Winnett Public Library

The Winnett public library is closed on Fridays, but I didn’t know that.

I went in the side door of the school and a guy in his twenties sitting in the Superintendent’s Office walked me down the hall to a room with books.

The librarian said it was closed. She was going through boxes on Winnett history - journals, ledgers, photos. When I asked if I could do some work, she set me up at her desk.

The librarian said that two months after she got the job as the Librarian’s Aid, the librarian died. That librarian had been here since 1994 and her mother had been here before that.

The new librarian said, “She had feet only this big.” She held her fingers an inch apart. “But she had big shoes to fill.”

And the old librarian, hushed voice, was a hoarder. The new librarian found minutes from a town council meeting from 1995 in the desk.

It will take years to organize this place.

She said, “Fill up one hand with wishes and the other hand with s—-, and see which one fills up faster.” She is the funniest librarian this season.

Craig Iverson stole Tom Steele’s glasses.

Big A

I did a survey on big ag near Petrolia Lake.

A cute, young farmer drove up before the storm hit. I told him what I was doing and he said, “I’ll try not to make too much noise.”

Me, “Oh, will you be here at 5 when I start work?”

Him, “No, I’ll be here all night.”

All night!

He said he was ok because he’d slept all day and he had plenty of coffee. Make hay!

Next morning, I didn’t see the farmer. He snuck out before 5.

4 birds live here, and they are angry birds.

Brown-headed Cowbirds

Pronghorn

GPS Search

At 5 AM, ready to start survey #20 by Petrolia Lake, I reached into my backpack for my GPS, and it wasn’t there.

1). Tore my backpack apart.

2). Tore the truck apart.

3). Drove 3 hours south (the last place I had it was on the final point of the survey yesterday).

4). I worried about waking up the rancher, but wanted him to know I was back on the property, so I called. Didn’t answer. Left a message.

5). Drove through the gate and back up to the plateau.

I thought I could walk back to the final point - #14 - from memory, no problem.

I found #13 because it was by a downed log I had set my stuff on. From there, I walked west, but things didn’t look the same.

It felt like I was too low in elevation, and I had a hard time feeling for how far 250 meters was (the points are 250 meters apart).

I went back to the truck, got the topo map, the veg sheet I had filled out, my running watch that keeps track of distance, and the compass. I went back to #13, walked exactly west on the compass, and tried to use the watch to gauge distance, but it was in miles not kilometers and nothing looked right.

I decided to try dropping down on #14.

See how there’s a nob southeast of #13. And a smaller nob south of #14. I walked up top, went along the edge of the plateau until I thought I was straight south of #14, and then walked lines down and up the hill.

The veg sheet said there were 3 snags on the point. But I couldn’t find them.

Row 14: 3 Snags

I remembered the Gooseberry bush by the point, but I couldn’t find it.

Row 14: Gooseberry 5%.

I walked around for a few hours, needed a different solution, and called my boss. I was afraid he would tell me to drive back to Missoula (5 hours away) and get his extra GPS.

But, thankfully, he didn’t have one.

So I drove a half hour to Billings to buy one.

I drove a half hour back to the survey and called the rancher. He laughed and then asked if I wanted him to come help with his ATV. No, but thank you.

Put batteries in the new GPS, changed it from Lat Longs to UTMs, plugged in the coordinates for #14, and walked right to it.

When I saw the orange flagging, I sat down and cried from relief.

There’s the Gooseberry bush.

And there are the 3 snags.

Then I drove 3 hours north back to Petrolia Lake.

Petrolia is Sick!

The evening before the survey north of Laurel, the rancher met me at the gate on his ATV and escorted me to the public land. He warned me about cougars, bears, and especially snakes. I thanked him. When he left me on the plateau, he said, “I don’t understand this.” I told him I should be done by 11 AM the next morning.

At 11 AM the next morning, the rancher on his ATV was waiting at the barbed wire fence. I told him about all the birds I had found. We chatted. He seemed relieved that I had made it through the night.

It’s nice to have somebody worry about me.

Then I drove 3 hours north to Petrolia Lake.

Petrolia is Sick!

Ring-necked Pheasant

Petrolia Lake

Western Kingbird

Next morning at 5 when I tried to start the survey, my GPS unit wasn’t in my backpack.

16 Surveys in a Row

16 surveys in a row is a record for me.

Working in eastern Montana is not the same job as working in western Montana.

In the Rockies, I may have done 8 surveys in a row once, but if I did, it wrecked me

I finished in the Custer and took a day off.

I’m tired and frazzled, but not too tired and frazzled.

I went to Billings.

Drove through the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations.

I hit I-90 at Custer Battlefield.

After 5 days in the wilderness, this was strange.

“Indian Taco”

In Billings:

1). Cleaned the truck.

2). Got groceries and water.

3). Took a dunk in the Yellowstone River.

4). Slept in the truck on the curb by the hospital.

See You Space Cowboy…

Did paperwork all the next day and then drove north of Laurel for survey #19.

Quietus

This area is very difficult to navigate due to a lack of road signs - good luck!

The road was good at first.

Hard to see, but the white dots are Pronghorn. Lots of babies.

It got worse.

And worse.

Had to straddle deep ruts and dodge sharp rocks. I couldn’t stop the truck to take a photo because I was scared of losing traction. It was steep.

I made it to a ridge and stopped 2 km from the survey.

Good sunrise next morning. And no trouble getting back out to the main road.

American Avocet

PJ

The day before:

1. Stuck in a wet field.

2. Made it to within 5 miles of the survey by sunset.

3. Found a working flashlight in the road.

Yesterday I didn’t have a flashlight; today I do.

I couldn’t get any closer to the survey because of this bog; I was scared of getting stuck again.

Next morning, I started walking around 0300 and got there by 0500.

The survey was in Ponderosa Pine and Juniper on the side of a hill; we call it PJ.

The prairie is beautiful, but this was the first day I felt at home. The birds, a different group than I’ve been hearing every morning, were birds that I recognize.

Pinyon Jay

Pinyon Jays love PJ. They depend on juniper seeds which are wingless and too heavy for wind dissemination; the bird depends on the plant and the plant depends on the bird. Pinyon Jays are threatened throughout their range because of habitat loss.

Flocks of several hundred have predator sentries. The video is bad, but there is a sentry on the downed log keeping an eye on me.

Pinyon Jay

by David Menke

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

Males have red mustachios.

Red-headed Woodpecker

Photo from Wikipedia

After the survey, I walked this road back to the truck.

And found kitty tracks.

And a balloon.

Please don’t release helium balloons, it’s littering.

And I found the place I had fallen down 8 hours earlier on the way to the survey. I forgot about that.

It was a triumph to finally get off that road.

Stuck

Although I checked the weather before I left Broadus and it looked ok, I couldn’t re-check it once inside the Custer, because I had no cell service.

It had rained the night before and the roads were slippery.

I got stuck on a flat surface. 10 miles from the survey.

My wheels spun.

I got stuck around 9 AM and waited all day in this field for the road to dry out so I could continue.

It drizzled throughout the day and I wondered what would happen if the road never dried out. Maybe my boss would send the Sheriff to check on me, and maybe the Sheriff would get stuck too. And she probably wouldn’t have any food or water so I would have to share what little I have left. The two of us would sit here stuck and hungry. And every other person they sent out would get stuck too…

I told myself that if I could get within 5 miles of the survey, I would walk the rest in the morning. Around sunset, my wheels turned and I was able to mince forward about five miles.

I was so happy to get here.

Prayer Flags

Between surveys, I drove along the boundary of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.

Along the highway, I found these.

My friend Kim, who is Little Shell, told me they’re prayer flags.

41 Species

After two weeks counting Western Meadowlarks in the prairie, where on a typical survey I might detect a dozen species, my first survey in the Custer was in a riparian area along the Tongue River where I detected 41 species.

It was a wall of sound.

I felt overwhelmed and decided to make it a practice day.

But, luckily, I couldn’t find a way across The Tongue, and so finished the 7 points on my side of the river before 10:30.

The last point I thought I could get to was 80 meters across a bog. Instead of wading, I decided to walk around.

It took me an hour to walk around and I had to wade anyway.

Beautiful ranch house with nice people inside.

Red-winged Blackbird

Custer National Forest

I spent five days in the Tongue River section of the Custer National Forest.

The Custer National Forest is 1.2 million acres split into sections. I was in the eastern section that looks like a backward Louisiana. See below.

There are are no gas stations, grocery stores, paved roads, or cell service in this part of the Custer.

Quietus, Otter, and Sayle are not towns, there is nothing there; Birney is a collection of trailers and a bridge, no services.

I stopped at the IGA in Broadus for groceries.

I stopped at the gas station in Ashland, filled up, and then headed south.

Alzeda, Montana

This is a town.

See all the gray space on this map - this exaggarates the amount of things going on around here.

I’m finished surveying around Ekalaka, and am heading to Custer National Forest. To get there, you have to drive through the most southeastern part of Montana.

Ekalaka, Montana

Ekalaka is dinosaur country.

Birds are gorgeous little dinosaurs.

Eared Grebe

Birds evolved from small theropods; T. rex was a large theropod.

Great Blue Heron Dinosaur

College kids from places like Sheridan, Wyoming and Mott, North Dakota intern at the Carter County Museum for the summer.

This is their lab/office.

8 horses and a 100 lb sack of sugar.

After the Carter County Museum, the next hub of activity in Ekalaka is the gas station.

Where my work VISA was declined, so I had to pay cash.

Putting dinosaurs in the truck.

Medicine Rocks

Medicine Rocks, north of Ekalaka, was formed by an ancient river.

It’s a place “where the spirits stayed and medicine men played.”

Red-winged Blackbird

Bobolinks and Grasshopper Sparrows

My alarm goes off at 3:30 almost every morning because I almost always have an hour’s walk to get to the survey by 5.

This time, the walk was across a big ag field, so it wasn’t too bad. Only two birds live in this whole place.

Monoculture

The other side was prairie.

Tons of plants and birds.

Bobolinks are new to me. They wear a yellow bonnet and act psycho.

Boboblink

by Douglas Gimler

Grasshopper Sparrows only weigh about 17 grams. They are in decline across their range because of habitat loss.

Grasshopper Sparrow

An Officer of Some Sort

Camping was a half hour’s drive on dirt roads from the survey - South Sandstone Reservoir.

South Sandstone Reservoir

Cinnamon Teal and Northern Shoveler

Cinnamon Teal

The person who wrote the notes had an officer of some sort come out to the reservoir and check on their seemingly unoccupied car after multiple people called in.

I saw nobody.

Mackenzie, Montana

This is all that’s left of the Mackenzie, Montana post office.

Cliff Swallows

Cliff Swallow

by George Pagos

Deer and Fawn in the Cattle Pen

Camped at a cattle pen east of Ekalaka, I saw a doe and fawn run across the road.

The doe jumped across the fence, but the fawn couldn’t snake though the metal squares.

The fawn made its way over to the part of the fence made of wood slats, but it still didn’t know how to get through.

I thought that if I got out of the car, walked over, and tried to hoist the baby over the fence - it might freak all three of us out. I sat and watched, not knowing what to do.

After about 20 minutes, I heard something smack the wood boards and saw the fawn’s butt and hind legs slither through to the other side.

The two bedded down together on the other side of the slats below the metal gate. What a good place to hide. I spied on them until nightfall.

East of Ekalaka

Drove up this road east of Ekalaka.

Ekalaka

Parked ~3 km away from the survey next to some cattle pens.

Next morning, started walking at 4 AM.

I figure 20 minutes / kilometer, but it’s hard to know how long it will take to get places. There was a ridge and a riparian area between the car and the survey.

I got there about 5:20 AM.

Lots of grass.

On the way back to the car, I stopped at the riparian area below the ridge.

Turkey Vulture

Turkey Vulture

House Wren

Abandoned House

I was promised a bobcat and kittens in this abandoned house.

But found none.

Barn Swallows were nesting inside.

Photo Ian Hearn

Common Nighthawks were all over.

Common Nighthawk

Photo Daniel Irons