Where To Find Grassland BIrds

I have received requests for locations for a number of our "specialty" birds in Valley County so I have decided I would provide a Google Maps link so that people can find some of our birding hot spots in the area.

The first location is in the mixed grass prairie region of northern Valley County. This is an excellent location to find good numbers of a suite of species often considered rare in other areas. In previous years I have stood in one spot and listened to Sprague's Pipits, Baird's Sparrows, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, McCown's Longspurs, and Long-billed Curlews. And not just one individual of each species either. This location is on a large block of state land and requires a state lands recreation permit to bird there. It is labeled "grassland bird road" at Google Maps -see below.


Long-billed Curlew



Baird's Sparrow

The second site is in south Valley County. The route is an excellent spot to locate Mountain Plovers and McCown's Longspurs. Other species often found along this route include Brewer's Sparrows, Lark Buntings, Greater Sage-Grouse, Ferruginous Hawks, and Golden Eagles. Most of this route is on Bureau of Land Management land but it does pass through a few areas of private land. Land ownership (Federal, state, and private) maps can be purchased at the local BLM office in Glasgow. To get to this area go to "Bentonite Road Turnoff - south" location at Google Maps and head south on Bentonite Road to the "start of habitat" marker on Google Maps (again - see below)


McCown's Longspur


Mountain Plover

Here is a link to a Google Map that provides landmarks for the places I am talking about. Remember, both sites are on roads that are generally impassable when wet and quite a distance from any facilities. The area in north Valley County is near a paved highway however and can be accessed from the highway.

A couple of other points on this map are "Wards Reservoir" and Kerr Road Turnoff - West". Kerr Road leads into Wards Reservoir. This is another area that is good for the grassland birds with the addition of a BLM/Duck Unlimited reservoir project that is maintained for wildlife.

Another New Book and Neighbor Blogs

I recently found out that my friend Trevor Herriot will have his latest book Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds published this month. I am really looking forward to reading it. Trevor came to visit a few years ago and we toured around the prairie of Valley County looking at the landscapes and talking about birds as part of a radio program, Pastures Unsung, that Trevor was working on then. I believe that this book is an outgrowth of that program. Trevor also recently started his own blog and you can find it on my sidebar. I found out about Trevor's new blog through Craig Larson at Native Shores who contacted me about some of my photos. Trevor had both of us listed on his sidebar and Craig wandered over to Prairie Ice. I have added Native Shores to my sidebar as well and I am looking forward to reading more about Manitoba from him (and I thought the winter has been cold and nasty here!).
I also recently added Saskatchewan Birds, Nature and Scenery by Nick Saunders in Saskatoon as well. I have been following his blog for a while and finally realized I hadn't linked to it and so I got that fixed.

Bird Survey

Yesterday morning I was able to get out for probably the one bird survey I am going to get done this spring.

I have been establishing a few Breeding Bird Survey style monitoring routes around Valley County in intact prairie habitat to get a better idea of the distribution and relative abundance of bird species in the area. The data collected from these surveys will be fed into the models used to predict distribution in Montana. This survey I did yesterday helped fill in a part of the county where I hadn't established a survey yet.

Valley County has three very distinct major habitat types. The Milk River bisects the county, flowing southeast across the middle of the county to join the Missouri River just below Fort Peck Dam. The river valley habitat is mostly agricultural with large patches of Plains Cottonwood, Green Ash, and Box Elder forests forming the riparian zone along the river. The broad floodplain of the river was formerly large expanse of Silver Sage and probably was a primary wintering area for large numbers of Pronghorn and Greater Sage-Grouse. Most of the Silver Sage has now been converted to irrigated farmland over the last 100 years as a result of increased availability of water in the Milk River from a major diversion of water from the Saint Mary River into the Milk near their headwaters. This major change in the hydrologic cycle of this river has altered the ecology of the river and the associated riparian areas.


North of the Milk River lies a large expanse of glaciated plains. This is the heart of the grassland bird habitat and forms part of one of the largest blocks of remaining intact native northern mixed grasslands left in North America. A good portion of the grasslands in northern Valley County is in public ownership, both BLM and the State of Montana. Much of the remaining land is in ownership of large ranches interested in maintaining grasslands as well and one of them just recently entered into a conservation easement with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to keep it intact. We have had what we hope will be a long term monitoring project for grassland birds going in this landscape for the last 6 years and we feel that we have a pretty good idea of the distribution of birds in this landscape.

Greater Sage-Grouse - I found two broods with at least eight well-grown chicks in each brood.

South of the Milk River is a much different landscape. It is composed of poorer soils and and sparse vegetation dominated by Wyoming Big Sage. This is where some of the best remaining Greater Sage-Grouse populations in North America are found. Which leads us back to the beginning. We haven't been doing the intensive point count surveys in this area like we have done in the northern part so I have initiated a few Breeding Bird Survey style routes on roads through this habitat.

The route I did yesterday took me through part of the area where Mountain Plovers are fairly common and one of the few areas where these birds breed without being associated with prairie dogs. The bentonitic soil in one drainage in particular is not productive for vegetative growth and so it grows Mountain Plovers pretty well. McCown's Longspurs too. This area has been designated a Globally Important Bird Area because of the number of Mountain Plovers found breeding here. I found three Mountain Plovers when I was doing my counts. On my way back to town after getting done with the counts I found another group of 4 with at least four chicks.

Mountain Plover

Mountain Plover

McCown's Longspur

I have found a few Sage Thrashers on my other South Valley County route but none on this one. Perhaps the most interesting and unexpected bird I found this time was a Bobolink. I found one male singing at one of my points and found another on my way back home at the same spot. It was the edge of a reservoir surrounded by sage and rangeland. The rains this spring appeared to have provided enough moisture to fill the reservoir to the point where a good growth of grass occurred along the shallow end of the reservoir. These two birds somehow found this small patch of Bobolink habitat in the sea of sage. I flushed a brood of Greater Sage-Grouse out from underneath the area where the Bobolink was displaying.
One of the most common birds on this route was the Lark Bunting. Pretty much each stop had at least 3 or 4 birds and some had many more than that.


Sage Thrasher




Bobolink


On my way back home I found a Bullsnake on the road. I pulled over to get him off the road so he didn't get run over and he really did not appreciate the attention. This was one of the most aggressive Bullsnakes I have encountered and he did his best to imitate a Rattlesnake by rattling his tail and puffing up and turning sideways. I was finally able to get him to slide backwards and off the road while he was puffed up and striking at me.




Bullsnake

Montana Prairie Morning

The month of June is the best time to be out on the prairie. If you time it right you can beat the mosquitoes and it is even better. This spring the prairie in Northeastern Montana was quite dry but we have made up for it in the last month or so. I have been spending too much time being a government bureaucrat in front of my computer and no time being a wildlife biologist and I have desperately missed being out on the prairie in the morning. Last week I was able to get a quick morning trip in when two young Montana birders, Josh Covill and Andrew Guttenburg were in town. They were on their way back home from the ABA Young Birders Conference in Minot, North Dakota and they both wanted to see Mountain Plovers and McCown's Longspurs. Dad drove and we took them and Andrew's sister out to find both species. We found them right away and were back in town before too long. Not much time in the field but finding life birds for someone is always good.

This morning I needed to get out. Looming and past deadlines and general ill weather in the office have been taking their toll and I needed a recharge. I headed north early this morning to one of my favorite areas full of Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Sprague's Pipits, Baird's Sparrows, and a few McCown's Longspurs. I have been trying to get a real good photo of a Chestnut-collared Longspur and I had hoped that I get that accomplished this year but it looks like unless I get out some more mornings soon, I am going to have to wait until next year. It was still a very nice morning.

Lots of longspurs around but they are hard to get close to.

Unless you count nests, I found this one with little effort. Must be a re-nest for this pair.




Ferruginous Hawks were flying around.




A Northern Harrier heavy into molt too.




A pair of Savannah Sparrows were tending a nest with four young.




Baird's Sparrow were quite common too.





A Badger was working a hole, probably digging out a Richardson's Ground Squirrel.



When I walked up to the hole to see what was going on I found this Burying Beetle in the dirt recently excavated from the hole.

Grassland Birds Part 2

Fort Peck, MT - I have been working with grassland birds in northern Valley County for the last six years on a professional level, but I have known these birds since I was young. I remember taking breaks while stacking hay as a teenager, laying on my back trying to find the Sprague's Pipit I knew was somewhere above me because that unearthly song suggested it was so. It was a challenge to find this bird in the sky then, now it is a challenge to find this bird throughout much of it's former range.

I had originally planned on having this piece be a bit more about the plight of grassland birds but I know that with my crazy schedule the next couple of weeks that it just isn't going to get done well, so I am going to head in a different direction with this post. I am going to describe the results of the work I mention above in light of the birding opportunities to be had in the area and beyond that, the opportunity to experience the grandeur of a large expanse of northern prairie. If you are looking to find a few individuals of many of these species there are probably many more accessible places in the country to do so. But, if you are looking to find many individuals of most of these species in a vast grass landscape, often right next to each other, you cannot do better than Northeastern Montana.

Here is a list of the top six most commonly encountered species over the last six years of bird surveys in the northern part of Valley county in order of abundance:

Chestnut-collared Longspur

Western Meadowlark

Horned Lark

Sprague's Pipit

Baird's Sparrow

Lark Bunting

The species listed above accounted for over 75% of the bird observations during our study. The next six most abundant species in order are:

Vesper Sparrow

McCown's Longspur

Marbled Godwit

Long-billed Curlew

Brown-headed Cowbird

Grasshopper Sparrow (still need a good photo of this one).

You can read the whole report here.

And this is just the grassland birds. In the southern part of Valley County, there are large numbers of Greater Sage-grouse along with readily found Mountain Plovers and large numbers of McCown's Longspurs. Along the Missouri River downstream from Fort Peck Reservoir there are Red-headed Woodpeckers, Least Terns, and Piping Plovers to mention only a few species.

Next time I will post on Steve Bodio's not so recent comment on the "eastern" birds we observe during spring and fall migration and the shorebird migration.

Blog Changes

Fort Peck, MT - I have updated a few things on the blog. You probably noticed the header photo has changed from an Antarctic scene to an Eastern Montana badlands scene. I have also updated the photo of the month to a Bison. This starts the theme for the month of June - grasslands. I will be posting shortly on the of the Glasgow Feather Fest and also more on birding in Eastern Montana and the incredible opportunities to observe a wide variety of prairie birds on grasslands that are still quite large - probably larger than any other patch remaining in North America. These grasslands include two Globally Important Bird Areas. More to follow. Since I can't have a post without a photo (they just seem naked), here is one of my favorite photos taken a year or so ago of Benton and Addie.

I love this time of year

It started Friday morning. I was eating breakfast with the window open. It was a windless morning - rare in eastern Montana - and I could hear a bird song in the backyard. I figured I knew what it was, but firing up the rusty neurons of bird song ID in the spring always leaves me a bit unsure the first time around. So I grabbed my binoculars and headed out the door. It was coming from the near the top of a tall tree in the corner of the yard and I wandered around the tree a couple of times looking for the bird but just couldn't locate him in the newly leafed out branches. Then finally, there it was - a chevron of cherry red against a snowy breast. My first Rose-breasted Grosbeak of the year.

I decided that I needed a bit of birding time by myself and used some credit time to spend an hour so down by the river before I headed to work. It was wonderful. Yellow-rumped Warblers, Yellow Warblers, a few Orange-crowned Warblers and one Blackpoll Warbler and Northern Waterthrush rounded out the list of warblers. Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, Cliff Swallows, and Chimney Swifts were foraging in the early morning air above the old winter harbor that was once the winter home to barges that were used to construct Fort Peck dam. House Wrens were numerous for a bird that has apparently arrived that night. I even found one hauling small twigs into a nest box. There were many Chipping and Clay-colored Sparrows as well. Least Flycathers were mixed in with the warblers flittting in the foliage along the river. On the way into Glasgow I found a Broad-winged Hawk in a small coulee behind the Fort Peck Theater. Broad-winged Hawks are rare but regular in eastern Montana during the spring migration.
Yesterday I completed the first of my two shorebird surveys. It was a bit windy and the habitat wasn't that great but I did find a few upland shorebirds on the route. There were many Baird's Sparrows, Chestnut-collared Longspurs and Sprague's Pipits when I found a patch of native prairie but the patches were few and far between. Much of the landscape was tilled and all I found at stops in that habitat were Western Meadowlarks and Horned Larks. There was a fairly large patch of native prairie along the Poplar River where I could get a sense of what the landscape must have been like before the plow, but it was too depressing to dwell on too long. Thankfully we still have large patches of native prairie left in portions of Valley County but on a larger scale much of the northern Great Plains has been converted to agriculture and threats to the remaining grassland continue to build with the new gold rush to biofuels and genetically modified corn. More on this subject to follow soon.


Chimney Swift

Broad-winged Hawk


Red-winged Blackbird

Tree Swallow

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Grassland Birds Part 1

I am going to ease into these theme of grassland bird posts with a little homework for you. I received an email today from Trevor Herriot in Regina, Saskatchewan informing me that a radio show that he produced with Stuart Houston on grassland birds called "Pastures Unsung" is going to air again on CBC radio. The two part series originally aired last June on the show "Ideas" and will air again on CBC Radio 1 on April 11th and 12th at 9:00 at night (check your local listings - I am not sure what time that translates to with changes in daylight savings time or no daylight savings time in Saskatchewan). If you are too far away from a CBC station you can listen online.
I really enjoyed this broadcast last year but then again I am a bit biased as I was one of the people Trevor interviewed for this project. CBC has a website for the show here. Trevor does a good job of explaining the current status of grassland birds and the threats facing these birds.