Spring Waterfowl Shoot

Over the past three or so years, the juncture of my birding and photography passions has evolved into what seems to be a new tradition - a spring waterfowl shoot. Each March, the arrival of migrant waterfowl coincides with the beginning of ice melt in our Montana waterfowl marshes. Initially, the melt takes place mostly along the margins of the water bodies before openings occur farther out in the marshes and lakes. At the same time, the ice in the cattail and bulrush stands is slower to melt, probably because of the shading and insulating influences of these dense stands of vegetation. This differential melting provides a perfect opportunity to get closer to the openings used by the variety of early arriving waterfowl. And, of course, the cattails & bulrush also act as a pretty good opportunity for camouflage and hiding. In addition, these plants provide some comfort and insulation for sitting hours in one location.

The window of opportunity that these conditions present may be limited to 10 or fewer days, depending on the progression of ice melt. This year, the window was quite short because of the warm and windy weather we experienced in mid-March. In the previous 2 years, good conditions persisted longer.

To get positioned properly, one has to take into account the wind and sun direction for best photo opps. "Shooting" birds in flight is every bit as challenging with a camera as it is with a shotgun. And believe me, on a good day, I take many more shots with a camera than I ever did with a shotgun, so the success rate for the camera is generally far below that of the shotgun. But it is great fun and a fantastic way to enter the spring season of new birding/photography opportunities.

To date, this new tradition has focused mostly on the Lake Helena area of the Helena Valley and on Freezout Lake Wildlife Management area. The latter has the advantage of a potentially spectacular backdrop of the Rocky Mountain Front. Northern pintails are the are usually my prime targets, but there are numerous other species present that also spark my interest.Canvasback are also high on my list but are not nearly as abundant as other species.My photographer friends and I are not the only Montanans that "flock" to Freezout Lake at this time of year. Huge concentrations of snow geese and swans use Freezout as a way point on their migration to breeding grounds in the far north. Concentrations of 100,000 or so geese are not unusual during spring migration, and weather events sometimes temporarily slow northern movement with a resulting buildup approaching a quarter million geese. Swan numbers sometimes approach 10,000 or so, but this is somewhat unusual and a peak of 5,000 or so would be more normal. These large concentrations of waterfowl a truly an amazing spectacle of nature!

When looking at flocks of white geese, it is a challenge to see if you can distinguish the Snow geese from Ross's geese. Although the plumage is nearly exactly the same, the latter species has a smaller body and the head shape and bill are diagnostic. These are snow geese.Tundra swans are by far the most numerous of this group but trumpeters are sometimes mingled among them. Bil shape and the yellow spot usually found at the base of the Tundra swan's bill are the best way to separate these species. Click on this image to view the yellow spot.The call of the Trumpeter is also noticeably lower than that of the Tundra swans.Common goldeneye are usually fairly abundant at this time of year but seem to fly faster than other species and are difficult to get good shots of.And, of course, there is the ubiquitous mallard. I try to ignore this species because they are so common, but that is often difficult to do when they fly nearby.
Redheads can also be a challenge, but every now and then I get lucky with them - birds that is!!But with all of the different opportunities, pintails are still my species of choice. I wonder if that will change in future years. My best shot of a single pintail drake I took 2 years ago, but there is always room for improvement - and that perfect shot!!

A Change of Pace!

In recent years, a pine bark beetle epidemic in the Northern Rocky Mountains has devastated stands of Ponderosa and Lodgepole Pine. I must admit that when this huge infestation hit our area around Helena, I was skeptical that it would or could do the damage that others had predicted. But all I have to do is look out my office window to the south to see what nature has wrought! Just to the south of our home in Helena, no more than 75 yards or so, there is or was a stand of Ponderosa Pine that several years ago seemed to be reasonably healthy. Then about 3-4 years ago, some of the trees began dying. This was not unexpected because that happens in nature, especially in forest stands that are too dense and in need of some natural thinning. But over that 3 or 4 year period, it appears that nearly 90 percent of the trees have died from the beetles, and the epidemic may not be over.

Over the past few weeks, the whining and buzzing of chainsaws could be heard throughout the day as dead trees were being felled and stacked for burning by crews employed by the city of Helena. Under other circumstances, my instinct would be to object to such an operation because dead trees are beneficial to many bird and other wildlife species. And indeed, the numbers and diversity of woodpecker species in other areas of dead and dying trees near Helena are noticeably greater than only several years ago. But these dead trees above our home actually border the back yards of our neighbors and likely pose a significant danger of wildfire during the hot days of summer.

This morning, as I returned home from visiting a friend, smoke billowed upwards from the remains of the Ponderosa Pine forest just to the south of our home. Fire crews were igniting and tending to the numerous piles of slash that remained from the weeks of chainsaw action. And I concluded that in this instance, that is a good thing! As you might expect, there is some debate about the conclusion by some experts that this insect infestation has been exacerbated by the trend to warmer temperatures in our area over the past several decades. They say these Pine Bark Beetles do not fare well during periods of intense cold that use to be the norm around here. I don't know whether this is the case or not. But I do know that this insect epidemic seems to be the worst to hit forests in the Northern Rocky Mountains in recorded history - so there is certainly something going on in nature that should have a rational explanation!

I took the following series of photos to record the happenings of the day to compare them with what the area will look like several years down the road. Hopefully, there will be some natural tree regeneration resulting from seeds produced by the fortunate few mature trees that remain.

Some Montana Winter Birds

With winter beginning to fade here in Montana, I decided to take a look at what I had acquired for bird photos over the past 4 months or so. Compared with past years, the results are on the meager side. There are at least several reasons for that - less effort on my part and what seemed to be fewer bird species and numbers in the Helena area this winter.

As a general observation, our winter birds are not as colorful as the spring migrants and summer breeders. An exception to this may be the waxwings that are among our most photogenic winter visitors. But what our other winter residents may lack in color, they seem to make up in being quite photogenic. That is to say that their color patterns make for very good photographs. And there is no better example of this than Black-capped Chickadees. Last winter, a friend who feeds birds where he lives in the pine hills south of Helena invited me to take photos of the good variety of birds he had attending his feeders. A visit there last week was productive for several species such as Red-breasted Nuthatches and Brown Creepers, many of the species present last year were no where to be seen on this latest visit.
Out in the Helena Valley, one of the species that seems to be relatively plentiful are Gray Partridge. And the few open water areas that we have in winter usually support several of our hardier waterfowl species such as one of my favorites, the Hooded Merganser. And the Missouri River below Hauser Dam is a great place to view Common Goldeneye numbering in the hundreds. Perhaps surprisingly, our National Bird - Bald Eagle - is also quite easy to find in winter, with some of them likely being residents breeders and other maybe migrants that winter here. Now, as the weather warms and the ice loses it grip on our ponds and lakes, the spring waterfowl migration is upon us. This is a great time to get out into the frozen cattail marshes and wait for opportunities to photograph some of the abundant ducks, geese, and swans that stop over on their way north. Assuming we will get some nice weather in the next week or so, my next blog will feature some of images of these fast flying targets.

Adios Ecuador - But I'll be Back!

Ecuador is a country of sharp contrasts - culturally and scenically. While my visit didn't cover much more than a hundred or so miles to the east and west of the central valley - where Quito is located - the contrasting lives lead by its people and the differences in scenery added much to my appreciation and enjoyment of the country.

Quito is situated in an inter-mountain valley in the Andes, and as a result of the surrounding topography, it does not receive nearly as much precipitation as the east and west slopes of the Andes. On clear days, a number of volcanoes reaching skyward to nearly 20,000 feet in elevation can be seen. Parts of this inter-mountain valley are quite dry and resemble much of the Southwest US or even drier areas of Montana.But west of Quito on the west slope of the Andes, moisture from the Pacific Ocean banks up against the mountains to form a cloud forest vegetation type with precipitation in excess of 100 inches per year in places. This aerial view gives a perspective of how the moisture laden clouds meet up with the west slope of the Andes.The east slope of the Andes is also quite wet, being influenced by the climate of the the great Amazon Basin. As mentioned in previous blogs, the Epiphytes that adorn many of the trees on the east slopes add great beauty and diversity to this region.On the surface, Quito, a city of nearly 2 million inhabitants, probably looks like many other cities of its size around the world. Below is a photo of Quito from my hotel window. But it is the center of banking, and wealthy families on one hand, and home to many very much less financially fortunate on the other. In the rural areas of the country, there is very little sign of wealth where we visited with the exception of a few quite beautiful, but small resort facilities. This spa and resort facility was located about an hour or two east of Quito at an elevation of about 12,000 feet, near Papallacta Pass. It was not at all busy during our short visit but apparently gets much more business on weekends from wealthy Quito residents. On our first day in Ecuador, we ate lunch at a beautiful old "hacienda" type enclave near the town of Otavalo. This was certainly not typical of life in the country, but a wonderful pause from a day of birding.In rural areas, the homes are quite small and many seem to have small plots of land for gardens and animals. The market place at Otavalo was a rainbow of colors and a great place to to shop for gifts to take home to wives and family who - unfortunately - did not accompany us on this trip. The meals that were served at the lodges we stayed at were excellent, especially at San Isidro Cabanas. One of the owners of this facility - Carmen - had an advanced university degree in the culinary arts, and the gourmet meals served there certainly corroborated that fact!! The black pepper ice cream listed as the desert on this menu -click on it to enlarge - was really delicious!Perhaps in contrast (but maybe not), the meal of roast pig served on a Sunday in this town of Calacali was likely a special treat to its residents, although it did not look especially appetizing to me. The yellow "cakes" seemed to be some sort of corn or maybe potato dish. This town of Calacali was also the site of a monument to the Equator. Ecuador is equator in Spanish. That is John Shipley standing on my right. John organized this trip for me through his Kingfisher Bird Tours company and I was very pleased with the entire itinerary!This is the last Blog in my series on Ecuador. It was really a great trip and I hope to return to Ecuador in the future to visit the Galapagos Islands and perhaps visit some lower elevation lodges in the Amazon Basin. I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I enjoyed putting it together. This coming summer, I'll be spending about a month on St. George Island of the Pribilof group in the Bering Sea west of Alaska. Although good Internet access there may be problematic, I hope to be able to do a series on my stay there - while I'm there!

Additional Ecuadorian Birds

Besides all of the charismatic and colorful bird species I have focused on in previous blogs, there are, of course, lots of everyday type species that are not especially noteworthy. The following images generally represent species groups that we find commonly in North America. It is interesting that upon the first sighting of most of these species, one can get a pretty good idea of what group/family they belong to because of experience with and knowledge of their North American relatives. General shape and appearance, plus behavior, seem to be the primary characteristics that evoke this familiarity.

For those of you who are birders, and maybe some who are not, one quick glance at this bird should give you a hint that it is shaped much like our robin. It is a Great Thrush, larger, but very closely related to our robin!This species hoped around on the ground a lot and it was quite common. It is a Rufous-collared Sparrow, very similar in habitat preference and behavior to many of our sparrows.Although we are used to seeing members of this family gleaning insects in trees, some members of the group prefer ground feeding and this is one of them. This is a Russet-crowned Warbler.This warbler species is a tree dweller and similar in behavior to our American Redstart. One of the interesting aspects of my trip was the number of North American breeding warblers that we saw. Among the most abundant of these were the Blackburnian and Canada Warblers, with fewer numbers of Black-and-white, Blackpoll, American Redstart, and Tropical Parula. The following is a Spectacled Whitestart.Owls are always of interest, even with non-birders. We saw only three species, including this Rufescent Screech-Owl that came easily to a recorded call one evening after dinner while staying at Las Gralarias Lodge and Reserve One other interesting owl we saw was at San Isidro Cabanas and is referred to mostly as the San Isidro Owl. The species of this owl has yet to be determined, but some relatively recent DNA sampling will hopefully lead to a conclusion in the near future. A Short-eared owl was the only other species observed.

This species may be an exception to familiarity leading to partial ID, but I had seen it previously in SW Mexico so determined rather quickly that it was a Masked Tityra.A Cinnamon Flycatcher - the color certainly aided in the ID of this one.This is a group with which I was not very familiar, but it belongs to the Tanagers, one of the most abundant groups in Ecuador with over 130 species. It is a Masked Flowerpiercer.Of course, you all know to which group this pair belongs, but the habitat they are found in is a bit different. These are Torrent Ducks and they are found year-round in very steep gradient rivers and streams, perhaps similar to our Harlequin Ducks. If you click on the image to enlarge it, note the relatively large feet that surely are indicative of the very swift waters they inhabit.Birders could make a very good guess as to this species - an Ecuadorian Rail. It was recently split off as a separate species from our Virginia rail.I included this image more for the setting than the species - a Russet-backed Orependula. The Epiphytes that adorn many or most of the trees in the Ecuadorian Andes often provide a truly idyllic setting for viewing birds. Again, click on the image to get a better feel for the vegetative "decorations" on this tree.And finally, another species that can rather easily be placed in its proper family by its shape and raucous behavior is the Inca Jay. Numbers of them would gather each morning near the vegetation surrounding the San Isidro Lodge buildings to feast on the moths that had been attracted to the lights the previous night.
This concludes the bird images that I will post in this Ecuador series. My concluding episode will focus on the overall view of the scenery of Ecuador - that I hope to experience again in the near future!