We started the morning in inky blackness as we rolled down the highway in my little blue pickup. No stereo, no power windows, just a stripped-down birding vehicle. This hunk of metal would be our constant companion for the next 5 days. We chatted with excitement about the upcoming birds and places that we were to visit on this epic 2,100 mile circumnavigation of Montana.

Today, we were heading to Warm Springs, through the Bighole and Bitterroot Valleys, then inwards in the dark to Glacier National Park. The first stop at Warm Springs was full of a great cast of characters, actors in the June play of Montana. The willows were full of Gray Catbirds, Yellow Warblers, and load, I mean obscenely loud, Northern Waterthrushes. Willow Flycatchers and Western Wood-Pewees flitted from branch to branch.

As morning wore on, we headed along a seldom-used highway to the Bighole Valley. Elk, Pronghorn, and deer appeared like shadows in the mist. A lonely Sandhill Crane stalked a dew-ladened meadow as we passed.

The Bighole Valley was the site to one of Chief Joseph’s battles with US Cavalry troops as he guided his people on their ill-fated attempt for freedom. It is difficult for me to reconcile this bit of history in my mind. People being denied their freedom because of their race, and what makes me think that I am that free now? I am grateful to be liberated enough to venture to this place, breath its air, and hear its song. The Bighole was wonderfully flooded and Sandhill Cranes abounded. Many of ephemrel ponds were inhabited by Killdeer and Wilson’s Phalaropes. Sage Thrashers and Vesper Sparrows perched along the road as we leisurely floated across the valley floor as June warmth descended.

Ascending Chief Joseph Pass, we came across Stellar Jays and Clark’s Nutcrackers before we began the downward climb into the Bitterroot Valley. A magnificent Pileated Woodpecker glided across the road in a moment of time that seemed to last for hours. This bird has always had an air of superiority to my reckoning – it knows that it is the big guy in these cottonwood bottoms. The gray strip of an sea of green is our highway as we navigate northward as if guided by Polaris. Bobolinks and Western Meadowlarks flew over the fields of alfalfa and sweet clover. The Lee Metcalf Refuge greeted us with Lewis’s Woodpecker, Pygmy Nuthatch, and Vaux’s Swifts. Visiting this place again after so many years was a homecoming of sorts. Remembrances of warm days spent here and the birds that I saw flowed from the deep recesses of my mind.

From the Bitterroot, we made our way over to Kim Williams Trail near Missoula where we were treated to incredible looks at a male Nashville Warbler. We dipped on the Carolina Wren, which looks like it has either stop singing or moved on – the lack of a mate and all. Poor guy has been singing his heart for no one either than a handful of wild-eyed Montana birders.

We had a hearty dinner with my father and his wonderful wife. We talked, drank Dragons Breath, and stuffed beef stew into our maws as Eurasian Collared-Doves cooed and a male Bullock’s Oriole carried on, hidden somewhere in the thick maple treetops. After dinner, we went out for our first grail target bird, Flammulated Owl. Driving along the darkening logging roads, two Great Horned Owl fledglings hopped along the forest floor as Common Nighthawks swooped overhead. Pacific Chorus Frogs were in, well, chorus down below. They provided an eerie din of sound as the night curtain fall ever so slowly. I pulled into a hopeful area, and as we listened, we were greeted with a resounding “What the Hell!”. We quickly drove off as there are plenty of people up in these hills that can take a gunslinger mentality. So, we dipped on the Flamm. Like the Rolling Stones said, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes.”

We arrived at the Fish Creek Campground in Glacier at around 1 AM. In a couple of hours, we would be treated to one of my most thrilling birding days.