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A Snowflake’s Chance

10,000 Birds

The species that calls western Montana home is the black cottonwood, while plains and narrowleaf cottonwood call the rest of the state home. This is usually in the flood zone of a river or meandering stream, so they must avoid being washed away by high water levels and then send down roots quickly in pursuit of lowering ones.

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Shifting Baselines and Sneaky Jays

10,000 Birds

Unlike Barred Owls they were accompanied by no great controversy , and unlike Cattle Egrets or Eurasian Collared Doves they didn’t come as an abrupt continent-hopping surprise. 1978, for reference, was the year of my birth.

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What to Do at High Island When the Winds are South

10,000 Birds

Meanwhile, a birder from Montana who happened to be watching the Magnificent Pirate next to me, was shouting the magic words, “Life Bird!” The birder from Montana and I were calling out bird names to beginning birders as the migrants flew into tall trees surrounding an open area called The Cathedral–“Bay-breasted!

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Invasive Species Week Wrap-Up

10,000 Birds

– Acclimatisation Societies of New Zealand – The Cattle Egret Expansion – Feral Cats Are An Invasive Species in North America (and elsewhere) – It’s a Myth – Isn’t It? … Here at 10,000 Birds 20 July – 26 July is Invasive Species Week.

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The Amazing Exploding Dove Meets Montana

10,000 Birds

With a hardiness that belies their delicate looks (but helps explain their phenomenal success), these pioneering pigeons are already sitting on eggs at at least one location in Montana. Hochachka noted that one had spent the winter “as far north as eastern Montana&#. Whatever they used to be, they are now a bird of Montana.

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Winter Mission

10,000 Birds

Ferruginous Hawks breed in the grasslands of eastern Montana, but they are rare in the mountains and in winter, so this bird was certainly a surprise. A vast congregation of Bald Eagles kept watch over a herd of cattle about to calve, up to seven in a single tree — no doubt awaiting delicious placentas.

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Plague of Summer’s End: An Ode to the Carolina Grasshopper

10,000 Birds

It wasn’t until I noticed the “locusts” here in Montana that I got curious about them. Cattle Egrets might well get them when they leap out of the way of our domestic replacement bison. Surely they couldn’t be the same species, across a continent. But they are.

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