Distinctly Montana Magazine

Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge Geothermal activity keeps its lakes ice-free, allowing swans to inhabit the 45,000-acre Refuge year-round. Its elevation rises from wetlands at 6,609 feet to alpine habitat at 9,855 feet. When compared to other migrating bird hotspots, spring migration here is lackluster because birds pass it by when they see the lingering snowpack. The tumult of migrating birds is much more dramatic in the fall. A platform of sticks places in a tree or cattails makes a nest for Black-crowned Night-heron chicks. Habitats: Sagebrush grasslands, wetlands, aspen and coniferous forest, alpine. Best Birding Months: Mid-August to mid-November. Highlight: Trumpeter Swan. Location: 45 miles west of West Yellowstone, off of U.S. 87. Phone: 406-276-3536. Web site: www.fws.gov/redrocks The White-faced Ibis is a ground-nesting bird. It's slender bill is not used for hunting, but probing in mud and shallow water for worms, crustaceans, and insects. Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge This intriguing 31,702-acre Refuge in northeastern Montana features tallgrass prairie, which is characteristic of North Dakota, as well as short-grass prairie, typical of central Montana. For raptorlovers, fall migration is the season to observe Peregrine Falcon, Gyrfalcon, Merlin, and Swainson's Hawk. Habitats: Mixed-grass prairie, wetlands, lakes. Best Birding Months: April through October. Highlights: Tundra Swan, Gyrfalcon. Location: Two miles south of the town of Medicine Lake on Highway 16. Phone: 406-789-2305. Web site: www.medicinelake.fws.gov 16 Land-loving Franklin's Gulls, which can Manning Lake be seen wheeling above Manning Lake, Tribal Wildlife Refuge make their home on the northern Great Location: From Poplar on U.S. 2, travel east Plains instead of seacoasts. Its Species of to Fort Kipp. Turn north and travel 10 miles Concern status is directed more toward on gravel road. Spaur recommends calling limited breeding sites than actual declines about road conditions before traveling into the in population. Refuge. "The Refuge is one of only five places Phone: 406-768-2329 in Montana where Franklin's Gulls have Web site: www.fortpeckoep.org/manning.pdf breeding colonies," says Steve Hoffman, Director of Montana Audubon. "There are approximately 5,000 breeding pairs of Franklin's Gulls at Manning Lake, so the Refuge is very significant to that species." Vast tracts of unfragmented grasslands dotted with marshes and sagebrush are rare finds for today's prairie-loving birds. Our American prairie is among the most altered ecosystems in the world. Cultivation, overgrazing, and invasion by exotic plant species, have sent grassland bird populations tumbling, as much as 40 percent in 40 years. Yet, at the Refuge, birders have a good chance of adding these grasslands Species of Concern to their life list: Chestnut-collared Longspur, McCowen's Longspur, Lark Bunting, Baird's Sparrow, Long-Billed Curlew, Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow, and Grasshopper Sparrow. The delicate sparrow-like Sprague's Pipit, which spends most of its life hiding in the grass, is also found here. A good time to observe this Species of Concern is spring, when the males territorialize. He displays by flying from the ground into the wind, ascending high in the air, singing and gliding and often pushed backward by the wind; then he repeats the display, and finally plummets straight down, landing in the grass. He performs the longest-known flight display of any bird species, and of North America's avian species, his is one of the least studied. The clear, liquid, melodious song of our state bird, the Western Meadowlark, is synonymous with sunrise on the prairie. His leisurely warbling carries across the plain, to the adjoining wetlands where shorebirds wrest midges, snails, and fairy shrimp from underwater plants. At Manning Lake, a din of territorial voices rises and grows louder as dawn's warm radiant light falls upon the bulrush and cattail leaves. D I ST I NCT LY M ONTANA • SU M M E R 2013

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