Category: Birding
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Equinox Effort- 2025
Spring Awakening: A Birding Blitz Around Central MontanaThe vernal equinox arrived, heralding the official start of spring, and we celebrated in the best way we know how: with a whirlwind birding adventure! Our goal? To identify 55 bird species across two days of exploration in a month not known for a lot of species depth.…
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Winter Birding
Winter Birding It’s winter, and it’s been quite cold, but the birding has surprisingly good. The lack of leaves on the deciduous trees and bushes helps quite a bit. The warm fall allowed us to have open water will into January and that helped, too. Some birds are more visible in the Helena area in…
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February Freeze
Much of the country spent the last couple of weeks working through a cold snap. Montana has been no exception. Last weeks’ wekdays hovered in the mid single digits above and below zero. We also received about a foot of snow in the valley. So trails have been off limits. The Lab has a very…
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Warming Thoughts
As the morning light slowly builds at the eastern edge of the Helena valley on this frigid January morning, I am inspired by these two quotes: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world…
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Pinyon Jays; Number 48 on the 2025 Year List
Poor quality image, but high-quality experience. At the end of a 2 mile (3.2k) morning walk in the Scratchgravels, I heard a few Pinyon Jays in the distance to the west of the parking area. Since I was certain they were Pinyon Jays, I could count them for the year list by sound only, but…
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Last Day of Autumn
There are two ways to define winter. One is meteorological winter and the second is astronomical winter. They differ primarily in what criteria are used. Meteorological winter is based on temperature cycles and is aligned with the calendar. December 1 is the start of meteorological winter. Astronomical winter is based on the position of the…
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Owls
It’s been a good monthlong stretch of owl sightings. We’ve seen 5 or 6 Northern Pygmy Owls, a stunning Long-eared Owl, and a seriously intimidating Great Grey. In each case, these were my first ever sightings in the wild. The Great Grey sighting was the most dramatic. Obi and I were on our monring walk…
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Birds
I love seeing and hearing birds when I am on a trail. Birds are typically the most common animal anyone ever sees, but most people take them for granted, don’t notice them at all, or curse them for making ‘deposits’ on their car. In my family, we make an effort to find them. Montana has…
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Most Species In A Single Day (so far)
June 20, 2020Today, the day before Father’s Day, we went to Benton Lake. We started our day at the Fairgrounds so Obi could run some energy off and then we went to Benton Lake NWR. On the way home from Benton Lake we stopped at First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park and did a little…
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151 Bird Species For The Year
May 19, 2019 A good day. I saw a Black Crowned Night Heron- perhaps the one that has been haunting the Ponds. When I saw it, it was flying out of the Spring Meadow Resources pond towards Spring Meadow Lake. I watched it fly over the far end of the Lake and gave chase. No…