The Valley is Alive Again

The days are getting luxurioulsy long. It is staying light until a bit past 8pm. That means that i can get the Lab out for an early evening walk that benefits the both of us. He gets to get some exercise before bed, I and I get the excercise and a bit of birding in. The Helena Valley is at the western edge of the Central Flyway. The Central Flyway (according to Ducks Unlimited) “…is massive, covering more than one million square miles….” of land from the Rocky Mountain Front to about the Mississippi River- generally covering the american Ggeat Plains. The Central Flyway covers more than half of the landmass of the contiguous US. Nearl 400 speacies of birds use the Central Flyway to go from Wintering grounds to breeding grounds and back again.

The Helena Valley has a couple of small bodies of water – neither of which are natural – that act as stopover sites for migrating waterfowl. Freezout Lake (north of Helena) is a much larger wetland and attracts an order of magnitude more individuals, however, lots of birds drop into the Helena Valley in the Spring and many revisit in the fall when the migration is less concentrated.

Audubon has designated Lake Helena as an Important Bird Area- or IBA. The Lake Helena IBA includes open water (albeit quite shallow and nasty by mid-summer), marshland, native and agricultural prairieland, willowy areas and decently old cottonwood stands. In addition the greater area include cliffs and foothillls, mountains and a huge riverine environment- since the lake is “backwater” of the Missouri River.

All of this means that those of us who live in Helena have terrific access to migratory birds without having to travel very far at all. Audubon volunteers have documented more than 170 species of birds on the Lake Helena IBA. It’s good to live in Helena if you are a birder.

With all that as the preamble to my Wednesday evening 30 minute dog walk in the low hills around the Reservoir and started for home. But I took Supertramp (from their 1979 album, Breakfast In America) at their word and took the long way home. I’m glad I did, too. Obsidian was wet and dirty, so the delay in getting home allowed him to dry off a bit. But I also had the opportunity to find a flock of several hundred Snow Geese within a stone’s throw of one of my favorite back roads.

We stopped and I took pictures and a video. I also did a sound recording using Merlin Bird ID. The sound, as 300 or so of the geese took flight was amaing. So wild and primal for being so close to home. Merlin ID’ed Snow Geese, Ring-billed and California Gulls, Snadhill Cranes, and a Greater White Fronted Goose. I was unable to find the Greater White Fronted Goose. So, alas, I am not able to “count” it on my life list, but I did capture a 15 second video of the living stream of geese flying past. The wind noise is significant- I recommend dropping the volumn on your compter if you watch this.