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!

Red Knots Galore!

In the half dozen or more times I have visited Gray's Harbor, near Westport, WA during the spring shorebird migration, I have never observed or photographed a Red Knot. So while I don't usually have target birds when I visit an area, I was determined this year to find and photograph this species because it is one of the few remaining shorebirds that is missing from my bird image library.

I arrived at one of the better locations for shorebirds - Bottle Beach - about 2 hours before high tide. Migration was apparently mostly over for the year as my May 13 arrival date was on the late side. As I arrived at the beach, there was a couple of birders sitting on some driftwood and I engaged them in conversation for a few minutes. They, too, were looking specifically for Red Knot and had not seen any from their vantage point. There was a photographer positioned out near the water's edge near a series of old pilings that was a favorite site for taking shorebird images. I walked to the east of him about a hundred yards before positioning myself to view the shorebirds that were feeding mostly along the water/shoreline interface. SUCCESS!! Scattered amongst the numerous flocks of shorebirds - mostly Dunlins and Western Sandpipers - were literally hundreds of Red Knots. In the ensuing 90 minutes or so, I proceeded to fill the entire 8GB flash card in my camera with shorebird images, focusing mostly on Red Knots. Of course, in my haste to get out on to the beach, I had forgotten to take extra cards with me! Here are some of the results. The Red Knots pretty much stand out in a crowd - sitting or flying as you can see in the following shots. I was also fortunate enough to get images of a banded/tagged Red Knot that had been captured about 3-4 years previously in Baja California.

The Black-bellied Plovers in their tuxedo-like breeding plumage are even easier to spot.This Dunlin is not quite in full breeding plumage yet!Western Sandpipers are among my favorites, especially when they decide to rest for a while.In Montana, almost all of the Dowitchers we see are Long-billed. But the Gray's harbor shorebird migration provides the opportunity to view both Long- and Short-billed Dowitchers, although the latter, such as the following, predominate. The shorebird migration thru this area is one of of those great spectacles of nature that I never tire of watching. I shall return to Bottle Beach!

Sandhill Crane Nest Success!

For the past 3 years, and possibly longer, a pair of Sandhill Cranes has been nesting in almost exactly the same location on a small cattail wetland near Helena. Nest success in 2008 was unknown since I was not able to monitor it after I first discovered it. But last year, there were 2 "colts" hatched and reared in the area for at least a month before they disappeared or moved. This year, I first located the nest site with incubating adult on April 16, and checked again periodically to follow the status of the nesting attempt.

On Monday of this week, as I viewed the adult attending the nest, I noticed that she seemed to be sitting differently than when I have viewed her at other times while she was incubating. So I looked again on Tuesday, and there was a young crane standing in front of her as she remained on the nest. Since I was not carrying my camera at the time, something that rarely occurs, I raced back to my vehicle to retrieve camera and tripod in hopes that the young one would still be present when I returned. And lucky for me, both the adult and young remained on the nest. Now the young "colt", as young cranes are named, was climbing over the back of the adult and obtaining good photo images was difficult. So I located a good hiding place and waited for the colt to reappear. I could see occasional movement on the back of the adult where the colt was apparently enclosed by the adult's feathers. After about 30 minutes, the colt reappeared and climbed up on its mother's back, and I was able to get some photo images. Then the adult decided to stand up, but she stayed on the nest and seemed to be readjusting some of the nesting material while doting on her youngster. Apparently, my location was far enough away that she did not seem to be especially disturbed by my presence. For this, I felt very fortunate because cranes seem to be quite vigilant and wary of intruders, and I certainly did not want to disturb this nesting effort in any way. The next day, Wednesday, I returned to again take a look. The birds were now gone from the nesting area, but I soon located them, now with the other adult pair member in attendance. They were a hundred yards or more away along another pond and headed toward a nearby grassy area to do some feeding. And even at this distance, one member of the pair stayed with the colt while the other came toward me in a defensive action. Not wanting to disturb them, I vacated the area. As I was leaving, a red fox ran up over the dike and disappeared in a nearby gravel pit area. No young colt for breakfast today!!

First Anniversary

It was one year ago today that I began writing these periodic blogs. This was an experiment on my part to see if it was something that I would enjoy and that it served my intended purpose - a convenient way to write, share, and preserve my thoughts in electronic diary form. For the first 3 months, I was quite diligent, posting a new blog about twice a week. With the newness wearing off after that and summertime activities competing for time, my productivity declined to the range of 3 to 4 entries per month. This was of some concern to me because in my experience with other blogs, if they weren't active on at least a weekly basis, my interest in following them waned. But there had to be some sort of balance here between that concern and my available time for getting photos and coming up with new topics. About one new blog per week or 10 days seems to be where I'm most comfortable, and where I don't have to force myself to prepare something that doesn't amount to much. For you faithful followers out there, I hope this is satisfactory and that the relatively low frequency is enough to maintain your interest.

The one aspect of this effort that I am especially pleased with is the relative ease of retrieving older blogs when the desire or need arises. Hand written trip/travel diaries I have kept fairly faithfully in the past have a way of disappearing into desk drawers or under piles of documents where they are difficult to find. I am looking forward to using this blog "vehicle" as my diary for upcoming trips, as I did with the Ecuador series. In some instances, these will be "after the fact" entries because of a lack of internet access or not traveling with a computer. But they will still serve my purposes.

It is a cold and somewhat snowy day here in Helena again, so not much new to publish in the way of photo images. But here are a few that I took on a similar day in mid-April, when there were lots of birds using my feeders. Nothing especially fancy here, but handsome birds none the less!

House finches like this male are the most common visitors to my feeders. But this winter, especially in March and April, Dark-eyed Juncos were unusually common, with perhaps 30 or more present each day during one peak period. The Slate-colored variety(below) are usually the most common here during winter, but early spring juncos this year were dominated by the Oregon variety.