Category: Wildflowers
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Smoky Skies and Species of Concern
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…
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July Update
We’ve done several terrific bio-blitzes this month. Our first was a quick day trip to the fringes of Lewis and Clark County on July 4th to find a Lark Bunting. Then, July 10th to Yaak to explore fens where we hoped to see sundews; July 18th to the southern edge of the Scapegoat Wilderness up…
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The English Sundew Experience
We left Helena at noon on Friday, needing to be back by 7:00 PM Saturday. Thirty-one hours was our entire time allotment. In the end, it took us a hair over 32. But in that window, we managed to find 12 to 14 new plant species for the year (ID’ing is ongoing), most of which…
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Morrell Falls
Montana has 57 National Recreation Trails, 43 of which are designated for walking or hiking. These include the Mount Helena Ridge Trail and the Morrell Falls Trail. While I walk a portion of the Mount Helena Ridge Trail every year, it has been 35 years since I last visited Morrell Falls. The trail hasn’t changed…
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Oddball Plants in Montana
I’ve been walking and observing the trails in the greater Helena area for long enough now to know when and where I wam likely to come across some of our less common flowers. Our fairy-slippers and lady-slippers, as well as the slender rein- and bog orchids, tend to occur in small clusters rather than being…
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Why Is SW Montana Such a Biological Treasure Trove?
Yesterday, The Middle Daughter (TMD) and I took off for a mid-day excursion to connect with nature outside the Helena Valley. We encountered an impressive array of birds suited to various habitats, mammals typically associated with alpine areas, and flowering plants found in only a handful of western US habitats – all within about 30…
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First Full Day of Spring
Spring in Helena doesn’t arrive with a lush green carpet; it arrives in tiny bursts of color. We found six species in bloom today, each one marks a small victory over winter. There is something wonderful about kneeling in the dirt to get a closer look at a Kittentail, Yellowbell, or a small patch of…
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A Front Row Seat
Living in Montana isn’t just about having a scenic backdrop for your life; it’s about a fundamental shift in how you navigate the world. When the boundary between your doorstep and the wilderness thins – in, for instance, a place like Helena, where a 100-mile trail system serves as our collective backyard, and Freezout Lake…
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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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First Day Birding 2025
Jan 1, 2025 What a wonderful 1/1 birding day. We had a couple of simply magical moments and ended the day with 43 species positively ID’ed- by far our best First Day. All told, we walked six miles in several different locations. Before I go into the magical, I want to share the oddities. We…