The college daughters are home from school for a bit which has been really wonderful for all of us. Their Spring break started out with a nice 9-inch snowfall, high winds and National Weather Service warnings about whiteout conditions and unsafe travel. Then it got cold, then it snowed another 5 inches.
Springtime in the Rockies is no walk in the park.
Today, middle daughter wanted to do some birding. The rest of the family didn’t have a problem with us leaving them alone for a bit and the Labrador enthusiastically agreed it was a good idea, so after a quick breakfast, coffee for me and London fog for her, off we went.
The short story is thirty-six species ID’ed between 9am and 2pm, with five being new year-birds. That alone would be pretty good, but the details truly make this a stellar day.
While we were walking in the backcountry above a local ski area, we heard a small commotion in the woods behind us. Before we could even turn around, a Roughed grouse flew between us at just above head height. We could feel the wing percussion in our ear facing the bird. It flew another 30 meters off to our left and promptly disappeared into the forest. As it flew past, we noticed the black and white striped tail, brown body, and determined that it was a Ruffed- not a Dusky grouse.
A bit later, as we drove home through Marysville to see what we could see, we sat somewhat transfixed as four or five Stellar’s jays surrounded us and worked through their myriad sounds. Neither of us have ever heard all the different sounds that these beautiful birds are capable of before today. It was so soothing and nice to be bathed in nature both visually and aurally.
Then we decided to head into the area that we have moose several times before. All was going well for the first 20 minutes or so. At one point, we saw a Bald Eagle, Prairie Falcon, and huge Red-tailed Hawk within about 3 minutes of each other. While that was totally cool, it also explained the decided lack of any other species being visible in the area. It was a lot of raptors!
As we turned to head towards our next birding area, we encountered a sign that indicated there was water over the road ahead. From what we could see, we scoffed and carried on. Then we came across another set of signs. These signs should be re-worded from Water over road to Water Instead of Road. We drove a little way into it and stopped when we saw the width, depth, channeling, and waterfall dropping off the right side of the road. So much water- combined with the gumbo road mix that Montana’s backroads are made of and we simply turned around so as not get uber stuck.
As it turned out, that lead to us seeing yet another cool thing that we have never seen. We made it (safely) back to the main road and turned towards Helena. As we were talking, we noticed an odd grey bird sitting on a telephone pole. Doing what good birders do, we checked the mirrors, slowed and pulled a U turn to go back. When we got to the pole in question, we saw a Clark’s Nutcracker channeling his inner raptor and sitting atop a pole surveying the area. No trees were nearby- so chalked this up to a this one being a slightly nutty Nutcracker, snapped a couple of pictures and went about our day.
Nature, every day. 
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