MONTANA OUTDOORS 11

մեe wide variety of migrations from,through, and even to Montana eachwinter.By Dave Carty

t’s winter, and acrossMontana animals are either sticking it out likethe rest of us, or they’ve

headed south. Most speciesstaying here are mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, suchas bears, rattle snakes, and salamanders. Crows, ravens,and magpies tough it out, too, as do all of our upland gamebirds. But mostbirds leave.They may loveour summers,but once they sense coldweather coming, they pack theirbags and catch the next flightout of town.

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We’re So Outta Here

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LATE LEAVER Sandhill cranes generally depart Montana, or pass though while traveling south from Canada, in late Sep-tember or early October. մեose that leavetoo late might get dusted with snow.

DONALD M. JONES

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FREEZE BABIESSome birds skedaddle out of the TreasureState before summer has barely begun.“The long-billed curlews that breed inMontana sometimes migrate all the way

back to Mexico asearly as late June,which is amazing,”says Steve Hoffman,executive director ofMontana Audubon.

Western tanagers and Bullock’s orioles alsoexit early, departing Montana in late Julyand early August.

Mourning doves are notorious for skip-ping town just before Montana’s dove hunt-ing season opens September 1. Many a dovehunter has stood in a stubble field on LaborDay weekend staring at empty skies.

“There’s still plenty of food here in Mon-tana in early September, but doves migrateout anyway,” says Jim Hansen, FWP’s Cen-tral Flyway migratory bird coordinator.Even our balmy September nights can betoo chilly for the heat-loving mourners.“They leave because of a combination of de-creasing day length and decreasing temper-ature,” Hansen says. “If the temperaturesstay warm, especially at night, they’ll stickaround longer, maybe even until the 10th ofSeptember or so. But some time aroundthen is when you start getting nighttimelows into the 40s, and that’s when dovesstart heading south.”

JUST COMING THROUGHMany birds fly through Montana each fallfrom northern summering grounds towarmer locales south of us. Count amongthose snow geese,Canada geese, andother waterfowl, aswell as neotropicalwarblers like thecommon yellowthroat and American red-start. Among the last of the passers-throughare tundra swans, scaup, and mallardspushed south as late as early Decemberwhen the lakes and even rivers of Canada’sPrairie Provinces freeze over.

Birds of prey from Canada and Alaska useMontana’s geology like an aerial interstateon their way south. One well-known migrat-ing raptor concentration is just north ofBozeman in the Bridger Range. Viewers havespotted 16 different species during the migration peak in early October, including

some of the largestconcentrations of golden eagles inNorth America.

Hoffman says theraptors ride ther-

mals created along the east side of the RockyMountain Front south from Alberta. Once incentral Montana, the get funneled along theBridgers. “That range has a single ridgelineinstead of multiple ones that would spreadout the updrafts,” he says.

Assisted by the almost perfect soaringconditions above the Bridgers, many of theeagles could conceivably shoot south

another 100 to 200 miles by the end of theday, says Hoffman. That pace would putthem at their wintering grounds in Texas andnorthern Mexico in just a few short weeks.

WELCOME TO MONTANAAs cold and windy as Montana gets in Janu-ary and February, some birds actually flyhere from even worse weather to spend thewinter. Goldeneyes, mallards, and Canadageese from our neighbor to the north are justa few examples. Common redpolls and Bo-hemian waxwings prefer the Treasure Stateto the northern Canadian provinces wherethey breed. Everyfew years, in what’sknown as an “irrup-tion,” snowy owlsfrom the Arctic mi-grate to “mild” Montana and other northernstates in the Lower 48, likely due to declines in Arctic lemming populations.

Montana’s most commonly seen winterarrivals are rough-legged hawks. To thesebirds, which nest on the face of cliffs over -looking Arctic tundra, our state probablylooks like Fort Lauderdale. In the Arctic,they live on lemmings and voles, so switch-ing to mice and voles in Montana isn’t muchof an adjustment. And true to their nature,when the weather warms just a little,they’re anxious to head north again. Theybegin migrating back to the Arctic as earlyas March and April.

New studies show that sage-grouse fromAlberta and Saskatchewan migrate into Montana from the Hi-Line south to the

“The long-billed curlews that breed inMontana sometimes migrate all the way

back to Mexico as early as late June.”

DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS Clockwise from above le: մեough many bald eagles stay around Montana year round, feeding on fish in open rivers,some head to southern states in September to breed in late fall or early winter. Bohemian waxwings summer in the boreal forests of Canada andalaska then head to Montana to spend the winter. rough-legged hawks are the most common winter arrival, dropping down each year from Canadato enjoy our “balmy” weather. Snowy owls also show up here some winters when deep snow in the arctic makes it difficult to find lemmings.

մեe Central Flyway follows the eastern base of the rocky Mountains, drawing birds from the Great Plains down into Central and South america. մեe Pacific Flyway connects the western arctic down the Pacific Coast into Mexico.

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Dave Carty of Bozeman is a longtime contributor to Montana Outdoors.

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Missouri River Breaks. So do pronghorn.Thousands of antelope migrate from south-ern Canada across northern Montana, someeven crossing frozen Fort Peck Reservoir.Like the sage-grouse, the pronghorn aredrawn by the relatively easy grazing onwindswept and snow-free prairies along theMilk River or Missouri River Breaks. “I usedto keep track of herds along the Milk Rivernorthwest of Glasgow, and in the hills I’d seegroups of from 50 up to several hundred,”says FWP wildlife biologist Kelvin Johnson.“We had one herd that eventually got up toabout 700 animals.”

TINY TRAVELERSAmazingly, some insects also head southbefore the snow flies. Most Montana insectsoverwinter here as eggs, larvae, nymphs, orpupae, or hibernate as adults in tree cavities(like the mourning cloak moth) or barns andattics (such as wasps and ladybugs). Butsome adult dragonflies and beetles flysouth, likely to “hedge their bets” by repro-ducing in different locales. Recent studiesby British scientists show that several mothspecies fly half a mile or more into the skyto catch fast tailwinds that propel them towarmer locations.

Aside from tiny moths flying 1,500 milessouth to Mexico, perhaps the most heroicmigration from Montana is that of the

calliope hummingbird, the world’s smallestmigrating bird.

Along with Montana’s rufous, broad-tailed, and black- chinned hummingbirds,the caliope summers in the state’s centraland western regions. Now retired, Ned andGigi Batchelder of Hamilton spend their free

time banding andstudying hummers.“We’ve caught andbanded birds inMontana and thencaught them later in

Wyoming. When we figured out the mileage,it came out to 20 or 30 miles a day,” Nedsays. “Migrating hummingbirds don’t hitchrides on the backs of geese, which is an oldmyth that just will not die. But how they domigrate is still pretty fascinating. A lot ofpeople don’t even know that they end up inMexico, and that they may migrate fiveyears in a row during their lives.” TheBatchelders catch the hummingbirds in acage trap baited with a feeder. During themigration peak, they capture and band up to100 birds each day.

NOT ALWAYS SOUTHMost birds migrating south from Montanaend up along the Texas coast or in Mexico orCentral or South America. Not all, though.Some snow geese passing through Freezeout

Lake spend the win-ter at Tule Lake nearSacramento, Califor-nia. Harlequin ducks,which nest in andaround Glacier National Park, winter alongthe Pacific Coast in British Columbia. “Somebald eagles that summer in Montana returnto Arizona in September to get ready to breedthere in late fall and early winter,” says Mon-tana Audubon’s Hoffman.

The longest winter migration from Mon-tana is that of the upland sandpiper,which flies more than6,000 miles to win-ter in Argentinianpampas, or prairies.

The award for shortest winter migrationout of Montana goes to several dozen sage-grouse that nest in southwestern Montananear Lima Peak. Each fall the birds fly roughly40 to 60 miles south to their relatively snow-free wintering grounds around Mud Lake insoutheastern Idaho. “I’ve observed them fly-ing overhead more than 500 feet in the air,”says Craig Fager, FWP wildlife biologist inDillon. “I looked up and thought, ‘What onearth is that?’ I’vealso found them upon the ContinentalDivide near Monida,and flushed theminto Idaho. They canactually set their wings in Montana and coastfor miles on that glide.”

The sage-grouse raise their chicks inIdaho. When the young birds are big enoughto fly, they head to Montana in search of thesucculent plants and grasshoppers that evidently are more plentiful—and maybealso tastier—than the plants and ’hoppersjust a few miles south in Idaho.

That’s the thing about migration. Whetherit’s just across the border into another state oracross the globe to another hemisphere, mi-grators are looking elsewhere for somethingthey can’t find where they happen to be. Manyfly, walk, or glide to locales they may havenever seen before and from which they maynot return. But their offspring will, and theiroffspring’s offspring, in an unending cycle ofcoming and going that countless numbers oftheir kind have followed for eons.

UH-OH, SNOW Montana’s hummingbirdsskedaddle out of here before the first snow-fall, flying 20 to 30 miles each day to Mex-ico. Canada geese (facing page) oen stickaround Montana all winter if they can findopen water, where they join goldeneyes andmallards throughout the cold months.

As cold and windy as Montanagets in January and February,some birds actually fly here tospend the winter. Goldeneyes,mallards, and Canada geesefrom our neighbor to the northare just a few examples.

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In 1930 Montana’s schoolchildren voted forthe western meadowlark as the bird that bestrepresented the state. The following year, the MontanaLegislature made it official. Then in 1998 several law-makers proposed to replace the meadowlark with the magpie. The legislators argued—unsuccessfully—that the songbird flees to Mexico each fall when temperatures begin to drop,while the magpie stays in Montana year round and is more deserving of the state bird honor.

PUZZLING PASSAGE Canada geese, mallards,and goldeneyes are mysterious migrators.Some resident birds fly south for the winter,while others stay year round. Birds fromCanada may fly though Montana on their wayfarther south, or hang around here all winter. No one is entirely sure why some of these birdspecies remain and some depart.