Glacial Lake Missoula Ripples at Camas Prairie, Montana
The giant ripples across Camas Prairie are unique parallel ridges that have an average height of 13-30 feet. The Camas Prairie ripple marks were formed as the deep and swiftly flowing water from Glacial Lake Missoula raced through the failed ice dam at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. The entire volume of Glacial […]
Clark Fork River backwaters
In a weekend filled with work and teaching at the Garden of 1000 Buddhas, I managed to carve out some time for a little birding along a couple of sloughs of the Clark Fork River. The cottonwoods echoed with birdsong from Yellow Warblers, Northern Waterthrush, Least Flycatcher, Bullock’s Orioles, Gray Catbirds, and Cedar Waxwings. The […]
Rufous, Black-chinned, and Calliope – a hummer of a day
There is a few feeders that hang outside of the restaurant at Quinn’s Hot Spring along the Clark Fork River…these feeders are covered with hummingbirds. Calliope, Rufous, and Black-chinned all made their appearances, much to my delight. These tame little critters are more than photogenic as these images can attest.
Black-backed Woodpecker – sense a theme here?
Some creatures hold a mystic grasp on my birding imagination. They are rare, elusive, or just plain odd. The Black-backed Woodpecker may just possess all three of those attributes in a single animal. Incredibly patchy in distribution due to their requirement of recently burnt forests for both nesting and feeding, Black-backed Woodpeckers are scattered widely […]