Miscellaneous May Highlights

May started out pretty low on birds because I had finals and didn't have time to go birding as much as I wanted.  Pretty much as soon as my finals were done, though, I headed outside to look for birds!

Friday, May 10th - Maclay Flat
On the Friday after my finals I took the day off from work so I could drive to Bozeman (more on that later), but before I left I went to Maclay Flat, which is one of my favorite spots to bird in Missoula.  It's a short, flat loop next to the river that has some marshy areas, forest, and more open grassy areas, so there's a lot of variety!  Going at a normal pace, it probably only takes about 30 minutes to do the whole loop, but I've managed to do it in a whopping 2.5 hours because I make frequent stops.

On this particular occasion, I saw 20 different species, all birds I've seen before and all birds I was excited to see again.  Some highlights include yellow-rumped warblers, brown-headed cowbirds, two bald eagles, a red-tailed hawk, a mourning dove, and a killdeer.  The most exciting, though, was a pair of Cooper's hawks!  One of them flew right over me, about 15 feet away, with prey in its talons!  I watched the Cooper's hawks for a little bit, but as soon as I got out my phone to take a picture, they took off.

May 10-12th - Bozeman
I got to spend the weekend in Bozeman with some family to celebrate my cousin's college graduation.  It was a lovely weekend and I took 0 bird pictures, but the highlights were turkey vultures, red-tailed hawks, yellow-rumped warblers, ospreys, a Cassin's finch (a new lifer for me), and ruby-crowned kinglets (another new lifer)!  Not birds, but there were a few marmots running around near the place we stayed.  Then on the drive home we saw some turtles and tiny little ground squirrels or prairie dogs or something.  I also saw a herd of elk out the window!

Mountains in Bozeman

Turtle!

Osprey

Sunday, May 19th - Maclay Flat Again
I went back to Maclay Flat and saw several exciting birds!  Highlights pictured below!

Western Bluebird

Eastern Kingbirds - not new lifers, but delightful and I think these are the first ones I've seen this season.

Black-chinned Hummingbird - These are new to me! I may have seen them before, but since hummingbirds are very little and fast-moving I'm not usually able to identify a species.

A pair of wood ducks! These are new to me and a bird I'd been hoping to see for a while, so I was really excited about them! The males (right) are really striking and distinct.

Male wood duck

Saturday, May 25th - Ninepipe Wildlife Refuge
For Memorial Day Weekend, my brother was in town!  We drove to Kalispell on Saturday and stopped at Ninepipe Wildlife Refuge on our way.  We saw lots of birds, mostly waterfowl. 

Western Meadowlark - state bird of Montana

Ruddy Duck - A new lifer for me, and their beaks really are bright blue!

Marsh Wren - New lifer, very tiny bird with a very big voice

Sunday, May 26th - Lone Pine State Park, National Bison Range
I don't have many pictures from Sunday, but at Lone Pine we saw two mountain bluebirds (new lifer), and then on the drive back to Missoula we stopped at an overlook at the National Bison Range and saw cliff swallows (another new lifer)!

Monday, May 27th - Mt. Dean Stone
I didn't take any photos from this hike, but we saw a dusky grouse, which was super cool!  I highly recommend looking up pictures of the dusky grouse online, because they're very funky.  We also saw a western tanager, a pileated woodpecker, house wrens, a calliope hummingbird, and some cool wildflowers and trees! 

Fairy slipper orchid