - certainly not a a guide I would take on a walk with me which limits it's field utility from the start.
After quickly scanning through the pages I started reading the Introduction, an often overlooked but important part of a field guide. I found it peculiar that Crossley began with a section titled "I Don't Like Text" - in which he proceded to state that he "soon get(s) bored with the introductory section of any book" - and then followed that with more introductory text than either my field guide standard, the Birds of Europe by Sevensson, Mullarney and Zetterstrom, or The Sibley Guide to Birds. The good news is that, despite his dislike of text, Crossley delivers a good introduction to his book and birding in general.
The plates are intended to be the "heart and soul" of the book and they are an impressive accumulation of photos taken by mostly one person. The Introduction proceeds to explain the intent of the plates including the explanation that the plates were not fully captioned to help the reader learn from the captioned images. The only problem with this idea is that there is no feedback to ensure that the readers guess on the age and/or sex of the bird is either verified or rejected. This is one of the strengths of the Shorebird guide - the answers to the quiz photos are located at the back of the book. There are also a number of plates where it is obvious that all the photos were taken on the same occasion and the diversity in lighting and and individuals is limited. This could have been rectified by bringing in photos from other photographers, but it seemed more important for Crossley to claim that he took most of the photos than provide better photos for his guide.
I also still cannot see how I would use this book to better identify a bird I have observed in the field. I rely on my field guide to help me make an educated guess on the identity of a bird I am observing, usually by helping me differentiate between similar species. First, as I noted above, I wouldn't have this book in the field and once I would be able to consult this guide, I still have a hard time figuring out how to use this book to aid in bird identification. Perhaps I am just unable to connect with Crossley's plea to "think of and use this book differently than any other guide" I own. And perhaps that is the issue. He states a few times that the book is intended to be interactive, but then really misses being interactive. Maybe this shouldn't have been a guide book in the traditional sense. Maybe Crossley should have created a guide that was revolutionary and different. What if it could be really interactive? A few years ago that might have been a moot question, but today it isn't.
I agree with Rick Wright that this should have been the first truly electronic guide and his assessment that all that is good with the book would get better and most of the shortcomings would disappear (see his review linked above for a more thorough discussion of this concept). Maybe then this guide would truly be interactive and could have really lived up to its hype of being revolutionary and turning birding upside down. I have a feeling I would have really liked (and used) this guide like that. As it is, I may refer to it occasionally if I am looking for another reference when I am working on an identification, but it will not be the first book I turn to, nor the second either.

Gifts from the North

2011-11-27T10:38:00.006-07:00

Yesterday I was finally able to get out and do some exploring around Billings. I wound up north of town on a beautiful clear day. From one point I could see in the distance the Crazy Mountains, the Beartooth Mountains (pictured above), the Bull Mountains, and the Pryor Mountains. There weren't may bird species to be found. A few Canada Geese on a frozen slough, a Common Raven here and there, and a small group of Horned Larks pretty much rounded out the list. Except for the Rough-legged Hawks.

Once I dropped in to the basin north of Billings near the town of Broadview I began to see Rough-legged Hawks. Lots of them. At one point I stopped and did a quick complete scan of the horizon and found eleven individuals. The photo above shows what I most often saw in the steady wind - a hawk hovering in the wind with it's head down scanning the fields below for something to eat.

One bird was hunting from the top of the eastern basin edge and after floating and hovering over the nearby fields, and he wound up perched on a powerpole just up the road from me.

At one point he dove off the pole into the field across the road from me, but apparently missed and returned to the pole.

Montana Milk Snake

2011-10-30T19:04:00.004-06:00

A few days ago a co-worker found this little beauty in her garage. I held on to him for a few days before turning him loose in a more appropriate location.

This was one of the largest specimens of this species I have seen. He was about 18 to 20 inches long.

I had hoped to find a few of these guys after moving to Billings and hopefully this won't be the last one I am able to see.

The Unknown Raptors of Tanzania

2011-10-11T19:00:00.009-06:00

One year on and I am still trying to figure out a few birds from Tanzania. Mostly they are raptors. I have ideas on most of them as noted below, but if anyone can help out with the ID's I would really appreciated it (click on each image to enlarge).

The next two images were taken in the Pugu Hills. This bird was out a ways and these are the best images I could manage. The overall darkness of this bird (beyond the apparent exposure problems of the photo), broad, short wings, primaries and secondaries paler than the forewing, pale legs, and the pattern of banding in the tail suggest a Brown Snake-Eagle to me.
[ I apparently am on track with this one]

This bird was photographed on the Kenya border northwest of Kilimanjaro at the old natron mine. It is obviously a harrier and appears to be a first year male just molting into it's first adult plumage. Based on the length of the wings in comparison to the tail and the lack of chestnut streaking on the flanks, I am guessing a Pallid Harrier.
[This one was humbling. Now that I have the suggested ID, my comment that it is obviously a harrier is obviously wrong. Eastern Chanting Goshawk. At least it still looks like an immature bird molting into adult plumage]

This photo was taken in Tarangire National Park. One of the large dark eagles but appearing to be not as heavy built or as large as the Golden Eagle I am familiar with. Lesser Spotted Eagle?
[suggested that this is a Tawny Eagle. I can go with that]

This one was taken at Tarangire National Park. Immature Brown Snake-Eagle?
[At least I can ID Brown Snake-Eagles. This one was confirmed]

This one has me stumped. It was taken northwest of Kilimanjaro and appears to be a buzzard of some sort to me. However, the combination of streaking (rather than barring) on the breast and light, unmarked throat and upper breast do not match any thing in my field guide. Anyone?
[Ayer's Hawk-Eagle. Sounds good to me. Doesn't quite match my field guide, but I am very aware of the range of variability in raptors and it does make sense to me]

The next two were taken on the northwest slopes of Kilimanjaro as it flew high over me. I am puzzled by the shape of this bird. It was quite large and I can't figure out any large raptor with the long tail and the apparent feather pattern and coloring especially in the primaries. Great Sparrowhawk? European Honey-Buzzard?
[This one was suggested as another Eastern Chanting Goshawk. I am having a harder time with this one based on my limited resource, but I can see why this species was suggested. The color and shape and size seem right but the pattern on the primaries is what is throwing me a bit. Maybe I just want it to be something different too much.]

Elk Watching at the CMR

2011-09-26T19:44:00.005-06:00

This weekend on our way home after an wonderful get-together with friends that included a pig cooked in the ground, we stopped by the elk viewing area on the Charles M. Russel National Wildlife Refuge near the old Slippery Ann field stations site (where I once worked many years ago). This site is located along the Missouri River just west of where Highway 191 crosses the river along the auto tour route (Click here for a detailed map of the west end of the refuge (PDF)).

We arrived just before sunset and joined a rather small contingent of elk watchers lining the road. Even before we opened the windows and side doors of the van we could hear a number of elk bugling near us and we could see even more about a half a mile away along the river.

This is what the fuss was all about.

This guy was the ruler of the piece of ground and associated cow elk near where we were parked.

This guy wasn't but wanted to be.

Antarctic Widlife - A Visitor's Guide

2011-08-12T19:33:00.010-06:00

Antarctic Wildlife - A Visitor's Guide. Published in the U.S. and Canada by Princeton University Press (a review copy was provided to me by Princeton University Press). First published by WILDGuides in the U.K.
Paper 2011 $22.95 ISBN: 9780691150338 240 pp. 5 x 8 159 color photos.

I like this book. I was a bit skeptical that the promised information could be packed in this small of a book, but it delivered. This is a big plus for those of you planning a trip to Antarctica where packing a heavy book (or books) in addition to the litany of required outdoor gear and cameras can be quite a chore. To date, the best Antarctic wildlife book is The Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife: Birds and Marine Mammals of the Antarctic Continent and the Southern Ocean by Hadoram Shirihai. It is complete, but it is also heavy. The Antarctic Wildlife A Visitor's Guide can't compete at this level, and it doesn't even try. At the onset the author states that this book is not a comprehensive biological reference work, nor is it a site by site visitors guide or a guide to the amazing underwater life of Antarctica. It is, as stated, a photographic field guide to wildlife of the Antarctic peninsula, "devised to meet the wildlife watching needs of passengers on Antarctic cruise ships leaving from South America" And it is all of that. The author does a nearly impossible chore of providing enough information to satisfy the advanced and well prepared wildlife watcher as well as those whose interests in Antarctic wildlife are peripheral to setting foot on their seventh continent.

Much of the book is composed of well done species accounts of the animals you might encounter while on a cruise, each accompanied by representative photos. The more popular species such as the penguins have a greater number of photos which illustrate behaviors and life history, while others like the albatrosses have more photo to help differentiate species. The information and accompanying photos are concise, but are more than adequate to identify most of the species you could encounter, from flowering plants to albatrosses and elephant seals, and everything in between.

The visitors guide also breaks down a typical trip to Antarctica into species associated with the Beagle Channel, the Drake Passage, and the Antarctic Peninsula to help refine your identification possibilities and provides a description of each of these distinct regions. In addition the book also describes conservation in Antarctica, what a typical trip to the Peninsula entails, what the trip might look like at different times of the year, how to enhance your trip, and much more.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone planning on making a trip to Antarctica. I have made this trip a number of times over the last 15 years. Early on I didn't have many field guides to pack because there just weren't any to be found. Then came the time when I had at least three, if not more, on each trip. Now, if I could only take only one book with me, this would be it for sure. Now I just need to figure out how to field test it.....

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross. Antarctic Peninsula, December 2008.

Spring photos Vol 2 - Cedar Waxwings

2011-08-04T19:01:00.003-06:00

This spring the Cedar Waxwings got the jump on the winter crab apple-eating Bohemian Waxwings and ate the apples before they were apples. We had over 100 Cedar Waxwings working over the blossoms in May. I doubt there were many apples produced this year on that tree at all. These guys completely cleaned out the blossoms by the time they were done.

Flying Penguins

2011-07-29T10:14:00.000-06:00

I have always told people that penguins can fly. They just happen to fly in a different medium than we are used to birds flying in. Now it turns out the sometimes they even fly in the air. Not like this, (check it out anyway), but in air under water. Now I suspect you are getting really confused. Let me explain. I found out about a recent study via the BBC Wonder Monkey blog that documents just how penguins fly in the air under water. The research hypothesizes that penguins reduce drag in the water by using air lubrication to promote fast ascent when Emperor Penguins jump out of the water. You may have seen films of penguins (or observed swimming penguins in the wild) and noticed long streamers of bubbles trailing the swimming birds when they accelerate. That observation in the BBC film Blue Planet by the authors of the study, and a discussion about the reason for the bubbles over a beer before a conference, lead to a more detailed study. They determined that the bubbles were not the result of cavitation nor did the the enhanced ascent speed of the penguins result from buoyancy, but was a result of a reduction in the frictional and form drag on the penguin from air bubbles released from under the feathers of the bird.
In my observations of swimming penguins, I always assumed the that bubbles were emerging from under the feathers and I noticed it was most evident when the birds were accelerating, but I had no idea that it enhanced the speed of the birds in the water.

Check out the blog post here.
Or read the actual PDF of the research paper in the Marine Ecology Progress Series here.

Spring photos Vol 1

2011-07-28T20:25:00.000-06:00

My last out-and-about post described my lek therapy morning with the Greater Sage-Grouse. I also was able to enjoy a morning of Sharp-tailed Grouse lek therapy as well. It wasn't the best morning for photography, but every morning on a lek is a great morning.

On my way home I visited a pair of Mountain Bluebirds nesting in a bluebird box along the highway.

Western Meadowlarks never sounded so good this spring.

One of the highlights of my travels back and forth between Billings and Fort Peck was a Sandhill Crane nest just off the highway. I was only able to stop and take photos one morning before the spring floods rendered that route to Billings impassable.

The next time I was able to travel this route the birds were gone and the nest was overgrown with cattails.

"Birds of Montana" cover art

2011-07-27T20:02:00.003-06:00

As my friend Jeff Marks recently said "get them while they last."

The print shown above is by the world-renowned wildlife artist Al Gilbert, who was recently featured in Birding magazine for his artwork for the book "Trogons: A Natural History of the Trogonidae". Mr Gilbert has completed an original watercolor of a Boreal Owl for the back cover of the Birds of Montana book and is working on a painting for the front cover. The book authors are working with Gil to produce a small number of signed limited-edition prints of the Boreal Owl illustration to help raise funds for the book. Although the Montana Audubon website currently doesn't have much more information, you can contact them here for more information on price and availability.

Transitions

2011-07-18T19:38:00.006-06:00

Nope, not turning into a butterfly. However, it might just be an apt metaphor for this blog as I am emerging from a self-imposed exile due to a few months of changes and general mahem. A forthcoming post will provide a fast forward through the last few months of events in photos, but for now here is a quick rundown - weekly commutes between Billings and Fort Peck, four hours one way through June; co-leader of a Montana Audubon bird tour to Westby in early June with Ted Nordhagen and a fine group of fellow birders; the rest of the week was spent leading field trips and doing one presentation for the Wings Across the Big Sky Montana Audubon bird festival in Glasgow; the next week the movers showed up and packed the house up, we sold the house and on Friday that week we bought another house in Billings (which is slowly starting to feel like home not just a vacation rental of some sort); the next week I attended a BLM wildlife biologist tour in Eastern Montana around Miles City while Laura arranged and unpacked to the best of her ability; followed by a week of training on the ins and outs of the Migratory Bird Treat Act in Cheyenne, WY. We are now settling in to our new house and we are still trying to find that box that has the salt shaker in it. Did I mention the floods?

Other transitions have occurred slowly over the last couple of years too, but the realization of their passage just became more apparently recently. It looks as if the "Ice" portion of this blog will not be represented much here any more. My time with Oceanites - the arrangement that allowed me the opportunity to visit "the ice" and along the way Patagonia - has apparently run it's course. I have been outsourced by grad students with better connections and more free time to spend away from work and home. I remain hopeful that somehow things might work out, but for now it appears that it is a rather distant possibility. I knew it was going to come to an end sooner or later but it still is very disappointing that the possibility is no longer perched in the not too distant future.

On the up side - I have a rather large new landscape to explore right here around Billings. The Mussleshell River watershed is probably one of the most out of the way places in Montana and I am looking forward to exploring the prairie and foothills in this relatively brand new landscape for me. The Beartooth Plateau and Yellowstone Park are only a couple of hours away, and the Pryor Mountains and the Crow Reservation are just to the south. The Crazies, Castles, Little Belt and Big Belt mountain ranges are all within striking distance. And the Yellowstone River is not that much farther away than the Missouri River was for me ~~at home~~ in Fort Peck (there are just a few more houses between me and the river now). We still miss our friends and we really miss our family, but we don't have to drive 20 miles for milk anymore (oh and there is this great barbeque joint just down the street).
So what do I have planned for Prairie Ice in the new future? Well, there are at least four book reviews waiting in the wings, I need to finish the story of Pronghorn 166 (and what a good story it is), and there are a few other posts lurking in the corners of my mind where they ran away and hid when I started writing this sentence.
So, if anyone is still checking in, there is a pulse.

Featherscapes

2011-04-27T19:29:00.000-06:00

Lek Therapy

2011-04-26T18:58:00.005-06:00

After too many weeks of way too much snow, too much time in a car, too many miles on the road, too much time in front of a computer, and too much time away from home, I was able to spend a few glorious spring days at home last weekend. The weather was perfect - little to no wind and clear skies. Perfect for watching grouse early in the morning so on Friday night Benton, Addie and I headed out to a nearby Greater Sage-Grouse lek to set up the blind in preparation for an early morning on Saturday.

My helpers.

The little dark spot in the photo is my blind at the edge of the lek. The next morning just as dawn was gracing the clear star-filled sky, I pulled off the main road and began my hike to the blind in the dark. As I was walking in I heard my first Mountain Plover of the year call from somewhere to the west of my route. I arrived at the blind and got set up and I could hear the birds displaying to the left and right of the blind. But nothing in front.

As the horizon began to get lighter, I still couldn't find a bird in front of the blind. Just as it was getting light however the females began to show up on the lek and the birds coalesced around the hens in front of me.

As the hens moved through the lek, the display activities really picked up.

The displaying continued and the usual fights broke out here and there.

There were about 30 males on this lek but it was hard to get a good count with my limited field of view.

It was a spectacular morning and just what I needed.

One of my friends called this "Godzilla in a feather boa"

Featherscapes

2011-04-25T10:59:00.001-06:00

Warrior

2011-04-23T09:57:00.002-06:00

One for Mom

2011-04-22T21:06:00.002-06:00

Montana Compass

Migration in Montana

2011-04-08T05:05:00.004-06:00

It started mid afternoon on Thursday. Laura and I were returning to Fort Peck from Billings when I noticed the first flock of Sandhill Cranes push north up the Big Dry Arm of Fort Peck Lake. We pulled over so we could listen as they passed overhead, heading north west towards the town of Fort Peck. When we got close to Fort Peck I could see a flock heading right over town. We called my Dad to let him know but no one answered the phone. "Must be out on the porch watching the cranes already" Laura said. And sure enough there he was when we pulled up. He told us they had been streaming over for most of the afternoon.

As we watched I noticed a few Red-tailed Hawks at the edge of the crane flock. And then there were a few more. And more. And MORE.

This photo is all Red-tailed Hawks. It just one portion of this group of birds and there were a number of groups like this. There were probably at least a thousand birds that passed overhead in about an hour, although it was tough to count because they were high in the air, scattered, and moving around in twirling kettles as they took advantage of the winds from the southeast. In that short time we also observed one Cooper's Hawk, a Prairie Falcon, four American White Pelicans, a number of Northern Harriers and one Long-billed Curlew. It was spectacular. Everywhere I looked there were groups of hawk twirling north.

Occasionally a bird would come over quite low. The overcast clouds produced light that was not very good for taking photos. I wound up with lots of silhouette photos and found out just how dirty the sensor on my camera is again.

Featherscapes

2011-04-05T19:58:00.002-06:00

Featherscapes

2011-04-03T20:26:00.001-06:00

Featherscapes

2011-04-02T19:45:00.002-06:00

Featherscapes

2011-03-30T19:52:00.002-06:00

"Spring"

2011-03-28T19:41:00.003-06:00

This is what Northeastern Montana looks like right now. 105 inches of snow and counting since the beginning of October. I bet we will have more than 120 by the time the snow ends (if it does). Normally we would be doing sage-grouse lek surveys in a week but I doubt that there will be much surveying done this spring (at least not anytime soon).

Last Friday I came home from further south and found large flocks of Western Meadowlarks and American Tree Sparrows along the highway - apparently stacked up by the the deep snow further north.

New Neighbors

2011-03-08T20:34:00.002-07:00

These guys are hanging around my new temporary neighborhood.

The Story of Pronghorn 166

2011-02-15T20:23:00.018-07:00

Last year about this time I witnessed the capture of a Pronghorn doe. She was spending the winter just west of Glasgow with a large group of other Pronghorn. She was singled out and captured by a crew using a helicopter and a net gun and then fitted with a GPS collar as part of a research project by Andrew Jakes. The number written on her ear tag is 166. I have previously posted about her capture and location over the summer.

A few weeks ago I received a phone call from Andrew. He had just completed a flight to see if the animals wearing collars for his study were still alive after this extraordinarily snowy winter that has been so hard on these animals. Surprisingly, most of his animals were still alive, but he informed me that 166's collar was emitting a mortality signal (if the collar does not move a certain period of time, the signal changes so that researchers know the animal is most likely dead).

The news wasn't entirely unexpected with the number of animals dying this winter. However, what he told me next was rather remarkable.
Andrew told me they thought she was next to the highway and that she had probably been struck by a vehicle.

That wasn't the remarkable part; lots of Pronghorn have been struck and killed by vehicles this year.
The remarkable part was where it happened.
The mortality signal from her collar told us she was about 9 miles west of Jordan, Montana near highway 200. This location is approximately 70 miles south of where she was captured last winter and in between was Fort Peck Lake and miles of rugged Missouri River Breaks habitat not generally known as winter habitat for Pronghorn.
I had just driven that highway a day earlier and went right past her. My path and hers had crossed again, although at the time I didn't know it. I had noted a number of dead antelope on that trip and I even thought I might know exactly where she was at.

Ten days ago Kelvin Johnson, FWP biologist from Glasgow, and I headed south to find her. We found plenty of Pronghorn on our drive south, all gathered together trying to make it through the winter.

The animal I remembered in the ditch was a buck and about four miles for the spot we were given. About a half mile from the location, we found the remains of about four road killed Pronghorn and figured she must be in this group. The receiver picked up no signals and none of the heads we could find had an eartag. We continued down the road to our given location and found a lot of Pronghorn wintering just south of the highway. But we didn't find 166. No signal. Nothing.

This is the area we were searching in.

We walked around a bit and went to the top of the ridge near the location, and turned the antenna in all directions, but still no signal. We headed home disappointed to not have found her and speculated a number of different ways to explain why we couldn't find her. My sentimental favorite was that she had just stayed curled up for so long that the mortality signal had kicked on but she was still alive and now was wandering around further south. There were two other live Pronghorn with collars in the area (both had made a similar trip as 166), but we didn't pick up the signal from those animals either. Maybe the receiver wasn't working well. Maybe.....

Another flight early last week put to rest my idea that she was still alive. The location of the mortality signal was a bit elusive, but it was still there. A new location, not that far from the old location, was passed my way.

Last Friday I was once again heading down this highway on my way home. I really wanted to be the one to find 166. She had become a special animal to me so I borrowed an antenna from the FWP biologist in Billings and a receiver from another FWP biologist in Roundup and headed north. I had gotten out of town much later than I had wanted and it was starting to get dark when I got near the new location. I knew that the signal on the collar quit for portions of the day but I didn't know when that was. I told myself that if I put the antenna on the receiver and wasn't able to pick up a signal, I would have to try again another day. It was quite cold and blowing when I stepped out of the car and turned on the receiver. I tuned in the frequency, plugged in the antenna and immediately heard loud beeps coming from here collar. I was very close.

The signal directly led me down the ditch on the north side of the highway about a quarter mile when I noticed a leg sticking out of a snow bank and then the top of a Pronghorn head. I pulled the antenna off the receiver and waved the receiver over the head. No signal. Must not be her but I know she is close. As soon as I put the antenna back on the receiver it became very apparent that the antelope I was looking at had to be her. I brushed the snow back from around her neck and there was the collar. I had found her. It was close too - I later found out the transmitter was scheduled to turn off at 5:00 pm and the time on my photos was 4:46.

Above you can see the back of her head with the yellow ear tag. There was a small chunk of wire stuck in the eartag - a testament to the trials these animals undergo each year during their migrations. The prior week she must have been too well buried in the snow for us to pick up a signal from her collar.

Above is a GoogleEarth map where I plotted the known locations we have of 166 from the VHF transmitter on her collar - where she was captured (in the middle), her summer location (top, just north of Limerick, SK), and her final location (bottom) - a line nearly 170 miles long. It was amazing how near her capture location was to a straight line between her summer spot and the point of her demise. But the more interesting part is going to be when we get the GPS locations from her collar to see what she did in between those points and the path she took to get that far south after the snow started. So - more to come regarding the story of Pronghorn 166 and her extraordinary journey.

More Pronghorn

2011-02-02T21:18:00.008-07:00

Jack Frost descended on northeastern Montana with a scythe this year and he has been busy using it. I received word today that the Pronghorn deaths from train collisions in the last few weeks is now at least 700 animals across the the northern part of Montana.
As I drove south from Fort Peck to Billings this morning I witnessed first had that it's not only trains that old Mister Frost is using to exact his toll. Exhaustion and starvation are now coming into play full force. As I have mentioned before, the snow is deep and crusted and the last two nights the temperature had dipped well below zero, tapping even more energy from these animals just to stay warm. Forage is hard to come by and with well over a month to go before we usually have any relief with warming temperatures and melting snow, Jack is going to be busy in February.
In addition to the railroads, our highway are also one of the few places left where snow depth does not limit movement and the Pronghorn are using the roadways to move too. With the same results as the railways. I came across a number of spots where a vehicle had plowed into a herd of Pronghorn moving down the highway, resulting in twisted, frozen carcasses tossed in the ditches on either side of the road.
It has already been a long winter for these animals and it is probably going to get worse before it gets better. March and melting snow can't come soon enough.

Pronghorn update

2011-01-31T17:00:00.004-07:00

Just couldn't do another Pronghorn in the snow photo so I am using this one to think of better days. I found out this morning that at least another 70 animals were struck by a train in one event this weekend, plus another 30 or so in a different incident. This pushes the known direct mortality from train strikes to nearly 400 Pronghorn in the last few weeks. Certainly there are additional indirect mortalities associated with these events along with mortalities associated with starvation, predation, and vehicle strikes that push the loss of animals even higher.
This is a killer winter where the impacts of landscape changes are most evident and detrimental for most of the big game animals in this area. Continuing changes to the landscape inhibit the movement of animals and leaves them stuck in areas where they are unable to survive. These changes are not as evident during most winters, but when the chips are down and the animals need to be able to move easily to survive, the impacts are amplified. The effects of these incidents and landscape changes on these populations is going to be felt for a long time.

Return to Tanzania

2011-01-30T17:53:00.001-07:00

Since it looks like we broke the record for the most snow for the season last night (still snowing now) and the temperature is heading well below the zero mark for the next few days, I think that it is about time to return to Tanzania. But it looks the only way I am going to be able to do that is post about it here.

To recap, I was in Tanzania to train Village Game Scouts (VGS) how to conduct more rigorous natural resource monitoring as part of their regular duties conducting anti-poaching patrols at the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area (WMA).

Enduimet WMA is located west of Mount Kilimanjaro along the border with Kenya.

I was part of a team working for the Department of Interior's Technical Assistance Program. There were ten of us on the team, divided into five teams of two, each team assisting with a different WMA. My partner at Enduimet was Janet, a botanist from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska.

This is Eric, our driver.

We worked very closely with the Longido District Game Officer (DGO) Stephen (on the right), his local commander Charles (on the left), and Julius (middle), a representative for the African Wildlife Foundation, a non-governmental agency partner in the management of the WMA.

When we arrived at Enduimet, we toured the VGS outposts in the WMA. These guys are amazing. They accomplish a lot with little resources. The shed in the back is where they cook and store their equipment. They sleep in small individual tents scattered around the outpost. The conduct anti-poaching patrols on foot from their outposts and spend four weeks at a stretch on duty.

Our training was conducted at the WMA headquarters in the village of Ol Malog. Each morning the scouts would go through their drills prior to the training.

We spent most of our time outside doing more practical instruction. Here Janet is teaching the scouts how to set up and run a habitat transect to measure vegetation.

We did spend some time inside the WMA headquartes in the village of Ol Malog. Here the scouts are going through the field guides we provided them, The Birds of East Africa and the Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammals. I would recommend both guides for any trip to East Africa.

We also taught the scouts how to measure grass biomass using the pasture disk method.

Since there wasn't much wildlife near the village, we improvised and used the numerous cattle, sheep or goats as surrogates when we taught the scouts how to conduct wildlife transect surveys.

At the end of the training we had the scouts run their own transect as a practical test. The transect was run from one of the outposts and this time we had real African wildlife to use on the transect.

At the end of our training we had a ceremony with a number of dignitaries where the scouts received their certificates of completion. Here Obedi is reciting a speech where he expressed the scouts appreciation for being selected to receive the training as well as appreciation for the content of the training.

The primary management challenge at Enduimet is the heart of this type of conservation effort - how to integrate local people and villages into conservation efforts so that the people realize some gain from having wildlife on the landscape. It is a difficult challenge but necessary as more and more people inhabit areas that have traditionally not been heavily impacted by human land use and still have wildlife habitat and populations. More people exert pressure on local wildlife through direct conflict (where the wildlife usually loses) to more subtle, indirect impacts through habitat changes or loss. One example of indirect impacts to wildlife at Enduimet is the increase use of water for agriculture at the upper ends of the watercourses near the mountains. This limits the amount of water that makes it to the area where wildlife have traditionally been able to access the water and puts additional pressure on the remaining sources of water needed by both wildlife and domestic livestock. Competition for scarce water tends to increase the incidents of direct conflict with wildlife.

Grazing by domestic livestock is the primary land use in the WMA.

The transition from unlimited land use to a conservation focus that will realize income from wildlife and wild lands in addition to livestock grazing is an experiment that is progressing, but the hoped for results are still years away if the experiment succeeds. Traditions change slowly.

Another management challenge is unsustainable cutting of firewood in the WMA.

On the other end of the management challenge is improving the infrastructure so that income from tourism related to wildlife can be realized for the villages. Right now the roads in the WMA are not in the best shape. That, combined with the distance from the traditional wildlife tour circuit, currently limits the amount of tourism this area receives.

Pronghorn and Trains

2011-01-25T17:44:00.002-07:00

As I pointed out in a recent post, there is a major railway line that runs along the Milk River Valley and is a potential barrier to pronghorn movement. Turns out it is much worse than a barrier this year.
Apparently a BNSF train plowed into a large herd of Pronghorn moving down the tracks earlier in the week. The roads and railroads are some of the only areas left where the snow isn't very deep and the animals are using these to move around. Initial reports suggest at least 270 Pronghorn were killed by one train. Carcasses were scattered along the railroad bed with some thrown into nearby trees. Many of the remains were just bits and pieces of Pronghorn scattered along the tracks. At least one individual was carrying a GPS collar from the project I have been involved with. The ear tag was recovered along with part of the head but the collar has not be relocated.
Two-hundred and seventy Pronghorn is a very large percentage of the population these animals were thought to be part of and despite the ability of Pronghorn to reproduce fairly rapidly, it may take quite a few years for this population to recover from this winter, and in particular, this one mass slaughter.

Header Photo (again).

2011-01-24T18:54:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the mess of a header. Blogger is apparently "fixing" some things again. Worked fine before. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Pronghorn and Fences

2011-01-23T12:36:00.007-07:00

Pronghorn have problems crossing fences. Unlike Mule Deer or Whitetail Deer, which have no problem jumping fences, Pronghorn do not like crossing them at all. Not all fences are equal though and although some are nearly impenetrable, others can be designed to facilitate Pronghorn movement. Most often Pronghorn go under fences and fences can be constructed so that the bottom wire is not barbed and sits a bit higher from the ground to allow easier passage underneath the fence. However, when the snow becomes too deep, even well designed fences can be barriers to movement.

This fence does not have a smooth bottom wire and with the depth of the snow decreasing the amount of free space, the barbs are pulling lots of hair from the Pronghorn as they pass underneath.

Last week I watched a number of Pronghorn trying to move back and forth across an old roadway that has a barbed wire fence on either side.

Many of the animals would not cross the fence. Others made up their minds and jumped the fence. There was no option to go under with the amount of snow leaving only the top two wires exposed. All the animals that jumped the fence were moving downhill, following a path through the deep snow that others had made earlier.

Other groups tried to follow the same path uphill. None of them made the leap going that direction.

I watched a number of individuals get this far, ponder the leap, then turn around and head back downhill. The fence apparently was too much to get over heading uphill.

Pronghorn Winter

2011-01-18T19:20:00.005-07:00

As I posted earlier, this winter is going to be tough on the animals that try to survive the winter in the northern Great Plains. We are now only 10 inches shy of breaking the record for the greatest amount of snow during a winter and well above average (the word "normal" doesn't apply to any measures of Great Plains weather).
Earlier this week I was able to get out and watch a rather large herd of Pronghorn that has probably made their way from summer ranges in the border region between Montana and Saskatchewan.

Much of the herd was gathered in small groups resting on the slopes of the south facing hills that span the northern edge of the Milk River valley.

Others had moved out into the valley itself and were foraging in the deep snow.

They were working hard to find any forage in the snow, pawing and digging to get down to the grass.

They appeared to have hit all the easy patches and were working their way to the sage and grass remaining in the areas with deeper snow.

Animals were moving back and forth in small groups looking for additional patches of forage.

This is about as far south as this herd can get without crossing some rather large barriers. In the photo above behind the animals you can see a barb wire fence (which can be rather tough barriers for pronghorn movement), and probably more detrimental, the triple barrier of a major highway (US 2), a major railway, and the Milk River itself. Throughout much of the HiLine portion of Montana (along Highway 2) these features are very close to each other and do a pretty good job of limiting the ability of these animals to move further south. Only in one section do these features spread out enough that each of the barriers becomes surmountable and animals move south much more freely.

Leadership

2011-01-10T19:53:00.006-07:00

Today I found this in the news. Notice of the death of Richard "Dick" Winters. Prior to this notice, I couldn't have told you who Dick Winters was. But I certainly knew of him even though I didn't recognize his name. He was the commander of Easy Company. The Easy Company whose duty during World War II was chronicled by Stephen Ambrose in his book "Band of Brothers" and an HBO series of the same name. Yeah, I knew of Dick Winters. You should too.

The deep respect his men had for him was apparent in the quotes from his memorial and one part of the story caught my eye. It was a quote from an interview he did with American History Magazine regarding leadership:

"If you can, find that peace within yourself, that peace and quiet and confidence that you can pass on to others, so that they know that you are honest and you are fair and will help them, no matter what, when the chips are down."

The quote intrigued me and I did a quick search to see if I could find the whole interview. I found it here and it was a wonderful primer on leadership from a man whose leadership skills were forged under unforgiving circumstances.

"If you listen and pay attention, you will find that your own self-consciousness will tell you if you are getting off track. Nobody will have to tell you that what you are doing is incorrect or ineffective. If you take advantage of opportunities for self-reflection, and honestly look at yourself, you will be able to be a better leader.

Winter

2011-01-09T14:13:00.010-07:00

These Prairie Coneflower heads from last summer were poking up from the increasingly deep snow. This winter is going to be hard on the animals that remain in the northern Great Plains for the winter. On top of the deep snow, we had a few days at, or just above, freezing last week, which put a fairly thick crust on the snow. Then it snowed about 8 more inches on top of that. The wind has been trying to clear the ridge tops off, but crusty snow just doesn't blow around very well. The snow started early in the fall and on top of that, it has been colder than average too. Trying to stay warm, move through the deep, crusted snow, and find food takes a lot of energy and despite going into the winter in fairly good condition because of the good forage growth we had this summer, many of these animals are just going to loose more than they gain and die before conditions get better.
The Pronghorns have bunched up and are moving all over the place. Soon hope to have an update on the doe I photographed getting captured and collared last winter. If she is still alive, her collar should be coming off in about six weeks and when it is retrieved we can see where she spent her summer in Canada and the path she navigated to return to her wintering area.

The Bison don't seem to mind the snow at all.

Wildlife Research is Hard Enough

2011-01-05T10:53:00.004-07:00

Thank goodness the Greater Sage-Grouse and Pronghorn we have GPS transmitters on only go to Canada. Check this out.

Changing Watersheds

2011-01-05T06:01:00.005-07:00

I have spent most of my life influenced by the Missouri River. Although I was born near the Yellowstone River, I only spent less than a year in that river drainage before moving to the banks of the Missouri River. I grew up within walking distance of the Missouri and often played in the water as a child. As I grew older I spent a lot of time on the river in my canoe, hunting ducks, looking for birds, and occasionally fishing. After a few years for school west of the divide in an entirely different ocean drainage, I returned to the upper reaches of the Missouri River in Helena, MT. Then, after another short stint in Laramie WY under the influence of the Platte River drainage, I returned to the Missouri River, this time near the headwaters only a short drive over the hill to the upper reaches of the Yellowstone River. By this time it was no long just me and the moves not as easy to accomplish, physically or emotionally. Back to Helena after that, then home again to Fort Peck, where this blog started.

Now we are going back to the river of my birth. The Yellowstone. I have accepted a job that will take me back to Billings. New challenges, new responsibilities, new landscapes, and, for the most part, an entirely new watershed.
It was not an easy decision and the repercussions are still bouncing around in my head and being revealed in ways I hadn't anticipated, but it was a decision we feel will be an overall positive for all of us. I am certainly going to miss a lot about being here, after all it is the landscape of my youth and will always be home, but I am looking forward to the differences too. I am a prairie person and we will remain on the plains, but we will be much closer to the mountains, particularly the Beartooth Plateau and the Pryor Mountains. We will certainly miss our good friends here, and in particular two of our best friends, my parents Chuck and Jean.
Anyway, more to come as this transition develops.

2011-01-02T10:46:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I headed south of Glasgow looking for Greater Sage-Grouse. I had heard of a location with a number of birds and Saturday was sunny even if it was -26 F when I woke up. Sunday has turned out to be even worse than forecast, although 50 degrees warmer, the wind has really picked up and it is overcast and snowing again. The blowing snow has drifted in the highway so there is no going much of anywhere today.

I did find a number of sage-grouse on my drive. All of them happened to be on the south side of the road, directly in line with the low lying sun. It was also a bit difficult taking photos out the window of the truck with the temperature differential apparently making the auto focus a bit touchy.

This Cottontail did not look too happy with the temperature.

Enduimet Mammals

2010-12-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Since it is now -6 with a light wind and a couple of feet of snow on the ground here at home, I think it is time to go back to Tanzania again.

Most of my time spent in Tanzania was at the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area (WMA) on the northwest flanks of Kilimanjaro. Enduimet is a southern extension of the Amboseli region in Kenya and much of the WMA is a broad plain between Mount Meru to the south, Kilimanjaro to the east southeast, and Longido to the northwest. This plain gently slopes towards Kenya and is mostly an acacia savanna landscape. The WMA functions as a connection for wildlife moving between the Amboseli system and Kilimanjaro National Park, Arusha National Park and other protected areas to the southwest. I was fortunate to take a couple of trips into the heart of the WMA and I was able to observe a wide range of African wildlife. In future posts I will describe other wildlife I encountered in the WMA, the history of the WMA and what exactly I was doing there but for right now I am going to begin with the large mammals we found during our explorations.

Near the border with Kenya, at the lowest elevation of the WMA, the water table is closer to the surface and supports larger trees than much of the rest of the WMA. There is also an old meerschaum (a magnesium rich clay often used to make smoking pipe bowls) mine near the border where old mine pits now have surface water. Most of the wildlife in the WMA is found near these old pits during the dry season since it is the only source of reliable water in the area. Particularly since much of the water that comes from the mountain slopes is now diverted for human use before it ever reaches the upper stretches of the WMA.

We found lots of zebras (punda milia in Swahili). I love the stripes and could have spent a lot of time just watching these guys.

We also had a small bunch of zebras near the lodge that would come to water at the small concrete lined pond at the main lodge.

I also enjoying seeing the Masai giraffes (ok I really enjoyed all the animals I was able to observe!) We saw many twigas throughout the WMA.

The pattern on this bull giraffe was a bit different than most of the others I saw, with the centers of the brown patches becoming quite dark.

The was another gnu species for me. We saw many Wildebeast (Nyumbu), again mostly at the lower end of the WMA towards Kenya.

We didn't see any elephants (Tembo) during the first trip through the WMA, but on the second tour through we found a couple foraging in the trees.

We saw a small group of Bat-eared Foxes but they were quite shy and didn't allow for a very close approach.

One afternoon I has some free time and went for a short hike around the lodge. I wound up sitting on a small outcrop above the next drainage to the north and watched for a bit. After I had been there for a short while I saw a female Lesser Kudu emerge from the bush and slowly make her way up the drainage towards me. She was soon followed by a few other female and young as well as this bull.

I managed to sneak up pretty close to the group and got this photo of one of the females. When I tried to shift a bit to get a clearer view she spotted me and was gone.

There were lots of Grant's Gazelles, Thompson's Gazelles, and Impala in the WMA. This male Grant's Gazelle sported one of the largest sets of horns that we saw in the WMA.

I couldn't let this post go without at least one bird photo but it is pretty close to a large mammal. We found a few Kori Bustards in the WMA. These are purportedly the heaviest flying bird in the world and although I never saw one fly, the certainly did look quite hefty on the ground.

Polar Bears

2010-12-29T23:20:00.003-07:00

No, not here, although looking outside you might be forgiven to think that you saw one in the snow. Certainly looks like the right habitat out there right now.
Just a couple of great "trail" camera videos on the BBC website. Watch this one first then this one.
Then this one of a bear hunting a Bearded Seal. I don't want to give it totally away, but one shot of the seal laying on the ice floe with the polar bear's head emerging from the water's edge just behind the unaware seal is chilling (particularly having been on a similar ice floe in the Canadian arctic a number of years ago with the job of looking out for these guys).
These are a apparently from a new BBC show "Polar Bears: Spy on the Ice".

Or Maybe...

2010-12-25T18:54:00.003-07:00

A partridge in a snow bank?

Happy Holidays

2010-12-24T07:41:00.005-07:00

As close as I could come to a partridge in a pear tree is a Sharptail Grouse on a Rocky Mountain Juniper..

or in a Plains Cottonwood...

or just getting tired of the whole thing and flying away.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Fort Peck CBC

2010-12-20T19:42:00.003-07:00

On Saturday I participated in the Fort Peck CBC for the ??th (??rd?) time. I have been doing this bird count on and off since I was about 12 so I am not sure how many times I have actually participated. We had about twelve participants and observed 38 species. We also had to deal with the most snow we have had in a number of years and we were unable to reach a few areas along the river that are usually the more productive areas.

The highlight for me was the four Rusty Blackbirds we found below the dam. There have been Rusty Blackbirds wintering here for the last few years and it was nice to find them again for the CBC. We also had a quick observation of a Goshawk, another rather uncommon bird for the area but one that we usually manage to find on bird count day. It was somewhat cold which made the river rather foggy and we probably missed a few birds but probably not many species. We certainly didn't miss the lunch and dinner my Mom put on again this year. Far better than the burger and fries I used to get at the now-defunct local diner when we first started!

Into the Heart of East Africa

2010-12-10T15:14:00.001-07:00

Reminiscing about Africa in a blizzard in Montana -

We departed Dar es Salaam in the morning on a flight bound for the Arusha airport, a small facility southwest of the city. Kilimanjaro rose above the clouds to the north as we approached our destination. When we arrived at the airport we wound up waiting for our driver Eric and the vehicle (who had departed from Dar the night before - about an eight hour drive. The logistics of the trip were sometimes difficult to figure out). While we were waiting Steve and I managed to get out in the parking area near the small terminal for arrivals and found a Pied Crow, Lilac-breasted Roller, and African Pied Wagtail. I am sure there were more birds to be found but once again we were thwarted by security. Apparently the wooded area next to the airport was a prison and we were asked not to use our binoculars and camera in the area.
After our drivers arrived we headed in our separate directions. We had originally thought we would spend the night in Arusha, but plans had changed and we were instructed to proceed to the tented camp we were to call home for the next couple of weeks.
Driving is Africa was an experience. It was my first experience driving on the left side of the road and on top of that it was my first experience with the sharing the road free-for-all with pedestrians, donkey carts, motorcycles, large trucks and anything else that wanted to use the road to get from one place to another. First we had to get through Arusha, a rather sprawling mass of structures and people with apparently only one road to get from one side of the city to the other. After traversing the city we spent another hour or so on a fairly well paved road as we skirted the west side of Kilimanjaro heading north towards the border with Kenya before we hit the unpaved section.
We arrived in Tanzania at the end of the dry season and it was dry. The roads were very dusty and bumpy and I felt sorry for the people walking along the road as we went by in a cloud of dust. Even going through small villages we barely slowed down as everyone (and everything) scrambled to get out of the roadway.
It was also a birders hell. A brand new county, new landscape, new birds, and I was flying through it help bent to get to our destination. I knew that I would need to keep my "lets stop and look at that bird" credits for later so I tried to identify what I could and gritted my teeth as unknown bird after bird passed by in a cloud of dust.
I did manage to identify a few larger species though. There was a Augur Buzzard perched in a low bush next to the road, a flock of Cattle Egrets in a field along the road, Yellow-necked Spurfowl scattering off the road edges, and Helmeted Guineafowl in nearby fields. The countryside was brown and dry except for the remaining forests on the slopes of Kilimanjaro that I could see up-slope from the road.

Augur Buzzard

Helmeted Guineafowl

We arrived at the Elerai Tented Camp, also known as Kambi Ya Tembo (Elephant Camp) in the afternoon. Elerai is the Maasai name for a type of yellow bark Acacia tree which are found in the area.

The camp is situated at the crest of a long ridge (my tent was the small tent to the right of the main lodge).

The main lodge, where all the meals were served, is a large open structure with a steep thatched roof.

There are couches for relaxing and tables where we dined. Most nights I was entertained by the bats snagging insects from around the lamps and the toads calling in the pond.

Turning around and looking east at the entrance to the main lodge often produced good views of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The back of the main lodge looks out over the plains of West Kilimanjaro.

The main lodge is perched at the edge of the ridge and perched just below the main floor is a shallow concrete lined pool.

When we arrived I was greeting by the wonderful staff and a small group of White-bellied Go-away-bird.

The most common birds at the camp were a variety of finches and pigeons.

There was a pair of Specked Pigeons living in the rafters under the main lodge.

Ring-necked Doves,

African Mourning Doves,

Emerald-spotted Wood-Doves (above) and Laughing Doves were common, usually perched in the trees near the shallow pool, waiting tor their turn at the water.

The most common bird around the lodge though were the Red-billed Quealeas. There were hundreds of birds coming to the water each evening. They all perched in the nearby trees and when the time was right they descended en mass to the water.

The leading edge of descending birds would rush to the waters edge, grab a quick drink, then return to the trees, followed in quick order by the next wave of birds. This continued until the birds were disturbed or all the birds had gotten their fill.

Other finches around the lodge included African Silverbills.

Chestnut Finches

Crimson-rumped Waxbills

Gray-headed Silverbills

Cut-throat Finches

Since it was the end of the dry season, many of the birds were in their non-breeding plumage, which led to some identification problems.

This species was interspersed with the Red-billed Queleas. I believe that is it a Cardinal Quelea.

The same species as above.

I think that this is a House Sparrow

Another House Sparrow?

And then there is this waxbill. I am not sure exactly what it is but as near as I can figure it is a variation of a Crimson-rumped Waxbill?

This was the scene most nights at camp. A beautiful sunset with the trees filled with queleas and pigeons.

More Dar es Salaam

2010-12-03T18:45:00.012-07:00

This blog has been a bit erratic and downright moribund lately so lets get back to it. I am going to begin by starting back in Dar es Salaam and continuing with posts about the rest of my trip. I will also throw in a post here and there concerning life here and now.
Let's see, I left off with a couple of post about my first day in Dar. Let start this again with my next morning on the coast.

Steve and I had decided that we would go birding for a bit the next morning prior to our meetings. We decided that we would go back towards the scrub habitat behind the hotel.

As we walked along the drive heading back toward the area a gentleman drove by and warned us that the area just to the north was a restricted area and that we should be careful because others had been harassed and had their binoculars and cameras confiscated. We decided that we would head back south of the hotel after that.
Just as we were turning around to head back south we spotted a large bird perched on the top of an agave stalk about 100 meters away (yes agave - one of the exotic plants found in Dar). We were just getting our binoculars on it when it starting flying towards us. As it passed by us just a few meters away it became very apparent that it was a hornbill of some sort. My first hornbill! I flew into the trees [no I didn't fly into the tree! Thanks Mom for the edits] just to the south of us and we were able to locate it again quite close to us after a brief search. We got great looks at this Red-billed Hornbill as he preened in the early morning light. I have been fascinated by the hornbill family for many years and it was really nice to finally see a member of this family in the wild.

We started back towards the hotel and it probably was a good thing we did. While we were watching the hornbill another person had drove up and seemed quite agitated that we were there and got on his cell phone. As we were walking down the street towards the main road he drove by, glowering at us as he went past.
So if you ever wind up staying at the SeaCliff Hotel in Dar and think the habitat just north of the hotel looks like a great place to go birding, it is. Just consider yourself warned!
We continued south from the hotel along the coast through some heavily modified habitat bordering the cliffs along the coast. We found many of the same species we observed before but one nice addition was a Brown-chested Barbet at the top of a tree in the residential neighborhood near the hotel.

The rest of the day was occupied by meetings and work sessions with the other team members, then packing all of our stuff to depart to the various wildlife management areas we were assigned to. Janet (my teaching partner) and I were heading to Enduimet Wildlife Management Area on the north western slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Long live the laptop

2010-12-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

Help has arrived and the new laptop is now working. New post tomorrow!

Laptop Dead

2010-11-15T13:34:00.001-07:00

My old laptop finally died. The operating system apparently has a fatal error so posting may be slow (again) for a bit.

Here and Now Interlude

2010-11-11T07:10:00.004-07:00

I will return to the recollections of Tanzania soon, but I felt I needed a quick post about Montana. Yesterday I got to tour a mine reclamation site for work. It was cold and snowy. And full of Bighorn Sheep.

The snow on the opposite slope created an interesting pattern on the new vegetation growing in what appeared to be an old burn area.

More Dar in in the Afternoon

2010-11-07T19:38:00.003-07:00

In the afternoon I managed to head north from the hotel after looping through a small road just to the west. There was a notice at the end of the road warning me not to go any farther and to not take any photos. So I headed east to the coast and then wandered into what appeared to be native coastal scrub to the north. No sign so I figured I was ok. I didn't see too much for new birds that afternoon but there were a few I could see and many more I could only hear or catch a quick glimpse of.
It was nice to be away from all the people and into some decent looking native vegetation for a bit to struggle with the identification of birds I had only rehearsed identifying from the field guide. I wound up using the camera as an identification aid much more than I anticipated. It was nice to have even rather crappy photos to use as an ID aid latter when I had time to use the field guide when there weren't new birds all around me.
There were a few Zanzibar Sombre Greenbuls around.

And a couple small groups of Speckled Mousebirds.

But the best bird by far was a member of the sunbird family, the Nectariniidae. This was one group of birds I was really looking forward to seeing and my first introduction was a stunning Purple-banded Sunbird foraging in a bare tree just around the corner from the hotel.

Later that afternoon, Steve Windels, a biologist from Minnesota and a member of our technical assistance team, and I headed south from the hotel along the coast into some severely modified habitats. We found quite a few birds in the open fields and remaining scrub. There was the seemingly mandatory House Sparrows, but also a number of wonderful new birds too. They included Blue-capped Cordon-bleu

African Red-billed Firefinches

A Grassland Pipit

and Black and White Manakins.

Later that afternoon we went to the Mwenge carvers market to look for goodies for family back home. I was introduced to a wonderful little shop with a great selection of masks and other assorted carvings.

Later that evening we had a few moments to sample some local brews and do a bit of birding looking over the tidal flats again.

And as the sun dropped quickly into the hazy horizon to the west (no sliding slowly at an angle into darkness here at the equator) the Palm Swifts emerged into the twilight.

The next day was a series of meetings and prep work but there were more birds to be found and even better, I had Steve, the mammal guy from Minnesota, hooked on looking for birds with me.

House Crow City - Dar es Salaam

2010-11-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

My first introduction to Tanzania was via the large, sprawling city of Dar es Salaam. We arrived at the international airport late at night and headed to our hotel along the coast near the tip of the Msasani Peninsula. The next morning I woke up and opened up the window on my room to see what I could see.

I was looking east over the Indian Ocean and down on to a rather lush hotel garden area. My expectations were high and so was the humidity. Maybe something other than a Rock Pigeon, House Sparrow, or European Starling would be the first bird I found on this new continent? Turns out it was something different - but not really. The first bird I found was a House Crow. A species introduced into Dar from southeast Asia which has multiplied prodigiously in the area to the detriment of any of the native species they encounter. Sound familiar?

There were many House Crows. Lots and lots of House Crows. And nothing else. I made my way down to the hotel grounds and looked out over the exposed tidal flats and slowly started to find new birds.

Well, kind of new birds. First there was a Whimbrel slowly foraging in the tidal pools. Hadn't seen one of those for a while but still not new. There was also a Grey Plover strolling along the pool edges. A new name for a bird I have observed quite a few time in Montana. We just call them Black-bellied Plovers.

Then there was a Common Sandpiper. New bird for sure, but it certainly looked almost exactly like the Spotted Sandpipers from home.

Then the really new birds started showing up.

A Little Egret

a Dimorphic Egret

And an immature Striated Heron.

I was surprised by the lack of the gulls on the coast. Every other coastal habitat I have visited has had a large number, if not large variety, of gulls. Not Dar es Salaam though. I only saw two individual gulls during my time in Dar and both appeared to be Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

There were also a number of young men that roamed the tidal flats with large jugs and small hand nets. I was never able to determine exactly what fish they were catching but I assume that they were for the tropical fish trade.

Any comments on my identification of the birds of Tanzania are welcome.

Rare Birds

2010-10-11T07:32:00.008-06:00

It is always a treat to find a rare bird. When I was in Tanzania nearly every bird species I observed was a rare (in most cases brand new) species for me. It appears that one species I observed is also a rather rare species for Tanzania.
On September 25, 2010 I traveled from where I was working (I will talk more about that later) to visit my friend Steve Windels who was working at a Wildlife Management Area near Lake Manyara in north central Tanzania. That afternoon we went for a walk to look for birds along the lake shore. As we were walking we talked about the birds that Steve had observed at the lake. He mentioned that he had observed Slender-billed Gulls, but added that according to the range map in the bird book, Birds of East Africa, they shouldn't be here. I passed it off as a situation where the distribution of this species was poorly known and it probably had been recorded at the lake before but the maps in the field guide were out of date. Shortly after our conversation a pair of gulls flew by that appeared to be Slender-billed Gulls. I snapped off a few photos as they flew by.

Upon returning home, I figured I would do some research to find out about the current status of the Slender-billed Gull in Tanzania. I checked the Tanzania Bird Atlas Project website and blog and found out that the first recorded observation of a Slender-billed Gull had occurred in March of 2006 at Lake Victoria. There has apparently been only one observation of this species since then so our observation would represent the apparent third record for Tanzania.

The Black-headed Gull, which is more common here, would not have such an elongated face and long bill, there is usually a black earspot on Black-headed Gulls in winter plumage (breeding birds would have a black head), and would have a dark eye (although faint, it appears that these birds do have light colored eyes).
I wish I had been more cognizant of the status of this species in Tanzania before we saw the birds. I was overwhelmed at that point with the number of birds we were seeing that afternoon and I have no notes about this observation. I know there were at least two individuals from the photos I took, but there may have been at least one more individual that flew by.
This was certainly not an species I would have considered the most exciting of the birds I found during my stay in Tanzania, but now, after having found out how rare it is to see there, it is a rather exciting observation indeed.

Back

2010-10-07T03:59:00.007-06:00

Finally recovering from the nine hour time difference between Tanzania and Montana. Lots of stories and photos to share but also lots of work to catch up on and a report to write so I am not sure when things will start landing on these pages, but hopefully soon while the memories and impressions are still fresh. I am still dreaming about being in Africa so it hasn't entirely left me yet.
The photo above is of Lake Manyara with the rift valley wall in the background. The specks in the foreground are shorebirds, lots and lots of shorebirds. Unfortunately the time I got to spend at the lake was in the afternoon and I was looking into the sun without a scope so I was unable to really check out just what the shorebirds were. Even so it was still wonderful to see that many birds.

More Costa's Hummingbird

2010-08-30T19:18:00.002-06:00

Costa'sTwitch

2010-08-29T06:56:00.004-06:00

Friday night came the report of an apparent Costa's Hummingbird about an hour away. The posted photos were compelling and with an impending cold front due to arrive on Sunday, it looked like I was going to have to make the attempt on Saturday.
For the first time the boys have had to endure a twitch with their Dad. Laura was busy and I had the boys for the day so I loaded them in the car with a promise of Dairy Queen on the way home.
Turns out that I really didn't need the Dairy Queen bribe. Our hosts, Don and Holly Minnerath had a swing set and trampoline in the backyard, along with a beagle, a couple of bunnies and bantam chickens. All of that plus their very gracious daughter Leah kept the boys so entertained that they didn't want to leave when it was time to go.
I also had a good time. Don and Holly have a wonderful backyard with great bird habitat and on top of that they were great people to visit with as well. I was guided through the yard to a seat on the porch and within a few minutes of my arrival the bird descended to the hummingbird feeder for a sip, then flew a short distance from the feeder to perch on a twig.

I had great looks of this little guy. He eventually disappeared into the backyard, but I was also able to see at least one Rufous Hummingbird (another fairly rare bird in this part of Montana). Don and Holly also told me they have had a number of hummingbirds this fall including our more expected Ruby-throated as well as the much more rare (as far a we know right now) Black-chinned Hummingbirds.

The Slopes of Kilimanjaro

2010-08-21T21:55:00.009-06:00

Amboseli....Serengeti..... Kilimanjaro..... Tsavo.

Places that occupy a back corner of my mind from a lifetime of an interest in wildlife.

"At first it was hardly more than a feeling in the ground, from out in the night somewhere. Then there was a bass cough, and crumping sobs gathered and went rolling about the dark, one by one, like barrels tumbling. It was the lion song, and I sat quiet to learn it, as you learn the trill of a tree toad, or how an alligator goes. And though there may have been little real song in the sound , it came in strong and lonely through the whisper of the mist; and to me, at the same time, it seemed to tell of an age being lost forever."
Archie Carr - Ulendo

Now I am going to see the Serengeti myself.

I will be working in the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area this fall. The Enduimet WMA is in the northwest of Mount Kilimanjaro just across the border from Amboseli National Park in Kenya. I have been reading as much as I can on the conservation issues associated with the wildlife management areas in Tanzania and it is amazing how much the issues, particularly the socio-political aspects of conservation, parallel much of what is currently going on where I live and work. More on that when I get back for sure.

Now I need to get ready.

Summer Doldrums

2010-08-11T20:09:00.004-06:00

Seems like I have had a hard time getting any words down on this blog for a while and now I can't even get a photo posted very often.
One excuse is that I have had my heads in the tropical clouds trying to figure out not only my Tanzania assignment, but also trying to get familiar with East African birds. I have a feeling it is going to be a bit overwhelming. I am not sure yet exactly where I will be going in Tanzania and I am not sure if any of the people I will be working with have an interest in birds so it may be trial by fire in my first foray into tropical birding. Some should be fairly straight-forward, but I am sure there are going to be many more I am going to just have to try to get photos of and take notes about to try and figure out after I find the right section in my field guide to assist in identification. There are over 1000 species of birds found in Tanzania, in a country about twice the size of California. Nearly all of them are species I have never observed before so I am sure the species accumulation curve will be fairly steep for much of my trip. It will be exciting to bird again in a place where all will be new. That hasn't happened for quite a few years.
I think all the paperwork is nearly completed- just a couple more shots to get up to speed, a visit to the doctor for anti-malarials, and travel arrangements to make before a can feel like this is really going to happen.
Getting up to speed on the project I will be working on has also been a challenge and I will let you know more as things get figured out.
Maybe I will even get a few posts up soon. Maybe.

PAD 25 - Bitterroot

2010-08-03T20:14:00.002-06:00

Montana State Flower - Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva)
July 13, 2010. Beaverhead County, MT

Crean's Mid-Summer Birthday

2010-07-27T17:12:00.004-06:00

Waiting for "Happy Birthday" to finish

Big inhale.

Big exhale.

Waiting for the cake to be served.

PAD 24 - Western Willet

2010-07-26T19:41:00.000-06:00

Western Willet. Valley County, MT June, 19, 2010.

PAD 23 - Got Milk?

2010-07-26T10:34:00.004-06:00

I came across this calf a few days ago. He was nursing but pulled away from his meal to glance at me when I drove by him and his mother. He had a milk mustache that went from his forehead to his chin. It gave me a good chuckle because he reminded me of the eating habits of a couple of other little boys I know and I backed up because I just had to get a photo.
Valley County, Montana. July 22, 2010.

PAD 22 - American Bison

2010-07-25T10:29:00.000-06:00

American Bison. Fort Peck, Montana. July24, 2010

Tanzania

2010-07-23T18:56:00.000-06:00

This fall I hope to see another Southern Ground Hornbill like the one I took a photo of last year at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, CO. Except this time I hope to see it where it belongs - the plains of Tanzania.

I have been selected to join a team of nine other biologist-types to assist five community based Wildlife Management Areas with their biological inventory and monitoring programs. We will be split up into teams of two, one team for each management area, with the task of initiating or modifying existing monitoring programs with area specific methods. The monitoring must be meaningful and sustainable in places with limited resources such as electricity. These sideboards certainly provides focus on what can and should be done in these areas.

I am currently getting all my paperwork and immunizations in order. One of the first items I purchased was Birds of East Africa by Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe. Even better, many of the illustrations were painted by one of my favorite artists, John Gale as well as Jonathan Kingdon's Pocket Guide to African Mammals. Once I figure out which WMA I will be working at I may wind up bringing Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania by Zimmerman, Turner, and Pearson.

I am really looking forward to this experience, hopefully making at least a meaningful contribution to wildlife conservation, as well as just being in Africa. I have been reviewing my field guide, trying to at least get a handle on what the birds look like and where I might find them in the field guide when I am trying to figure out which Cisticola I am looking at (yeah right). Hornbills, Sunbirds, Weavers, Starlings (the really great African species), Lions, Leopards, and Hippos, oh my.

PAD 21 - American White Pelican

2010-07-22T19:22:00.000-06:00

American White Pelican. July 22, 2010

What is this bird?

2010-07-18T19:52:00.003-06:00

This is more of a pet peeve post than a real ID question. This is a McCown's Longspur. Not a McCowan's Longspur.
For some reason the "McCowan's" spelling has shown up in a number of different places recently and it is driving me nuts. The worst was in a special advertisement section for birding in Montana printed in a recent Audubon Magazine.
Great way to draw birders to Montana - they don't even know how to spell the birds name correctly - do they know anything about what is written in the article?
At least it isn't as embarrassing as a recent bird trail publication produced by the Custer Country travel region in Montana. Despite a number of people commenting on the plethora of errors in the publication, ranging from misspelled bird names and other bird name mistakes - you can find a "Roufous-sided and Spotted towhee" at numerous places (they are different names for the same bird). At Mikoshika State Park you can apparently find Lappet-faced Vulture from Africa based on the photo used for this site. It is supposed to depict a Turkey Vulture! See it for yourself here (even better - rather than fix the mistakes that were pointed out to them numerous times, they reproduced in online for everyone to see).
Travel Montana really doesn't have to do much help bird related tourism in Montana. The birds found here could sell this place almost by themselves, but for some reason the tourism people have not only not consulted with the people most interested in helping them, but they have outright ignored the expertise in this state, resulting in a number of rather embarrassing errors. If I was using this information for some other state it would suggest to me that the people really had no idea what they were talking about and I would question the validity of all the information provided.
It's not that I am driven to turn the birds and habitats I care about into a tourist destination, its just that I hope that these habitats and birds that inhabit them can be thought of as more than wastelands only worth grazing and hunting. If we could demonstrate some income from other uses perhaps thoughts and concerns of conservation would follow. I really believe that communities (or at least the right people in a community) need to have an interest in conservation or it will not work or will continue to be a source continued conflict. Perhaps the values provided by birding related income is a way to help that along.
Well, this certainly wandered away from a spelling pet peeve!

Sprague's Pipit or Horned Lark?

2010-07-12T16:43:00.001-06:00

For most of the year this is a rather straightforward question.

Horned Larks show their distinctive black horns as well as a black mask, malar patch and throat.

Sprague's Pipits are rather a plain rich, light brown with pale legs and big eyes.

But in the summer things get a bit more tricky.

Young Sprague's Pipits look a lot like the adults with just a hint of a fleshy gape at the corner of their mouth, rather extensive buffy edges to the body feathers, pinkish bill, and big eyes.

The problem is that young Horned Larks often look very much like Sprague's Pipits (and other plain brown birds). Pyle (1996) states that "Juvs are very nondescript and might be confused with other species". He further states the the juveniles can be distinguished from "sparrows, longspurs, and other nondescript brown passerines" (probably as close as Pyle comes to saying LBJ's) by wing length, the length of the wing compared to the tail and "tasus laterally rounded (vs acute in most other species). None of these features can be readily determined in the field but one additional piece of information that Pyle provides regarding young Horned Larks is that the juveniles have "upperparts with white or silvery spots" and the bill is somewhat conical. Horned Larks molt out of the juvenile plumage by August (or earlier depending on when they hatched) and look like a very pale, washed out version of an adult for the rest of the year.

Below is a series of photos of young Horned Larks (one of these may not be my photo but I can't remember who it might belong to so if it is yours please let me know).

The two photos above depict Horned Larks in their juvenile plumage. Notice the all dark back with white specks. The top of the head and the neck have the same pattern as does the feathers at the bend of the wing. The legs are pale but not nearly as pinkish as the pipit. The bill also looks thicker at the base on the larks and one thing I have noticed in these photos is that the lark's bill looks very plain grayish brown, whereas the pipits bill has a strong pale or pink tone.

The photo above depicts a young Horned Lark later in the season, mostly molted out of the juvenile plumage into the hatch year plumage. The black with white speckled feathers on the back and wing are mostly gone, making the bird even more brown and similar to the pipit. However, the same molt has also introduced more distinctive facial markings on this bird, helping to distinguish this bird as a Horned Lark.

So what is depicted in the photo below (photos taken June 24, 2010) ?

From this angle it is certainly rather plain and brown. The legs are pale, but not bright pink. The back of the head is rather plain and dark with no streaking. Notice the color and pattern of the back. It is rather dark with white or silvery spots.

It gets a bit easier when we get a look in profile. Notice the face is beginning to develop a bit of the adult Horned Lark pattern - a dark mask, cap and malar patch. The bill is rather drab and gray with just a hint of pink. Also note the color and pattern on the pattern on the lesser and median wing coverts - dark with some spotting.

When viewed head on the horns even seem to begin to be suggested. Otherwise the bird looks very plain although the breast looks to have rather diffuse spots rather than the streaks you would find on a pipit (see the photo above).

Note the Spragues Pipit above. This is a hatch year bird with rather broad buffy borders on the back and wing feathers (as compared to the after hatch year bird singing in the photo above). The eye looks large, there is a richer brown color to the plumage (particularly on the face), the bill is strongly pink, and (although not readily apparent in this photo) the legs are bright pink, and the bill does not appear conical, but rather long and thinner than a Horned Lark.

Pyle, Peter. 1997. Identification Guide to North American Birds: Part 1 Columbidae to Ploceidea. Slate Creek Press. Bolinas CA.

PAD 20 - American Pasque Flower

2010-07-07T20:54:00.000-06:00

Prairie Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla patens). Valley County, Montana. April 14, 2006.

PAD 19 - Black Rosy-Finch.

2010-07-06T20:43:00.000-06:00

Black Rosy-Finch. Red Lodge, Montana. April 25, 2006

Fourth of July salute to the flag

2010-07-06T19:08:00.003-06:00

A little bit late. I found this via Terrierman and thought it was very good. I hope you enjoy.

PAD 18

2010-07-05T20:17:00.003-06:00

Rock Creek, Red Lodge, Montana. April 25, 2006.

"Better Out Than In" I Always Say

2010-07-01T17:10:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I was taking photos of an Eastern Kingbird perched on a fence next to the road I was driving down.

He starting acting a bit funny, reminding me of the hunched over lurches of a dog that is going to loose his lunch in short order.

Sure enough, a ball of what appeared to be undigested insect parts showed up in the back of his mouth and was soon ejected to the ground.

In the photo above you can see the ball of insect chitin in mid-flight.

I had no idea, although in retrospect it does make sense. I am quite familiar with owl pellets of indigestible animals parts and I have spent a fair amount of time sorting through the much more disgusting Blue-eyed Shag pellets looking for identifiable fish parts so I don't know why I was surprised that a bird that that eats insects with lots of indigestible insect parts would do the same.

Swift Fox - A Prairie Success Story

2010-06-30T17:21:00.006-06:00

Earlier this week I received a report of a Swift Fox den and I was able to follow up on it last night. I found two adults and a litter of at least 3 kits at the den entrance. I was able to sit and watch the family for a while and as I watched one of the adults headed off across the prairie and disappeared into a small drainage. The kits were pretty curious in me but finally they spooked at something and bailed into the den. Shorty after that, the adults I watched head across the prairie trotted across the road in front of me with a Richardson's Ground Squirrel in it's mouth. It must have only been about 20 minutes from the time the adult disappeared until it returned with dinner. The light was not very good with a storm moving in and I had to cut my visit short when the wind came up and the lightening started. I hope to get back there soon.

It is pretty amazing that I was able to watch these animals at all. Swift Fox were extirpated from the northern Great Plains by about 1930, probably due to trapping, loss of habitat, and poisoning from effort to eradicate wolves and coyotes.

The foxes I observed yesterday are the wild born progeny of a very successful reintroduction effort started just north of me in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta nearly 30 years ago by a diverse group of biologists and landowners interested in returning this little fox to the prairie.

The reintroduced foxes prospered in the remaining grasslands and expanded rapidly south into the United States. The most recent population estimate derived from a 2006 census across Alberta, Montana, and Saskatchewan suggests there are about 515 foxes in Montana and another 647 in Canada. The number of foxes in Montana was probably an underestimate since the survey effort was centered on the border and there were probably a number of undocumented foxes living further south of the area that was surveyed. That number has certainly grown since the survey as well and they are becoming observed more often in the area.

This was my first good observation of a Swift Fox ever. I have watched them dart across the road in Wyoming while doing Black-footed Ferret surveys, found road kills just north of Glasgow, and observed one individual on a number of occasions at a den alongside a road but he always disappeared before I got very close. It was very special to finally be able to watch this pair and their kits so close - something I have been looking forward to for years.

PAD 17 - Western Willet - Narcissus

2010-06-18T19:23:00.002-06:00

Western Willet (Catoptrophorus semipalmatus inornatus). Northern Valley County Montana. May 2010.

Actual posts with text may resume shortly.

PAD 16

2010-06-17T20:31:00.001-06:00

Caspian Tern (Sterna caspia). Fort Peck, Montana. May 2010.

PAD 15

2010-06-16T20:54:00.001-06:00

Great Horned Owl. Near Fort Peck, Montana. June 6, 2010

Pronghorn 166 update

2010-06-15T21:10:00.004-06:00

This is not pronghorn 166. She is much farther north than this pronghorn.

Pronghorn 166 was relocated in late May, still the farthest northeast of the bunch (click on the image to enlarge). She was originally collared just north of Glasgow in February.

PAD 14

2010-06-13T20:52:00.003-06:00

Crested Duck (Lophonetta specularoides) Ushuaia, Argentina. December 2008.

PAD 13

2010-06-12T15:03:00.002-06:00

Antarctic Tern (Sterna vittata). Port Lockroy, Antarctic Peninsula. December 8, 2008.

PAD 12

2010-06-11T22:37:00.003-06:00

Blue-eyed Shag (Phalacracorax (atriceps) bransfieldensis) preening. Port Lockroy, Antarctic Peninsula. December 9, 2008

PAD 11

2010-06-10T20:11:00.003-06:00

Humpback Whale Tail. Antarctic Peninsula. January 28, 2006

PAD 10

2010-06-09T18:41:00.004-06:00

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross. Antarctic Peninsula. November 10, 2007.

New Tenants

2010-06-07T19:39:00.004-06:00

For the last two years we have hosted a family of Hairy Woodpeckers in the crab apple tree in our backyard.

This year we have new tenants in the tree. They moved in over a month ago and did some major remodeling judging from the amount of pecking we heard and sawdust piled under the hole.

The male flicker...

and female Flicker have moved right in and now apparently have small nestlings in the hole. They are an interesting couple - probably generations into a mix of yellow-shafted and red-shafted forms of Flickers like most Flickers around here.

Perhaps this winter the Eastern Screech Owl that occasionally hangs around the back yard will move in but until then I am looking forward to watching this new young family grow.

PAD 9

2010-06-06T20:15:00.001-06:00

Bailey Head Rim. Deception Island. Antarctic Peninsula. November 13, 2007

PAD 9

2010-06-04T19:44:00.002-06:00

Chinstrap Penguin. Bailey Head on Deception Island, Antarctic Peninsula. November 13, 2007

PAD 8

2010-06-03T21:40:00.002-06:00

Sweetgrass Hills. May 8, 2010.

PAD 7

2010-06-01T17:38:00.001-06:00

Chinstrap Penguin. Bailey Head on Deception Island. Antarctic Peninsula. November 13, 2007.

PAD 6

2010-05-31T17:32:00.001-06:00

Snowy Sheathbill. Antarctic Peninsula. November 14, 2007.

PAD 5

2010-05-30T17:25:00.002-06:00

Sunset iceberg. Weddell Sea, Antarctica. January 23, 2006

PAD 4

2010-05-29T17:20:00.001-06:00

Whale foramen magnum. Port Lockroy, Antarctic Peninsula. January 27, 2006

PAD 3

2010-05-28T18:38:00.002-06:00

Torres Del Paine National Park Chile. January 19, 2006

Photo a Day 2

2010-05-27T19:35:00.003-06:00

Looks like I missed a day already. Jury duty is my excuse. Maybe I should call it Photo Most Days.
Anyway, here is the next installment.

January 28, 2006 Antarctic Peninsula - Glacial blocks. This is what the leading edge of a glacier looks like as it breaks apart into large blocks near where the face is calving into the water.

Photo a Day

2010-05-25T17:08:00.000-06:00

I am going to try to post one photo per day for the next year. Most of the time I have seen this done, I get the impression that the photographers were also trying to take the photo they posted the same day. I am going to try to do it the lazy way and dig through my archives for photos I have not posted here before, many of them taken before I started blogging. I was inspired by looking for a photo in my storage recently and I found myself reminiscing about past trips and photos so I decided to give myself a reason to stroll back through the photos again.

This first photo is of a Darwin's Rhea (Pterocnemia pennata) and chick taken in Chile, along the highway from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales. 1/16/2006

Pronghorn 166

2010-05-24T20:00:00.002-06:00

The Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is the sole surviving member of a family that, during the Pleistocene, consisted of twelve species. They are the fastest land mammal in North America and are built for the open plains of the west.

Although speedy, they are poor jumpers and would rather find a way under a fence than try to jump over it. However, they can move surprisingly fast underneath barb wire fences and even faster if the bottom wire is raised even a couple inches above what is traditionally used when constructing fences. Woven wire fences (see the photo above), used to confine sheep, are effective barriers to pronghorn movement.

Roads and traffic are also deadly for antelope during their migrations or when the roads bisect their wintering areas.

The area just north of the Milk River in Eastern Montana is a primary wintering area for a number of pronghorn. We have known that many of these animals spend their summer in Canada from past studies of collared animals, but little was known of the routes and obstacles these animals faced or how they used habitat configuration at landscape levels.

About 40 doe antelope have been captured and outfitted with GPS collars each of the last two winters to get a more detailed view of their habitat use and movements in relation to the larger landscape of the Northern Great Plains. Andrew Jakes, a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary, is conducting the work which is funded by a number of governmental and non-governmental entities.

The pronghorn are captured on their wintering areas near Malta and Glasgow, MT by Quicksilver Air, a crew that specializes in capturing animals using net guns fired from helicopters.

These guys are really good at this and it was a blast watching them work the animals. They were very good at minimizing the time spent with each herd and would capture an individual quickly and have it up and running again soon after the initial capture. In the photo above you can see the orange net covering a doe antelope and below is that antelope being released a few minutes later.

Below is a map of the capture locations in Valley County from February 2010. The pronghorn capture photos above are of number 166 (the furthest south capture, just northwest of Glasgow).

Below is the location of the animals at the end of April. Notice that 166 was about 200 miles north of her capture location (Glasgow and Malta are located along the bottom edge of the map and the dark line through the map is the US/Canada border).

The collars have a VHS transmitter and a GPS receiver. The VHS transmitter enables us to occasionally check the location and status of the animals (as above) and the GPS collars store the location of the animal every 2 hours or so. Then in February the following year, the collar is programed to blow off the animal and the VHS enables us to locate the collar and get the stored location information.

The map below depicts the cumulative locations of thirty nine animals from Feb 2009 to Feb 2010.

It is amazing the amount of land these animals cover annually. I imagine that if we had this level of information for all the animals that spend their winter along the Milk River, this map would be even more impressive, but even as it is we will be learning a lot about how these animals react to changes and challenges in their world.

Andrew has agreed to provide me with information on 166 as he gets her location throughout the year and next year when we recover her collar we will be able to see her how she moved between those spots. Stay tuned.

Montana Politics

2010-05-20T13:01:00.001-06:00

It's been a crazy couple of weeks with tales to tell and photos to share, but for now just a photo caption to ponder.

Long Day

2010-05-06T19:56:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I arrived in Calgary in the early afternoon after braving the howling winds across the Montana on Tuesday evening. Yesterday's drive was not windy, just snowy and slushy. All the way from Shelby to Calgary.
After an pleasant afternoon at my host Brain Elder's house I gave a talk about Montana birds and a bit of Antarctica and South America to a joint meeting of the Calgary Field Naturalist Society and the Bird Study Group. I really enjoyed the evening with a nice group of people. I hope they enjoyed it as well.
I had planned for it to be a quick trip. I have another talk on Saturday for The Nature Conservancy at their Matador Ranch, another on Monday for the Sacajawea Audubon Society in Bozeman, and then back again to the Matador the following Saturday.
I ventured outside this morning to clean the ice off the windows of the car and warm it up. I fired it up and headed back to the house to grab my bag. I was about half way up the driveway when the car stopped running. And wouldn't start again.
After a call to CAA and a tow the the local Canadian Tire (thanks again Brian), I waited for the mechanic to fix something simple like a frozen gas line. But that was not to be. After tracing the problem back to what now appears to be a faulty fuel pump (on a 2006 car with less than 70,000 miles on it) I found out just how much a fuel pump for a 2006 Toyota Corolla costs. Take your best guess and quadruple it and it will probably be close. Oh yeah, and the part is in Vancouver to add insult to injury. So hopefully tomorrow a new fuel pump will arrive in Calgary and hopefully that will fix the problem and I will get on the road for the 10 hour drive home. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
At least in the mean time Brian has opened up his home for me for an extra night which has made the situation much more bearable. Thanks again Brian (and Barbara and Diane).

Hmmm.

2010-04-30T10:47:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to an event in New Orleans celebrating the partnership between TransCanada (a large pipeline company currently working on building a pipeline from the tar sands oil fields in Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast across eastern Montana) and Duck Unlimited.

Yesterday I received this via email.

I wonder why they may have decided that canceling a celebration between a large oil pipeline company and a conservation organization in New Orleans might be the thing to do right now......