On Saturday, I ventured forth to scope out Greenough Park, which is likely to be the subject of my next 10,000 Birds post.
In New York City I always took urban, public transit-accessible parks – well, not exactly for granted. I did appreciate them. But having lived my non-urban birding years first on the Olde Homestead and then in rather bird-centric Ithaca, I had underestimated the frustration of reading all the hotspots and seeing phrases like “head out of town on Rte. so-and-so” or “drive about fifteen minutes north of Whoville.”
Greenough Park, along with the Kim Williams Nature Trail, are the big exceptions I’ve discovered to this conundrum in Missoula. Both follow watercourses – the Kim Williams along the Clark Fork and Greenough up the lower part of Rattlesnake Creek – and both can be reached from my home with nothing but shoe leather. This weekend, I did a small part of Kim Williams and all of the mile-long Bolle Birdwatching Trail in Greenough (named for Arnold Bolle, a University of Montana professor greatly enamored of birds.)
The Bolle trail, even in winter, has many lovely birds. The mix of Ponderosa pine, older cottonwood snags, Douglas fir, and (unfortunately invasive) maple shelters an understory rich in life-giving plants like mountain ash and snowberry. The result — potential for wintertime sightings like Belted Kingfisher, Northern Flicker, and Downy Woodpecker (which I saw) as well as Bohemian Waxwing, Western Screech-owl, and Pileated Woodpecker (which, alas, I did not.)
But the star attraction of the park is the American Dippers. They nest on Rattlesnake Creek and live here year-round. I watched one of these remarkable little bundles of feather plunge again and again into the half-frozen creek, allow itself to be swept nearly under the ice, only to emerge to open air at the last possible second with some tiny fish or insect meal. Since I was shivering in a wool coat, wool mittens, a bomber hat and Thinsulate boots, I was impressed to say the least.
Did I remember my camera this time? Oh yes, I did. And I don’t want to keep Jochen in suspense of the results, so here you go:
Yeah, so, I really need to get better at this.
Great Auk - or Greatest Auk? 
November 30, 2010 at 11:03 am
You can walk to dippers?
That is just not fair. Who cares about the picture? You. Can. Walk. To. Dippers.
December 1, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Anyone in Missoula can walk to dippers. Therefore, everyone should come to Missoula.
November 30, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Congrats on finding Dippers within walking distance. It should be fun watching them through the breeding season. Maybe you’ll see baby Dippers!
Bird finding guides ought to include more walkable or public-transit-reachable sites. There are some exceptions, but I find that most of them have a pretty heavy auto-centric bias.
December 2, 2010 at 10:56 am
Oh, dipper on ice! Birding can hardly get any better.
Photography, on the other hand, can hardly get any more artistic. [A blatant provocation to extract more pictures from you, although honestly, I like the colour contrast with the reddish twigs]
I was almost completely reliant on public transport to do my birding in Ann Arbor. Of course I missed out on many goodies, but the possibilities weren’t all that bad – all that’s needed is an adjustment of one’s benchmark for quality birding. And you’ve got dippers, right?
Dippers!!
December 2, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I guess I forgot my usual Mr.Smartbutt tone in the comment above, so here goes:
The dipper was probably feeling more comfortable underwater than it was (and you were) above it:
The water temperature was at least 39°F while the air temperature was probably well below 30°F. As long as its feathers remain water-tight, that’s quite a difference.