Montana Outdoors: Spring migration heating up...

Clark Canyon is mostly open along the south shore and mouth of Red Rock River. Every piece of open water is more or less duck and goose city; swans, while not near as many, nonetheless are easy to find. Gale thinks this one we shot below the dam is a trumpeter but is just a bit too far to be sure...lack of big lens angst strikes again.

Mallards, teal, goldeneyes, mergansers and wigeon are most abundant; occupying a large part of all the open water and especially the river. Below the dam we saw our first big flock of mountain bluebirds since last fall. And more invasive starlings and european sparrows than seems healthy.

It seems not all that long ago goose hunters were crying the blues; sure ain't so these days. The ubiquitous Canadas are everywhere--on the water, in the stubble, in the air; nesting in the trees, in the great blue heron rookeries and in the grass. Many we saw yesterday were paired up but a lot more were still in gangs. With the warmer temperatures forecast this week no doubt more water will open up and make room for even more migrants...In spite of the recent snows hard to argue spring is indeed sprung...bring it on.

Montana Birds: Return of the Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill crane migration should soon be underway....

This photo and the above were shot at Whitewater Draw in southern Arizona. A major sandhill wintering area, the day we shot these photos biologists estimated the flock at around 25,000...quite a sight.

Gale's favorite bird (mine too), each spring she marks the date of our first sighting...last spring March 16th. These two arrived the year before in the Big Hole near Wisdom on her birthday...March 9th...As you can see the snow cover then was much different than this year...Will the cold and snow delay their arrival?  That is a question we've been tossing around a lot lately...time I guess will tell?

Early or late, before long sandhill music WILL jam the spring air waves...Their wild music combined with their even wilder mating displays are, for us, a delight, one we never tire off or fail to miss...Actually we can't think of a better way to shake a heavy dose of the shack nasties...Those of you haven't indulged give it a try it, hell, you never know... over and out...

Astonishing Migrations

By the time this hen steelhead completes its spawning run, up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon Rivers to      Stanley, ID it will have traveled 900 miles, negotiated a dozen dams, dodged commercial nets as well as the efforts of countless anglers litterally lurking around every bend. Ditto the Chinook salmon soon to follow. While both runs are but a shadow of what once was--numerous accounts tell of salmon packed in the upper Salmon River such "you could walk across their backs"--and comprised largely of hatchery reared fish still...

Native bull trout have been known to migrate up and down stream nearly 150 miles between home water and spawning sites. While Arctic Grayling have been known to cover 75 miles of river in a few days apparently with nothing more in mind than satisfying an itch to wander.

Pronghorn migrations aren't quite so spectacular and not nearly as long winded but...Consider those spend part of the year in and around Crater of the Moons National Monument in Idaho and the rest of the year about 180 miles east in southwest Montana; or the roughly 300 mile trek the continent's most unique big game animal makes twice a year between southern Alberta and Saskatchewan to the Missouri Breaks country well south in Montana.

Sandhill cranes arrive in Montana each spring having completed the long arduous round-trip from southern New Mexico and Arizona. Recently a radio-implanted long-billed curlew took off from just north of the Missouri Breaks and flew south 1200 miles in just 26 hours!! While each spring tens of thousands of snow geese set down on Freezeout Lake staging for the next leg of their long migration from Texas to beyond the Arctic circle.

Each spring mule deer and elk arrive in the Big Hole having spent the winter up and over the jagged peaks of the Beaverhead Range into Idaho. The mule deer you see this summer in the Wise River country will not likely be there when the shooting starts in mid-October, most having already boogied to winter range over the hill in Idaho.

As spring morphs into early summer songbirds filter into the northern Rockies and High Plains from as far away as Central and South America. Only to wing it south once again with the first hint of fall frost.

Migration is truly astonishing. If you haven't already get out there and bear witness. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

And OK, should you wonder where to start in Montana, why it just so happens that's exactly what my book Great Places Montana is all about. I know I know, shameless self-promotion...what can I say.