The Birds of Summer - Breeding Birds at Red Rock Lakes NWR

Male Cassin's finch

Female Cassin's finch

Short-eared owl

Immature Bald Eagle

Audubon's Yellow-Rumped Warbler

Horned Lark

Chipping Sparrow

Yellow-headed blackbird

Marsh Wren

Savannah sparrow

Cliff swallow

Pine siskin

Mourning Dove

I'm REALLY excited about a new app from Cornell that lets you put a photograph of a bird into the program, mark the bill tip, eye, and tail tip and (usually) get a 1-3 set of possibilities. So far it is only for 400 birds but will get good at more and more birds. It is called Merlin Photo ID Beta.

I had a bird come in and sing that was pretty far away and I got an image of a shape/pose  like a Bell's vireo but I saw a yellow throat.  I didn't recognize the song either. I was flummoxed and ended up asking for and ID on the Facebook group, The Great Backyard Bird Count.  Several of the group told me it was a house wren.  I stuck it in Merlin - I just go to the webpage so pictures and app are all done on my laptop - and this is the result:

Whoo Hoo!  Now I can't wait for them to get all those less common or hard-to-ID birds included. I also got an dark morph Swainson's hawk identified from a poorly lit and not very sharp picture of the bird at a distance.

Check out more great bird posts here

Weekend Adventures, Part I - I'm NOT Lost

June 17

I leaped out of bed when the birds woke me at 4:30 A.M., and rushed to get dressed in my cold trailer.  I added my warm robe over my clothes until I could get my jacket out of my car.  I finished packing and loading the car and was leaving in a bright, dense fog before 6:30 A.M.

I drove our dirt road 25 miles east and made the turns to Hwy 87 and 287 before the fog lifted, stopping to check out campsites along the Madison River. After I found the first waypoint along the  dove survey route,  which I'll do Tuesday on the way home, I reset the GPS to take me to Virginia City.  Since I've been up here, I've reset my GPS to NOT avoid dirt roads, since I live on one and since they are much more interesting to drive. 

The Madison River from one of the Fishing Access/Camping points. 

This tree glowing beside the river made me stop

And these horses, part of a larger herd were lovely in the early light

Another Madison River view along Hwy. 287

So I was happy when my GPS lady told me to turn on a dirt road and then travel 20 miles to Virginia City.  Almost immediately, I found a fishing access camp that has hammock trees right on the Madison River.  I set a waypoint there in case I want to camp there Monday night, since I have to start the survey Tuesday at dawn which comes about 5:43 A.M.

Then I continued across the bridge and into beautiful rolling hills, and with the help of my lady, I managed to make all the correct turns. But the road suddenly deteriorated into muddy ruts.  I successfully navigated the ruts until I came to a spot where it was too muddy to straddle the rut on the best side of the road.  I tried to squeeze by on the other side but the edge was too soft and I fell into a ditch.

Long-billed curlew 

These wheels were part of an oil rig. 

A little history of the ranch which is now a subdivision of Ennis, Montana

The road heads through rolling hills towards Virginia City,  Montana

The hills were studded with boulders.  This was the largest one I saw, about 3X the size of my car

Distant View 

 I spent about 45 minutes trying to work my way out to no avail. Finally I had a brilliant thought that perhaps my phone would work.  It did and I got to  call my AARP Road Service.  The computer lady acted like she couldn't match up my member number and I had a terrible sinking feeling that perhaps I had missed paying a bill.  But seconds later, I got to a dispatcher in India who really needed to know the name of the road I was on.  I told him I had no idea but knew my coordinates.  He couldn't use them but COULD use my phone to figure out where I was, if only his computer was working correctly. 

While I was trying to figure where I was, I discovered I was traveling on Axtotl Lakes Road.  Finally his computer started working again and I was able to agree with him that I was on Axolotl Lakes Road.  He called a tow truck from Bozeman who thought he could reach me in 70 minutes. 

End of this road for me - I took this picture after about 3 hours of drying

Even though I was found to myself, I was still lost to the tow truck driver.  He called when he was on the way but the second time he called, he lost phone service before I could be of any more help to him.  He had to stop at a local house, to get directions.  (So glad a man was willing to ask directions.)  So instead of getting rescued in about an hour and a half, it was over two hours, making me spend a total of about four hours before getting rescued. 

Just before I was rescued, another local came by on an ATV.  He said if I could have navigated the next 100 yards, I was home free. However I'd lost my nerve my this time, so followed the tow truck back to the highway and took the paved way to Virginia City.

I thought there was an Irish Folk Festival there, but saw no evidence of it.  But there were so many people there, I was already claustrophobic before getting out of my car so just turned around and went to find a campsite near where I planned to hike the next day.  I found a campsite on Lake Harrison under the only tree around.  The evening was so warm, I just set my tent  up without the cover. 

Sunset from my campsite

The next morning I was up and had  broken camp, made coffee and eaten a quick breakfast and was taking pictures before the sun made it over a mountain. I was pulling out of the campground just at 6 A.M.  But I had to stop several times to take pictures in the beautiful morning light and to enjoy two different pairs of of short-eared owls hunting over the fields beside the road.

View over lake on my way out

The beautiful moth-like flight of a short-eared owl

Old barn

Within the hour, I was off on my next adventure - a hike to Albro Lake.  But that will be the subject of another blog.

On a personal note, I volunteered to help get cattle fences ready for cattle.  The refuge has four ranchers that run cattle here as part of our management plan. We run cattle on each field one out of four years to help keep invasive species down. We only fence in the areas cattle are on, except we have a few permanent fences. I was working on a permanent fence and yesterday and reired  about 0.7 miles of it.  I was hammering in staples.  I worked from 6:30 A.M. until about noon and then had to take a big nap.  Hopefully, I'll be screwing in clips or putting strands of wire in clips next week on some of the temporary fences, which will be much easier. 

Wild Bird Wednesday: Some of the Water Birds of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge

Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge was established to save the Trumpeter Swan from extinction.  Our shallow lakes and marshes also support many other species that require wetlands or open water.

These are some of the water birds that breed on the refuge.

Wilson's phalarope is one of my favorite birds.  They feed by turning round and round to stir bugs up off the bottom of the water. Then they pick them off the surface. It makes for a wild dance when there are several of them feeding together.  I also love that the males are the plain ones and the females are the pretty ones.  The males sit on the eggs while the female goes off to find another boyfriend.

Male Wilson's phalarope

I've paddled from Florida to Canada and on almost every paddle, I've seen one or more spotted sandpipers. I think of them as the paddler's mascot.  I was wandering around near Picnic Springs and taking pictures when I realized a spotted sandpiper was feeding only a few yards away.  I mostly see them without spots so I love their summer attire.

We have white pelicans breeding here as well. Both sexes grow a "horn" in breeding season . This is shed afterwards.

American white pelican

Windblown American white pelican

Another bird which is about the same size as the pelican, is the trumpeter swan.  These birds almost went extinct. When there were only about 70 individuals left, they were found living year around here where they use warm springs. The refuge was established to provide habitat for these birds.  Now there are over 3000 of them and they are in many states.  I think the brownish color on the head and neck are stains.   These are a breeding pair but were not quite close enough together to get them in the same picture.

Trumpeter swan

Trumpeter swan with northern shoveler

We have eighteen species of ducks that breed here.  But the ducks we have the most of are lesser scaup.   The refuge has been banding all the babies they can catch for several years so we can learn where they go.  This species is in decline in many areas.  I never have very good duck pictures because they swim or fly away every time I get near them. 

Male cinnamon teal

Male pintail

A lesser  scaup pair

Western grebe (l) and red-necked grebe (r)

A few birds, while often found on the land, are wading birds or are related to birds that use water. One of them is the long-billed curlew.  I love hearing their calls as they fly over the wetlands and dry meadows.

Long-billed curlew

I think sandhills are the stateliest of birds, second only to the whooping cranes. And I love the dances they do to pair bond and as families. I ALMOST got a movie of them dancing the other day but I apparently didn't push my movie button hard enough.

Our sandhill cranes are much redder than most  others

A closer look at a sandhill crane

Check out other wildbird posts from around the world.

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Red Rock Lake Critters

There are many animals that share the refuge with the swans and other birds. Some of them are seen frequently and some only rarely, but all them are exciting to watch.

The most visible animals in the summer are the pronghorn antelope and the cattle that browse on our pastures, on a grazing plan. I saw several herds of antelopes on my trip  to the refuge. I see at least one almost day and usually see thirty or more any given day I'm out and about. They are fascinating to me since they used to be the prey animal of the American Cheetah which is now extinct.  But they still depend on their blazing speed - in bursts some can attain 55+ mph and they can maintain 35 mph for several miles. But they can't jump and fences need places for them to crawl underneath.

Pronghorn antelope females

Pronghorn buck

My favorite animal to find are moose. I seldom see them because they live away from the roads in the willow flats.  But if I'm out early or late, I sometimes see them, often when the light is too low for good pictures. I  recently saw these twins when I had left before 6:00 A to go tend the grayling eggs - and of course look for wildlife.

Female yearling moose twins

Then I realized they wanted to cross the road and stopped to let them do so

They continued towards Upper Red Rock Lake, after checking out a sandhill crane

I posted a picture of the moose on facebook and someone sent back a picture of them with their mother just a few weeks earlier.  I imagine the mother is about to or has just given birth to a new offspring and has cut these girls loose.  Last year I watched a mother and about a two month old baby come out into the road.  A minute later we saw a young bull moose approach them.  The mother walked over and licked him and then the three of them continued up the road toward where we were standing and photographing them from behind our truck doors.

You looking at me?

This may be the young male I photographed last year - he was at the same location

We also have lots of elk on the refuge but they get hard to find in the summer months.  I saw this herd of females on my arrival trip to the refuge. I've had distant views a few times since but haven't identified any bucks, yet. 

These girls definitely need a makeover

Coats look better a few weeks later. 

We have both mule deer and white-tailed deer on the refuge. The next picture  is of part of a larger herd of mule deer. We have fewer white-tailed deer and I'm so used to seeing them I don't usually try to get a picture.

Some mule deer have recently been documented migrating 150 miles twice a year. For the full story click here.

Mule Deer

The animal I see the least is the American badger. I only saw one here last year. This year, while photographing sandhill cranes, I noticed a white spot about halfway between me and them.  When I focused on it I saw this.

American badger

He watched me a couple of minutes, then went on about his business.  He turned and sniffed to the right, then to the left, before moving out of sight in the sagebrush.

Checking out the smells

A very commonly seen animal is the Wyoming ground squirrel.  The squirrels provide food for large raptors, like red-tailed hawk and Swainson's hawks. In the last few days, I've been seeing half grown babies running everywhere.

Wyoming Ground Squirrel are out - and making more food for raptors

I've started to help get the fences ready for the cattle that will arrive here this summer. I hammered staples into fence posts for about 1/3 of a mile a few days ago.  Have about a mile more to go.  I replace missing stables and drive down staples that are working loose.

 But we already have close view of cows pasturing next door the refuge.

The one animal I'm DYING to see is a wolf.  While I was surveying my bluebird boxes, one of the interns came on the radio and said, "I'm looking at a wolf and he's just sitting and looking at me. " He was where our fence runs into the mountain.  The wolf was only about 40' from him at one point.

We also have foxes.  I've seen one to far away to photograph but it lives in the meadow near the bunkhouse, where I also have my garden so I'm hoping to get a closer look soon.

On a personal note, as this comes out, I'll be leaving for a little camping, exploring, and hiking trip.  We are to have three days of sunny weather so I'll do a mourning dove survey on the way home Tuesday.  We have never had any doves on that survey so I think it will be pretty easy, except I have to start at sunrise, which is 5:44A here now.  This is my first camping trip since I got here so I'm pretty excited. Hope you are having a great weekend as well.