Chief Little Hare

One of the benefits of living where I do is fairly east access to alpine habitat via the Beartooth Highway. Last weekend I spent a few hours along the highway at the top of the pass looking for a few animals to photograph. One of my intended subjects was the Pika (Ochotona princeps), also sometimes known as Chief Little Hare (the name that Audubon used for the species in his illustrated book The Viviparous Quadrapeds of North America). I was able to find a small group of these animals amid the rocky alpine habitats they prefer and I just sat down and watched them for quite a while. For a good portion of the time they were too close for me to photograph with the camera/lens setup I was using but I did get a few shots. 

What a Difference a Week Can Make.

It is amazing what a difference a week in May can make on a birding walk. Last week I spent an hour or so walking along the Yellowstone River at Two Moon Park. It was amazingly quiet. I heard and saw very few birds, fewer species and numbers than I typically find in January there. The winter birds were gone, the resident birds were dispersed, and the migrants and summer residents had apparently been stalled out on their way north by a rather large spring snow storm south of Montana.

This morning was quite different. I noticed the Yellow Warblers in my neighborhood had showed up a couple of days ago and there were a couple of Swainson's Thrushes in the backyard later in the week so I suspect that was when most of the residents and migrants arrived around here. And arrive they did.  I got to the foggy wet park fairly early in this morning and there were Yellow Warblers singing everywhere, only interrupted by the Common Yellowthroats and Yellow-breasted Chats. It was tough just trying to figure out how many were there.  I observed or heard Black-headed Grosbeaks, Gray Catbirds, and Brown Thrashers as well. It was nice to see so much activity in the park again.

Bird Themed Personalized License Plates

One of the long standing features of this blog is a widget on the left side that displays a slideshow of bird themed personalized license plates. This is a little project I started a number of years ago at one of our state birding festivals (yes that was me walking around the parking lot taking pictures of car bumpers). Most of the photos in the slide show have been there for quite a while and I haven't added much to it. However, I recently received a large number of photos from a friend who is birding further east this spring and I have added them to the collection. Now that the collection has started to grow again, I thought I would share it again.. You can see all the photos directly here.

If you have photos of license plates that you would like to share, please email them to me and I will add them to the collection.

Monday Morning Meeting - Sharp-tailed Grouse

Earlier this week I was able to sneak away early one morning for what will probably be my last lek morning of the year.  It was a very pleasant way to close out the season.  There was no wind, it was fairly warm for a late April morning and the sky was clear. I was back at a Sharp-tailed Grouse lek and there were probably close to forty birds stomping....

rattling....

cooing....

and fighting (lots of fighting) around me.

I also had a few other creatures besides the grouse join me at the lek. This Pronghorn wandered through, had a bite to eat on a sagebrush, scratched an itch, expressed his opinion, and wandered over the edge of the hill.

The Western Meadowlarks were also pretty active and singing vigorously from various perches around my blind.

On my way home I stopped by to check out the Mountain Bluebird nest boxes and found this guy.

* Here are some bonus photos from a morning at a different lek earlier this month.