Over Beartooth Pass--More Rodents!

There is something deeply disorienting about climbing high, high up over a mountain pass--let's say Beartooth Pass, between Montana and northern Wyoming--and going from hot hot summer, strip-off-your-shirt summer--to walls and fortresses of lingering snow, to American pipits scrounging snowflies, for Lord's sake, because there's nothing much else to eat.

If the hairpin turns and the million-foot dropoffs on the road weren't enough, that simple dissonance would be scary enough for a person like me, who is so tied to the seasons and the particular light of a particular time of year that I really don't know what to do with myself when everything is upside down and we're making snowballs in mid-June.

Snowfields, just now melting off. And mountain bluebirds, giving their low chortle and floating from boulder to boulder, just to bring me to my knees.

Mountain bluebirds in hard mountain light and thin mountain air, bolts of cobalt and cerulean, straight shots to the heart.


We get back in the car and OK now I'm a little freaked out by this.

I mean, we had a whole winter of this, well, nearly this, and I thought I could put my white knuckles away. Hon, will you please drive? I'm done.

Whoa. Car coming. Let's push on, get down to some altitude that makes sense for an Appalachian Ohio girl. I'm feeling a little woozy, here on top of the planet.

I know what will fix me. More cute rodents.

We offered Corn Nuts and almond bits, but sunflower seeds were the favorite. We looked him up in our Kaufman Field Guide to Mammals of North America.

Wrong page. Them's Californy chiptymunks.

Least chipmunk, Tamias minimus. Mmm, how cute! And teeny. And snappy and bold.

But wait! there's more. A golden-mantled ground squirrel, Spermophilus lateralis, such an arresting HUGE creature that it elicited gasps of "What the heck is THAT?" from us. The thing was at least 10" long and fat, fat, fat. I immediately christened it the Sumo Chipmunk.

No secret how it got that fat.

Gimme a peanut, now.

Dead heat between the yellow-bellied marmot and the Sumo Chipmunk for favorite rodent of the trip. He's just a guinea pig in chipmunk's clothing.

We made it through Beartooth Pass and happily descended into... YELLOWSTONE!!

Before we start wallerin' around in Yellowstone Park, I have a few pressing Ohio matters to share. Pawpaws and a spectacular caterpiggle... Speaking of Ohio matters, don't miss the next Ohio Ornithological Society conference October 8-10 at the Radisson Eastlake (Cleveland). Field trips, crazy great migration birding, even a Lake Erie 'pelagic' trip. People--it's an inland sea! and it has some surprisingly great birds. Go here for details.

Bob's Bluebirds

It is a rare privilege to be shown a place that is special to someone. Visiting Bob Niebuhr's mountain bluebird trail not far from Great Falls, Montana, I think we may have seen the most beautiful bluebird box trail on the planet.

The Man himself, author of beauty and grace, written on the land in bluebirds fledged from his boxes.
A caravan of cars snaked from the Mountain Bluebird Trails conference site to Bob's turf, and we hopped out to check boxes along the way. And to breathe. Oh, the air was so sweet and cool.


Mountain bluebirds are bigger than either western or eastern bluebirds, and they often lay clutches of six pale blue eggs. Being broad of shoulder, they need an entry hole that's 1/8" bigger than their smaller relatives, too.

Some three-day-old mountain bluebirds.


Mountain bluebird babies are lovely, smoky brown and even-colored, unlike our dappled gray eastern bluebird babies. These are about 13 days old.

I loved seeing my first mountain bluebird babies, but I was blown away by their surroundings. What heaven it would be to have an excuse to drive Bob's route once every week.

We compared notes on development and predator deterrents. The Science Chimp always loves to talk shop with other bluebird box landlords.

And of course, she had to get her nose into every box.

As did Science Chimp Junior (this was taken in North Dakota.)

Everywhere on Bob's trail, wildflowers nodded in the breeze. This was the finest stand of prairie smoke I'd ever found. A few lupines add their blue.

Not sure what this is. It looks a lot like a Gaura I planted in my garden this year, but it's much denser and more compact. Yoo-hoo, Caroline from South Dakota?

A natural garden.

Ever dream of having that Montana ranch, brushing out a brood mare's tail, and riding out each morning to watch the sun ascend over the rolling hills?

Me, too.

Tree swallows were gettin' busy, too, enjoying Bob's lodgings.



Mountain bluebirds hovered and dove on grasshoppers.

Heavenly, the only word for their blue. Well, maybe celestial. Same meaning.

Wonder if anyone would pay me to live out here and run these boxes when Bob got tired of it? No, he already has good volunteers who help. Rats. And he doesn't show any signs of getting tired of it.

I'd do it for nothing, anyway.

A northern checkerspot stops in its meadowbouncing.

More prairie smoke.

A shy larkspur

and some lupines.

A neighbor brings two little grandsons, still in their jammies, on his four-wheeler, to chat with Bob, who seems to know everyone. Liam looks on in envy.

Bill of the Birds gazes out over the expanse.
I try not to imagine this place in the dead of winter

preferring summer meadows and birdsong to howling blizzards.

And so it will stay in my memory, always June, with the song of warbling vireos

and lonely barns against the sky

and Bob fixing a loose roof on a bluebird box

sending thousands of new bluebirds out into the Montana skies

making the world a more beautiful place with every mile he drives.

I salute you, Bob Niebuhr, and all those who work for bluebirds. Thank you for bringing our little family to Montana, to find ancient runes and hunker down in tipi rings, to float down the Missouri River. You've made a place in our hearts that we will always come back to. Thank you for all you do to bring beauty to the land. You are appreciated.

last two photos: Bill Thompson III

Pushing Off from Coal Banks

A male harrier floats by over Virgelle, Montana, on the morning of our departure. A sign of good things to come.



Sometimes things are perfect. Sometimes they're not. Everything this dazzling June morning was perfect. I just couldn't see it.

Although I consider myself an adventurous person within certain strictly proscribed limits involving heights, deep water and sundry other triggers, I was frankly scared. As we divided up the canoes for our guided expotition down the Missouri River, along the trail of Lewis and Clark, I was freaking out. On March 31, 2009, I had taken a bad fall down our basement stairs. I was carrying Chet's bedding, which included a bunch of cozy Polarfleece blankies, down the painted wooden stairs, and I stepped on a blanket and fell down go boompity boompity boompity. I wound up in a moaning pile at the bottom of the stairs, and Chet Baker didn't even come check to see what had happened. Though if a chipmunk had farted 50 yards away, he'd have been all over it. So much for the remake of Lassie starring my thankless dog. He didn't bring me an icepack, whine or lick my face or dial 911. He didn't even rouse himself from his nap at the top of the stairs. I guess he figured I was moaning with happiness at having succeeded in going down a long flight of hard stairs on my tailbone and shoulder.


aside: This thoughtless aspect of his personality is not why there have been no posts lately featuring Chet Baker. I have not been posting about Chet Baker because my laptop is on the fritz again read:given up for dead and I can't download new photos. That is another story for another time. Please be patient, all you who visit here for the dog. I am scrambling again, my world is upside down again, but Apple and I will get it worked out. Until then you'll have to put up with mountain bluebirds and bald eagles.

There were many upshots of this accident, one of them being a bum right arm, which is only just, six months later, regaining quasi-full mobility. So what was I doing taking a 17-foot canoe down an unfamiliar river with a bum right arm? With my daughter in it?? We needed an adult in each canoe, and Bill and Liam were already assigned to another canoe. The only thing we could do was have little 13-year-old Phoebe, both of whose arms worked, sit in the stern and steer. Coming up against this inescapable reality freaked me out. Steering in the stern seems like something a guy should do, or at the very least a mom. But I had to let go and trust that she could do it.

I should have paid more attention to the signs. Phoebe, rather uncharacteristically, was game to be the sternman. And there were mountain bluebirds everywhere I looked on the landing, waving us a cheerful, don't worry-be-happy goodbye.

There were baby mountain bluebirds on the sign where we launched, for gosh sakes.

There was a father mountain bluebird keeping an eye on everyone. O bird of paradise, hang your head, for the mountain bluebird against the clear Montana sky and tan hills is our answer to you.

He dove down to get grasshoppers to stuff in his babies' bills, T.C.B.

It was time to push off.

And bid those pointless worries good-bye.


Everything would be all right, bum arm, maternal freakout, mylittlegirl in the stern and all. The bluebirds knew it, and they tried to tell me. But I'd have to find out for myself.

Just go. You'll be fine!