Dragons & Damsels

Our cool Montana weather during most of May and June seems to have put a bit of a damper on my pursuit of Odonates - Dragonflies and Damselflies. But the warmer weather in the past several days has found me out in some favorites locations swatting mosquitoes and searching for these fascinating insects. While the variety of species to be found is a bit slim this early in the season, there are some good, colorful "bugs" to be found. I am going to just post some of the better images I have managed to obtain over the past week or so with very little dialogue. Enjoy!

You can't get much bluer than the eyes on this Blue-eyed Darner! Vivid Dancers are both vivid in color and sort of dance when they fly. Flame skimmers are one of my favorites and they are pretty easy to approach on their selected perches. California darners are among the earliest of the darner group to appear each spring. As are these very small and delicate Pacific Forktails. Not too much color on these Dot-tailed Whitefaces, but it is easy to see how they got their name! Four-spotted Skimmers are found throughout the northern hemisphere, and are usually quite common.

Ash-throated Flycatcher

On 17 June, a cloudy, rainy day, I headed to the Kmart Ponds on the north edge of Helena to check on a Wilson's snipe nest that I had been monitoring. While walking toward the nest site, a largish flycatcher that was an unfamiliar Montana bird for me flushed from some weeds in front of me and perched not too far away. I quickly got my binoculars on it and its size, very light chest and abdomen along with a darkish, crested head quickly lead me to the conclusion that I had something special. The bird looked familiar to me and I guessed that it might be a flycatcher more commonly found in the SW part of the country, an Ash-throated Flycatcher, which I had observed in Arizona a number of times.

It is a rare occasion that the camera I habitually hang over my shoulder does not have my large telephoto attached. But on this occasion, I had a different, less powerful lens because I was checking on the snipe nest. But I took some photos anyway, and along with the mental notes I had taken, I returned to my vehicle to take a look at my bird field guide. The combination of the photo images and my mental notes supported my initial tentative assessment that this may indeed be an Ash-throated Flycatcher. Enlarging the images on my home computer convinced me that this was the correct identification. An inquiry of the Montana Bird Database revealed that there were 11 previous records for this species in Montana, but only two of those records were after the 1970's. So this was indeed a pretty rare sighting in the state. But the observation must first be reviewed by the Montana Bird Records Committee before it becomes official

I quickly got the word out on our Montana Birding listserve - the MOB - and a number of folks came looking for the bird over the past week or so. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, only one other person was fortunate enough to relocate the bird, although I sighted it on 3 of 4 occasions that I looked. This is the last picture I got of this rare Montana bird.

What a Difference a Month Makes!!

On 18 May of this year, I was fortunate to get a few photos of a Sandhill Crane "colt" that was several days old and still on the nest with a parent. As you can see from these images(which I used in a previous blog), this young crane is quite diminutive in stature. Over the past month, I have encountered this crane family on a number of occasions, providing me the opportunity to monitor the growth of this colt - as young cranes are named. On these intermittent encounters, I have moved away from the family each time I saw them so as to not disturb them. But on this past Friday, 18 June, exactly one month since my initial photos of the young colt, I came up over a rise and the family group was directly in front of me. There were several good opportunities for photos, so as you might guess, I took advantage of them. Here is what I saw! The growth rate of that young one has been astounding. Weight/height comparisons would be interesting over that one month period. A quick internet search revealed that the colt may be ready to fly in the 9-10 week range. Since this brooding area is confined by highways, buildings, and tight fencing, flight is about the only way that the colt will be able to escape the area. So hopefully, it will do well over the next 5 weeks or so and then be able to fly away.

Last year, this same pair hatched 2 young which remained in the area for at least a month, when I lost track of them. So I'm not sure about the survival and fledging of those young. Maybe this year, I or some other lucky birder will see the young colt fly away!!

Sage Birds

Monday was the first nice, summer-like day we have had in a while, so I took advantage and headed south to the Bannack area - Montana's First Territorial Capitol. The "Ghost Town" preserved here by a Montana State Park is one of the more photogenic cultural sites in our state, and probably my favorite site of its type for photography. But my target for the day was the bird communities in the nearby extensive sagebrush habitats. This is about the only area in MT where gray flycatchers and sage sparrows are found. But other sparrow species such as Brewer's Sparrows and Vesper Sparrows plus sage thrashers are found here in abundance, and there are usually a few bonus birds found in the mixture. This years bonus birds were a Willet sitting on a sage brush plant. They are more commonly found along shorelines. And then, a little farther down the road, there were a number of Common Nighthawks resting on a jack-leg fence apparently digesting their morning catch of insects. There are not a lot of vibrant colors on these birds of the day, but they all have special traits that attract me back to this special location every year.

Fairy Slipper Time

As with many people, orchids have always fascinated me. And for the past several years, I have been endeavoring to capture some quality images of some Montana orchid species. On Tuesday of this week, I began hiking a mountain foothill trail in the Rimini Drainage west of Helena to look for a few bird species I had not yet observed for the year. Not very far along the trail, I noticed a few Fairy Slipper Orchids - one of my favorites and probably the most abundant species in Montana. Farther along, they became more obvious, with some clumps of a dozen or more flowers. While I had obtained some some pretty good images last June, I could not resist the opportunity to change to my macro lens and take more! Here are a few of the results.

MT Audubon/Centennial Valley Birding Trip

All's Well that Ends Well!! That cliche is a very apt description of our Montana Audubon sponsored Memorial Day Weekend birding excursion into the fantastic Centennial Valley of southwestern Montana. The beginning of our weekend in the Valley was a little on the "iffy" side. As we progressed toward our destination - Elk Lake Resort - the roads began to get progressively more muddy. Then, about 4 miles from the resort, we entered an especially notorious portion of the road. And sure enough, our 12-passenger, 2-wheel drive van became hopelessly stuck! We exited and took a quick look at the situation, tried to back out of the problem, and concluded that we weren't going anywhere. On a whim, I reached for my cell phone, not really expecting to have coverage in this remote part of Montana. But success was at hand! I quickly reached Lerrina and Craig Collins at the resort. In about about 10 minutes, Craig came to our rescue and handily pulled us through the remainder of the bad portions of the road. He waited for the other van that was part of our group and helped them also. This is just one example of the super service and hospitality that Craig and Lerrina provide on a regular basis. The great food and accommodations are something we look forward to each year!
We did a little birding that evening near the resort and had the usual great meal before retiring for the evening.

The weather remained on the marginal side with some showers and a little frozen precip, but that did not dampen the enthusiasm of this great group of birders. The next day, we spent most of our time in and around the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. This is a huge lake/wetland complex with some associated sagebrush, grasslands, and mountain foothill habitat, with lowest elevations almost 7000 feet. Breeding Trumpeter Swans are the major attraction at this refuge but there are many other great birding opportunities there also.

Some of the highlights of the trip, as expressed by the participants, were Trumpeter swans in a number of locations, Ferruginous Hawks, a nice gathering of sandhill Cranes with some engaging in their unique courtship dance, and Greater Sage-Grouse on a breeding lek on our return to the lodge one evening from a meal at the J BAR L Ranch! Sage Grouse are not usually observed displaying this late in the year or in the evenings, so this was a real bonus for us.

Birding in the vicinity of the lodge was also quite good with species such as Cassin's Finches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-headed Grosbeaks, and American Goldfinches easy to spot. Our total bird tally for the trip was about 110 species. However, with all the great birding we experienced, a trip such as this is much more enjoyable with a great bunch of people - and that is what we had accompanying us. And though the weather might have provided some reason, there was not a "whiner" in the bunch!!!Thanks to all of you!! And I hope to see you again soon - with binoculars in hand!! Additional pictures from this trip are available at my Flickr Site!