By Jeannie Marcure House Finches are among the most reliable and frequent visitors to feeders in the Flathead Valley. At our home south of Kalispell, 30 to 40 of these cheery, sparrow-sized birds spend most of the day perching in the top of a larch tree near the house and making frequent visits to the…
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By Ben Long Flathead County is fortunate to host both of North America’s eagles. Both are majestic, but they are unique and not even closely related species: the bald eagle and the golden eagle. Both birds are roughly the same size— about three feet long, a wing-span of about six feet and weighing roughly 10-12…
Read MoreBy Jeannie Marcure The first bird song that I learned to recognize as I was growing up on the prairies of eastern South Dakota was that of the western meadowlark. There, as here, spotting a meadowlark sitting on a fence post, head thrown back in jubilant song, was one of the rites of spring. Some…
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By Jeannie Marcure When I moved to a new neighborhood five years ago, I was fairly confident in my ability to identify the birds that frequent the Flathead Valley. However, that confidence was soon shaken when I met my new neighbors who were camping and building a house on the hill above us. Once I’d…
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By Jeannie Marcure The bird that we’ve chosen to profile this month is one of only two crane species native to North America and is also one of the largest birds found in our area. While the other native crane, the Whooping Crane, is highly endangered, the Sandhill is more abundant and is quite easy…
Read MoreBy Jim Graves We have been watching a family of raptors swoop and soar around a neighborhood wetland throughout the summer. These relatively small hawks are Northern Harriers. Harrier means hunter and the harrier jet, which can take off and land vertically, was named for it. This avian hunter was formerly known as the Marsh…
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By Jeannie Marcure “The chickadee is a symbol of faithfulness. It lives the year around in the same region. It never deceives its human friends, as so many birds do, by changing its coat and colors. In the summer, to be sure, it is not much seen. …. But with wintry blasts, time the others…
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By Jeannie Marcure Although my years of bird watching have familiarized me with many of the beautiful birds in our area, I have to confess that when it comes to raptors I’m still often frustrated by my inability to make positive identifications. Most people tend to think of all the day-flying birds of prey with…
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By Gail Cleveland Although the Wild Turkey was well known to American Indians and widely used as food, certain tribes considered these birds stupid and cowardly and did not eat them for fear of acquiring these characteristics. In early August, two Wild Turkey Moms and twelve chicks showed up in our backyard. At that time…
Read MoreBy Linda DeKort One of the most significant changes for birders in the 2004 supplement of the American Ornithologist Union checklist, according to Sibley, was the split of Canada Goose into two species. “The former broad Canada Goose species has been divided into a large-bodied, interior- and southern-breeding species, and a small-bodied tundra-breeding subspecies. The…
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