Today, the air quality at home was pretty rough – 159 AQI when I woke up at 5:30am. By 7:30, I was up in the hills hoping for a little cleaner air, and looking for birds and flowering plants. As the smoke started to thicken up there too, I decided to break for the plains to see if the air might clear up outside the ring of mountains surrounding our valley. I picked up two of my daughters and we hit the road.
The air in Ulm, Fairfield, and Augusta was noticeably less dense and smoky and the birding was great for August. By the time we made it back home, Helena’s AQI had dropped into the “Orange” zone – down to 91 from the morning peak of 160 (PM2.5).
All told, we spotted 64 species of birds on the trip. The gross number alone had us feeling good about the effort, but seven of the species we saw today are designated as Species of Concern (SOC) by the State of Montana. SOC’s are native animals at risk due to declining populations, habitat threats, or restricted ranges.
Our seven SOC sightings today were:
- Common Loon
- Burrowing Owl
- Ferruginous Hawk
- Red-breasted Nuthatch
- Horned Lark
- Thick-billed Longspur
- Lark Sparrow
I also picked up a sound ID for a Clay-colored Sparrow, and I’m fairly confident I saw a Belted Kingfisher where we usually spot one. But at highway speeds, I couldn’t be 100% sure, so I didn’t add it to the tally. Still, logging 7 out of 65 means we saw about 10% of the state’s avian Species of Concern in a single day!
Honestly, that’s pretty cool. It’s a huge reason why I try to get out so often and why I log everything to iNaturalist. The researchers need the data, I need the time in nature, and Montana is such a willing participant in our efforts. The images are not great, but they provide postive ID, so up they went to iNaturalist and here they are for anyone else who is interested.
Leave a Reply