Cliff Swallows on Actual Cliffs

One of the lifer sightings for me during the Montana portion of our trip west, was the sight of cliff swallows nesting on actual cliffs. Where I'm from the cliff swallows nest on buildings, bridges, culverts, and dams, but I'd never seen them nesting on the natural features for which they are named.

These shots were taken in and around Virgelle, Montana, where we embarked upon our three-day canoe down the Missouri River.

The truly amazing thing about cliff swallows is that they build their nests one bill-full of mud at a time. It can take them up to two weeks to build the nest?depending upon how far it is to a reliable source of mud. A pair will bring more than 1,000 small batches of mud to the nest site during construction of the nest.

Cliff swallows are colonial nesters, preferring to nest with other cliff swallows.

The colony near Virgelle had a mud source just a few hundred feet away.

The finished nests are jug-shaped and provide a perfect spot for raising up a brood of baby cliff swallows. Some of the colonies we found along the Missouri had as many as 200 nests. Larger colonies of as many as 2,000 nests can be found.

As we floated past these birds along the river, I wondered what Lewis and Clark thought about them, when they saw the first cliff swallows chattering along the muddy banks,cutting through the blue skies, and swooping up to their odd-looking nesting colonies. It must have been a remarkable thing to see.

I know it was for me.

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Don't Tread on Me!

About a week ago, Phoebe greeted me upon my return home from work with the news that she'd spotted the first copperhead of the summer. This is big, if expected, news. The copperhead was near the garage door, heading into a chipmunk hole. We waited and watched it for the next two hours. It was waiting for nightfall. We were waiting for it to come out so we could catch and relocate it.

Eventually it came out, while I was standing near it talking on the phone. I'm not sure who was on the other end of the phone, but they heard me scream out "The snake's outta the hole!" as I was hanging up.
We caught the copperhead and placed it in the bucket (shown above). It now lives in another place, far from our high-traffic garage.

I don't mind snakes, but I HATE being surprised by them. Where I am staying right now in Trinidad there are three deadly poisonous snakes in the jungle around us. Fer-de-lance, bushmaster, and coral snake are my three neighbors. They belong here?I am just a visitor. I hope to see one or more of these creatures, preferably before they see me, and, from a safe distance. So I'm being extra careful as I walk the forest trails around Asa Wright Nature Centre. No sightings thus far.

This place is amazing, even with the snakes. You can read more about AWNC here. And I'll be posting more from and about Asa in the days and weeks to come.

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Fall Migration: It's Starting!

I walked into Julie's studio yesterday afternoon to ask her something and a flash of zippy-swoopy movement in the birches just outside the windows caught my eye. I knew right away it was a warbler and not one of the 27 goldfinches, dozen titmice, or half-dozen chickadees that were flitting from trees to feeders to bird bath.

But how did I know it was a warbler?

I'm not completely sure. There are clues that the human brain can gather, sort, and decipher in a matter of milliseconds. All I saw was one quick swoop from one birch to another and my brain instantly said "Warbler!" If I had to 'splain it, I'd say it was something about the size, color, and style of movement?all things that I'd seen before, deduced, and confirmed. But I'm only grasping for an explanation here. All I know is that I instantly knew what family that feathered thing belonged to, and I was determined to see it better.

The warbler, in a show of fair play, hopped from the back of the bird tree to our side, which sent us scampering for binoculars and cameras. It was a female yellow-throated warbler! And this surely signalled the start of fall migration?in late July!

For the next 10 minutes we watched her glean insects and tiny caterpillars from the birch leaves. Man, our gray birches ALWAYS deliver the warblers. This might be the single most bird-friendly tree species on our farm, even though they do not do well in our clay soil and hot, dry summers.


Each late summer through mid-fall we get our annual influx of yellow-throated warblers. They nest down along the creek on Goss' Fork and after the breeding season is over, they come a-hill-toppin' up to our ridge top farm, looking for food or perhaps just exploring before the start of migration.

One of our first falls here at Indigo Hill, as we were out on the deck enjoying a fine morning of birding, a male yellow-throated warbler dropped out of the sky and landed on our stone chimney just two feet from us. It then flew to the deck railing a foot from us. Then it landed on the tripod leg two inches from my knee. It cocked its head as if to make certain we noticed his fine fall plumage, newly molted in for migration. Then he swooped over to our newly planted sycamore. This last act was almost too much for me?I grew up calling this warbler by its original name sycamore warbler.
My final view of Lady Sycamore, just before she slipped away. I dig her golden slippers!

After I left Julie's studio, heading back downstairs to do some podcast recording and editing, a young male American redstart and a female cerulean warbler also came through the birches. I missed them, but I certainly didn't miss the start of fall migration!

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20 Seconds of Rarity: McCown's Longspur

Here, as promised, is one of the three short videos I digiscoped of the McCown's longspur in Montana. The other two involve lots more grass and the annoying noise of my hand fumbling for the zoom button.

This short clip of a male McCown's is pretty sweet. It'll be a nice thing to look at when I'm old and gray and only able to go birding vicariously?from my Lay-Z-Boy recliner. In a few years.

I hope you like this short clip, too. I can certainly see how, if you had the right equipment, you could get heavily addicted to shooting video of birds. It's harder to do than taking still images, but the pay-off is so much greater.

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Mystery Duck in North Dakota

Along North Dakota's State Route 36, headed west from Pingree, ND, the slightly rolling landscape gently lifts itself onto the coteau, where glaciers dropped their heavy load of ice, rock, and sand millions of years ago. The landscape in every direction is dotted with water. This water is in ponds, lakes, prairie potholes, sloughs, wet meadows, streams, and roadside ditches. And in every place where water collects there are ducks. Some of these ducks are nesting, some are still courting. Some are resting and foraging, and some are just passing through.

A bird watcher can scan his or her optics across a small prairie slough and see eight or more different duck species in the time it takes a western meadowlark to sing a single phrase. Gadwall, wigeon (American), teal (blue and green), scaup (lessers), ring-necks, redheads, canvasbacks, mallards, shovelers, pintails, ruddies, hoodies, all are there... The possibilities make it worth checking out any chunk of water you encounter.

While scouting west along Rt. 36 for our upcoming field trips at the Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival, Zick and I (and the kids, somewhat less willingly) stopped by a large lake on the south side of the east-west heading road. There were lots and lots of ducks: on the water, along the shore, in the reeds, flying overhead...

As I scanned with my binocs, checking off the familiar forms of the species we expected to see, I came upon a bird I did not recognize.

Mystery bird on the right.

"Holy CARP!" I said?or something to that effect!

"What is THIS? It's got an bright orange bill!"

Julie got on it and we began to speculate (read: taking wild guesses at what this bird was).

Mystery bird on the right, clearly showing a red-orange bill.

We spent the next hour studying the bird, taking regular digital and digiscoped digital photos and video. What WAS this creature?

At least one of us was sure it was some rare Asian stray, blown off course by the season's final Alberta Clipper and deposited in our laps for this, our seventh P&PBF in North Dakota.

To be continued tomorrow.....

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You're the Gull for Me!

Some interesting courtship behavior by ring-billed gulls which I videotaped (actually digi-video) at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in late January 2010. I've seen ring-billeds do a lot of things, but I'd never seen this courtship display, which I believe is known as "the long call."

Clearly he is saying "You're the gull for me."

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Long Days, Great Light

Morning sun on barn and meadows near Belt, MT.

We've recently returned from a week apiece in North Dakota and Montana. In addition to adjusting to the different landscape, different birds, and earlier time zones (Central and Mountain Time) of the western Great Plains, I've found notable differences in the light. It's more buttery or lemony early and late in the day, but also brighter during the mid-day hours. American white pelicans that at dawn look pinkish or creamy yellowish-white, are blindingly white at noon.

One other major difference is the length of the day at these more northerly latitudes. It starts getting light shortly after 4:30 am and you can still read a book or ID a bird through your binocs at 10:15 pm! I found this especially noticeable during the two nights we were camping along the Missouri River. The poor-wills were still calling when the western kingbirds and western meadowlarks began their morning vocal crescendi.

End of the day Slaughter River, MT.

Not that I minded that. It is fear that motivates me to get up early when on vacation: fear that I will miss out on something cool or amazing or beautiful. And I want to squeeze every last drop of juice out of the plum that is my "vacation" (even when it is a mostly working vacation trip as this one was). So I always stay up late and get up early, camping or not, when traveling.

Pheasant under grass, early morning near Pingree, ND.

Here are a few of the scenic views that caught my eye and camera during the first two weeks of June when I was way out west.

Sunset behind our cabin at Lakeview Meadow Resort, near Jamestown, ND.

Sun sparkles over sage, Little Sandy Creek, MT.

More sun sparkles over sage, Little Sandy Creek, MT.

Dusk settling in at Stonewall Canyon along the Missouri River.

How many sunsets have these stone walls seen?

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