May has been amazing. Particularly from a wildflower perspective. I have ID’ed over 100 species of flowering plants in the last 30 days. I have also hiked on Mt Helena every day so far this month. My hiking total (as of May 30) is 147.5 miles. I am likely to go over 150 miles tomorrow morning.
While all this is good, birding has taken a backseat to wildflowering. My May total for birds is lower than I would like it to be. However, when I combine April and May birding totals over each of the prior three years, I am actually doing pretty well. My 2023 Apr/May total is 74 species. The average of the prior three years is 73 species. I did a lot of good birding in April, and it has allowed me to be more focused on flowers this month.
May is wildflower month in Helena. Every day new flowers are popping up all over in the hills. I almost missed a couple of the harder to find species, but in the end, I was able to find them. I ended 2022 with 185 species of flower ID’ed. I hope to meet or exceed that number this year.
June is not a great time to be birding the Helena valley, but 20 species won’t be impossible and it would break my old record of 19 set in 2018 when we were just getting started. I still need to make a trip to Benton Lake to get the shore birds and less common water birds, but with the RAV4 needing a big bit of work, I have been reluctant to drive it on a longer trip. As soon as that is done, I will get back on the road and do some mid-range driving to bulk up the bird numbers.
In the end, it’s not really about the numbers- it’s just fun to get out and be in nature and really be present enough to be able to identify what other species I am sharing the space with for the moment.
Nature, every day. 
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