Odes of Late Summer – Dragonflies of Lee Metcalf NWR
On Monday, Tom Forwood and I spent a couple of throughly enjoyable hours at the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge and Bass Creek. The first we found was a racer near my home along the Bitterrooot River (what a treat to have a racer stay still and pose). We had originally arrived thinking of birding, and to be sure we birded. We found lots of ID challenges with waterfowl in eclipse plumages and swarms of flycatching species. The real stars of the show were the dragonflies, which offer an entirely different set of identification challenges (especially for a color-blind dude like myself). In...
Read MorePlethora of Pied-billed Grebes
This year I have seen more Pied-billed Grebes than I can ever remember seeing before. The ponds of the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge seem to have at least one pair in each of them. The following images come from April and May (I know I am very late in posting them).
Read MoreBobolink and Barn Swallow Morning
This was rather gloomy, so dark that taking any images was difficult. Luckily, I stumbled upon a cooperative Barn Swallow and Bobolink along the Bass Creek Road. The Barn Swallow was just one of fifty or so that were feeding over the fields of timothy, which were also full of singing male Bobolinks.
Read MoreThe continuation of the Wilson’s Phalarope
…When those marvelous sandpipers come around here, the little ones. While they’re in the air flying, they have one mind, they move all together. When they alight on the mud, they become individuals and they go pecking around for worms or whatever. But one click of the fingers and all those things go up into the air. They don’t seem to have a leader, because they don’t follow when they turn; they all turn together and go off in a different direction. It’s amazing. ~Alan Watts Every morning is a miracle in its own right. The sun casts long shadows over the...
Read MoreThe Greater of the two Yellowlegs
Today, I traveled down to the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge in search of a Sage Sparrow that I thought I heard yesterday, but I irrationally passed it off (bad birder, bad). I missed the one day wonder, but my consolation prize was a pair of Greater Yellowlegs. Even though the light wasn’t terribly cooperative, the waders were close and tame.
Read MoreMore Than Birds
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