Home again.

Fort Peck, MT - It is amazing how much things change when you are away for a week in the spring. When I left on Monday last week the lawn was just greening up and the leaves had just popped out of buds on the trees. Now there are flowers on the plum tree and the lilacs have flower buds. The lawn needs to be mowed too.

Yesterday we found an unexpected source of maggots. I am not going to go into where they came from but it should suffice to say that the story surrounding the appearance of these larvae will probably be in Laura's yet-to-be-published Top 10 List of Reasons not to Marry a Biologist. I figured I could at least feed the birds with them so I put the maggots in a small planter bottom and placed it on our picnic table in the backyard yesterday evening. This morning they were all still there so I put the little container next to the pond in the backyard. About noon today a White-crowned Sparrow became curious about what was in the container and slowly danced around the rim until he gained enough nerve to perch on the lip and peer into the bottom. He must have liked what he found and soon he had picked out and ate about three. A male American Robin was watching the whole thing and soon was throwing them down one right after the other. The way he was going I assumed that they were completely gone but a short while later a Dark-eyed Junco was picking out the last of the little buggers.

Yesterday Benton and I took a short walk down near the Missouri River. We found a few Yellow-rumped Warblers, a pair of Caspian Terns foraging in a small creek near the river, and a Marsh Wren chattering like a broken sewing machine in last years cattails along the creek.

Colorado National Monument

Success!

Grand Junction, CO - It was not looking good. It was 7:30 pm and the sun was disappearing over the juniper hills across from the Ute Canyon View and I had still not observed a Juniper Titmouse.
Earlier that evening I convinced five other workshop participants that we needed to go for a drive in the Colorado National Monument. They were all for it after spending the day in a hotel conference room and we headed out at the conclusion of our days work. The evening was gorgeous and we made numerous stops along Rimrock Drive to look over the wonderful canyon views (and look for birds for me). I really enjoyed watching the White-throated Swifts (one of my favorites) zooming over the red canyon rocks and the Ravens working their way along the rims. I even managed to pish in a dapper Black-throated Gray Warbler and got good looks at a pair of crayon blue Pinyon Jays. Of course I had put my small lens on the camera at that stop to take some scenic photos when they appeared so I missed what could have been a good warbler shot with my longer lens.
Still no Juniper Titmouse when we made our last stop of the evening at the Ute Canyon View. I wandered to the edge of the canyon, pished a few times, and I had a Chipping Sparrow respond and then I noticed the whirlwinds of White-throated Swifts above the canyon, swirling down to race along the red canyon wall. I tried to get some photos of the birds against that canyon and was concentrating on following the little speedsters with the camera when I heard a different "chip" from the small bush behind me. I turned around and there it was right behind me. A plain grayish brown bird with a nice little crest - a Juniper Titmouse. I really thought it was going to elude me again but there it was at the last stop in the fading light. Just one bird, but I got good looks and poor photos. I also had a pair of Ravens fly right over me and "cronk" at me then whirl up into the air over the canyon.
It was a great evening.

Search for the Juniper Titmouse

Grand Junction, CO - I am in Grand Junction for a planning workshop. Sounds pretty boring I know, but I find these workshops quite exciting. I get to work some wonderful talented and dedicated people who are working on the future of our public lands management.
As part of this workshop we had a field trip this morning to Glade Park just south and west of Grand Junction to look at a few habitat treatments that the BLM and partners have implemented for Gunnison Sage-grouse. I found the discussion and ability to view these areas very interesting but I have to confess I was also trying to get a fair amount of birding in since I was going to be spending much of the next 3 days in a conference room. In particular I was looking for the Juniper Titmouse – a species that was recently spit from the Plain Titmouse along with the Oak Titmouse. As you might imagine the Oak Titmouse is very similar but occupies oak habitats rather than juniper habitats. I have observed the Oak Titmouse (back when it was still the Plain Titmouse) in California but I had no notes that I had ever observed a Plain Titmouse in the portion of it’s range where it is now called the Juniper Titmouse. It should be a fairly easy bird to pick up but I just managed to always not be in the right habitat or have enough time to look in the right habitat when I traveled to places within it’s range. Grand Junction is in the heart of Pinyon/Juniper country and I figured this would be my opportunity to find one and this field trip would be my best chance this week.

No such luck. We wound up going to places where they had gotten rid of the Pinyon/Juniper to enhance the distribution and extent of sage habitats so we weren’t in the right habitat again. We did drive through some very nice Juniper habitats and I had tantalizing glimpses of birds that looked like they might be a Juniper Titmouse but when you are traveling with a bunch of non-birders on a schedule it is difficult to hold up the whole group of to tromp through the bushes to find a bird. I did see some wonderful birds this morning though – White-throated Swifts, a Golden Eagle, lots of Vesper Sparrows, Ravens, Mountain Bluebirds, Gamble’s Quail, Western Meadowlarks, and American Kestrels. Plus all the usual city associated birds – House Sparrows, Rock Pigeon, Starling etc.
I do have one last chance to get out and find a Juniper Titmouse. Tomorrow we get done about 4:00 and I have already convinced one of the participants with a vehicle to take me back out into some Juniper areas. Hopefully…

Future Studio/Library?

Billings MT - As I mentioned in a previous post, an old one-room school in Eastern Montana has captured my attention as a possible studio/library. On my way to Billings yesterday I took this photo of the old school with Western Meadowlarks and newly arrived Vesper Sparrows singing in the background (there is even a meadowlark sitting on the old flagpole). I also have a phone number of the landowner. Now to see if they are interested in getting rid of the building.

Birds have started moving in after being stalled by cold and rainy conditions. New birds for the year included my first White-crowned Sparrow, Lincoln Sparrow, and Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle). The Lincoln's Sparrow arrived about the right time according to my 4 years of records at our house but the White-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warbler were a few days later than "usual". They all must have gotten stalled together somewhere south of Fort Peck by the weather.

Greater Sage-grouse photos

Some photos of our morning at the sage-grouse lek courtesy of my Dad, Charles Carlson.

More lek surveys

I haven't posted much lately because my early morning schedule has left little time for the rest of my duties with work and family. Recent heavy rains have put a damper on my dirt road travels until they dry out so I am finally catching up on other things. One of them being my blog. Anyway, I continued my lek surveys this past week and managed to get a 1/2 ton diesel Ford pickup very well stuck Wednesday morning in creek crossing that didn't appear THAT boggy at 6:30 am but really was THAT boggy. I did hear my first Boreal Chorus Frogs in the creek that morning (nothing boreal about this scene though).



It is amazing where you can get cell phone coverage these days - I hadn't seen a single person in the 3 days I had been doing these surveys, but was able to call the office with no problem and then had to wait the two hours for my boss to make it out to where I was. Saved me a pretty good walk. If the nearest neighbor hadn't been home and the cell phone hadn't worked it would have been a long walk to the nearest help. The good news was that I wasn't that far away from the lek and was able to get the survey done and feathers collected after the birds had left.

Although getting out of bed so early in the morning has been a bit of a chore, I really like being out in the field during that time of day. Watching the eastern skyline start to glow and witnessing the soft morning light creeping across the landscape and bathing the buttes and sage in the soft rosy glow while still waiting in the morning earth shadow of the lower ground is quite calming and makes the rest of the day special no matter what happens (like getting stuck). I am also able to see a number of animals that I would otherwise miss later in the day.



Although watching the sage-grouse display with the morning light behind me is good for watching bird behavior and taking photos, having the birds in between me and the rising sun is visually much more pleasing. From a distance the lek glitters with dancing birds. When you look closer you can see where the flashes of light originate. As a bird shuffles into a turn facing directly towards me or away from me, it rises up and pulls the bend of it's wings to the base of it's neck.



Their stiletto fan tail is blocked by the rising body of the bird, but as the wings brush down their sides, the birds lean forward revealing a corona of glowing silver spikes. The flash of back lit tails can be seen for miles.




Dad and I are going to try to get out to a lek to take some photos on Sunday morning. Hopefully the roads will be dried out by then. I will post photos later that day if we make it out.