Montana Bird Records Committee

On Thursday Dad and I drove to Great Falls for the annual meeting of the Montana Bird Records Committee. Much of our voting takes place via email during the year but we get together once a year to go over records where there is some discussion on the report or discuss other committee business. We generally get together to bird at Giant Springs State Park before the meeting begins and we usually have been able to observe a rare bird for Montana every year. Last year it was a Blue-headed Vireo. This year we began the morning with little bird activity and began the meeting with our streak broken. After our morning session we broke for lunch. Dad and I had brought our lunch so we stayed at the meeting room to eat while a few others headed out for lunch. Shortly after that, Dan Casey, president of our group came in to grab his camera - a pair of adult Black Scoters had been found by John Nordrum, a local birder who had also attended the proceedings that morning (John had submitted a rare bird report for two Atlantic Black Brant he had observed and photographed the day before at nearby Freezout Wildlife Management Area. We accepted the report in which was probably our fastest turn-around time on a bird report).
Dad and I dropped our lunch and headed down the road to see the scoters and they were still there. Below is a photo digiscoped by Dan Casey. By the time we got there the birds had moved further into the water and my photos, although certainly of Black Scoters, are not as good as those obtained by Dan. Black Scoters are the rarest of the scoters in Montana with fewer than 20 records. Adult males are even more rare and I believe this is the second record of an adult male (the first was at Fort Peck during a Christmas Bird Count a number of years ago). The streak was still alive.


Photo by Dan Casey.

Home again, Home again,..

I finally back home after four days of meetings last week. The first three days were planning meetings. Oh joy. I am in the middle of a major planning effort for the management of most of the public land from the Canadian border to the Missouri River and the Continental Divide to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in north-central Montana. It is important work but tedious none the less. My last meeting on Friday was much more interesting. It was the Montana Bird Records Committee meeting. I really enjoy these meetings, not only for the subject matter but also for the people involved. It is one of the few times during the year when I can get together with this group of people I really enjoy and respect.

We had a good meeting, reviewing new submissions and old records. A few of us have recently started to go through the archives of some of Montana's pioneer ornithologists and there were a few discussion on the status of species including Montana's only Ivory Gull record and the breeding status of Bohemian Waxwings in Montana (a few records around the breeding season, but nothing that would really suggest this species breeds in Montana).

I will have more news concerning Montana birds and an exciting project I am involved in soon!

Odds and Ends

So many posts have come and gone through my mind over the last few weeks but never made it here for one reason or another.

There was the day the crows were migrating through in long scattered groups. The sight reminded me of the fall day a number of years ago when I was watched a long broken line of these birds chasing the light south. At the top of a large hill near here, I was able to connect scattered groups of crows from as far as I could see to the north, over my head and again as far as I could see to the south - with my spotting scope! This stringy line of scattered crows, moving near the earth stretched for at least 10 miles. Maybe they really stretched from daylight to dusk.




Then there was the first flock of cranes. Sandhill cranes in swirling lines forming large masses moving in the same direction as the crows, but much higher. The fall cranes always prompt memories from my childhood of walking home from school for lunch on a yellow October day and hearing that sound. If you have heard it before you know what I mean - that rolling call of the Arctic and muskeg connecting to the playas of the southern grasslands. I remember being stopped in the open field between the school and my house when the churling bugles registered in my mine and my eyes moved skyward to trace the sound to the gathered specks moving south in shifting lines high above me.





Oh, and ambiguity and bird identification from David Sibley mixed with the Dunning-Kruger effect (from a post by Pluvialis at Fretmarks) prompted lots of thoughts, particularly during this time of year when I am reviewing a number of bird observations submitted to the Montana Bird Records Committee for review. But I am not going to chase that right now.


Then there are these guys...





And her..





And it is a gorgeous fall day in October, upland gamebird season is on, waterfowl opened last weekend, birds are migrating through, I can see the bison grazing out my front window as I type this and I should not be sitting in front of my computer. My camera/binoculars/shotgun should be in my hand and I should be out the door and.....did you hear the door slam shut behind me?