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These are the times that try our souls. Isolation, face masks, drugs and diseases that are difficult to pronounce, let alone understand. Take heart. There's a world out there that proceeds without us. A place where winter stubbornly exits stage left, while spring occasionally lifts its head but seems too shy to take command. A place of beauty we should try to visit. As the calendar approaches May, red-winged blackbirds and Western meadowlarks are staking out their breeding and nesting areas....
Some of the hardest questions to answer start with why. Why will fish bite one day and not the next, or even stop biting when they were having a feeding frenzy a minute ago? Why did prehistoric people use a particular cliff face to draw a petroglyph? Why can't I win the lottery? Okay, scratch that. Just the other day, an acquaintance asked why magpies are black and white. First, magpies are not just black and white. Their colors include shades of gray, green and blue. In the right light there...
Can we all agree that winter is here? We probably could have reached that consensus of opinion after the snowstorms of late September and early October, but at times since the weather has seesawed like polling data before an election. Now, however, as Christmas closes in, we realize winter is here. The calendar tells us so, as does the dwindling amount of daylight. So do relatives that keep telling me how nice the weather is now in Arizona. I don't hear so much from them in the summer. Animals...
Depending on your point of view, the summer is either beginning, half over or nearly done. Recent graduates of both high school and college probably wish summer would never end and people would stop asking them what's next. Neither will happen, of course. A graduate's next step is getting a career, a job or a clue. The following is a tutorial for anyone who has thought working in the fish, wildlife and parks field would be just swell. Coulees don't look steep until you are at the bottom and...
Montana's rivers are running high, wide and muddy right now and things typically won't improve much for maybe two months. That all depends on rainfall and snowmelt. A cool, wet spring will prolong runoff into mid-June; a hot, dry period will clear up rivers and streams faster but not bode well for fisheries later in the summer. So, what's an angler to do to catch fish? Better yet, what's a fish to do to find food? We might give up dry flies and switch to worms. Fish will stick with their...
Several years ago, an old man, who I really didn't know, died and his wife gave me a grocery bag full of his fly-tying material. And for a long time, it sat untouched in the corner of my office. Over the years I've tied a few miserable-looking flies, but eventually my hobby quietly disappeared into a basement corner. Fly-fishing took the next bus out of town. Then, last week I stumbled across a cheap, metal and plastic desk headed for the dump and something clicked. Now, it's the centerpiece of...
'Tis spring, the time when a young males fancy turns to, well, not football. Humans are such an odd lot. Animals – underwater, on the ground or in air – simply are driven by the survival of their species. We fret about home loans, school choice or health insurance. Wild creatures do not. Of course, those critters don't rush to the hospital when sick, play music when sad or have barbeques on the Fourth of July. Animal behavior is largely driven by daylight length. And right now, we are gai...
Not all creatures have given up on spring ever happening. Some are counting on it. And soon. Great horned owls and Canada geese are sitting on eggs now, or soon will be. Two totally different Montana bird species with different diets and nesting habits have placed all their eggs in one spring basket. Great horned owls are sitting on eggs now, that will soon hatch if they haven't already, because they must. Think back to those January nights that, looking back, seemed downright subtropical. If...
Winter will end. Trust me. But what will we see when all that white stuff disappears? A landscape green from melting snow littered with dead deer? Probably not. Yes, February was brutal for much of the state, but let's not lose our perspective. This is winter. This is Montana – a northern latitude state. And for the memory deprived last year was worse or at least longer. This year, few ranchers so far have complained of deer in their haystacks. Nothing like last year. That's probably because the...
Ever wonder on a cold, snowy winter day what fish are doing under the ice? The short answer is: about the same as the rest of the year. They breathe, eat and try to avoid being eaten. There are, however, some differences in winter. First, it's important to remember that freshwater fish like reptiles and amphibians are coldblooded. (Scientists prefer the more precise word, poikilotherms, but we'll forgive them.) That means their body temperatures are controlled through external means, in this...
It seems to take a while after sunrise now for birds to gather at the bird feeder by the kitchen window. On winter mornings like those recently, when the temperature struggled to rise much above zero, the chickadees, house finches and English house sparrows didn't show up until half an hour after sunrise. I don't blame them; winter mornings are meant for sleeping in. All animals that spend at least part of their lives in Montana, inside those man-made boundaries we call state lines, have three...
Feeling strong? Recently, I watched a Cooper's hawk take off from a rural, gravel road, clutching a dead meadowlark in its talons. An adult Cooper's hawk might weigh one pound. An adult meadowlark probably tips the scale at 3 ounces. To compare that to a human, a 200-pound person would have to lift almost 40 pounds, then run away. Extra points if you can fly. Perhaps you are physically fit. Maybe you are the strongest at the gym, ran a marathon recently or reupped for advanced yoga classes. Isn'...
Here's nothing new: It's been hot recently. How hot? So hot, I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking. So hot I'm being forced to use passive verbs. Okay, for those who suffer from the heat, extreme temperatures are no joke. However, maybe nature can teach us a few tricks to cope. In late summer, prairie amphibians, like the Great Plains toad are underground, waiting out the heat wave. All amphibians begin their lives in water, developing from eggs to swimming larvae (tadpoles) to...
If this Universe has a Creator, she must have been having a good day when she created birds. They are colorful and dull, helpful and ruinous. They eat bird seed, harmful insects, even our garbage. They will also ruin your clean car and carry off your cat at night. They nest in trees, on the ground and even underground. Yes, even underground. A friend called a couple of years ago excited that a pair of burrowing owls had taken up residence in an abandoned gopher hole on her north-central Montana...
Water, water, everywhere. You don't have to be an ancient mariner to see we have plenty of water around us. People are filling sandbags, checking flood insurance policies or waiting for fields to dry up so they can plant. From a recreation point of view, too much water makes it difficult, impossible or downright dangerous to boat or float or fish. That leads to a lot of grumbling about something we have no control over. Life underwater is exciting, too but sometimes in a good way and for differe...
Ready for winter? Snow shovel out, snow blower gassed up? If you are a bear, you eat a lot, then sleep for six months. If you are a bird, you may either head to the sunny south or hunker down for a winter of birdfeeder visits. But if you are a fish, then what? Ah fish, the forgotten animals. Fish of Montana don't go anywhere exotic in winter and don't hibernate. Their behavior, however, may change with the seasonal changes in their habitat and food supply. We tend to focus on, perhaps better...
Snake season is here. Not a hunting season, but a season to admire Montana's snakes for what they are: a vital cog in the natural world that serves an important purpose even if some of us suffer the heebie-jeebies at the mere thought of a snake. Last week while out for a morning jog, I passed a gopher snake (our subspecies is the bullsnake) lying motionless and camouflaged on a bed of gravel next to the trail. No telling how many people walked or ran by the reptile without noticing it. It was...
Back in third grade, I remember reading a story about a little boy who grew tired of rain ruining his weekends. So he chanted: Rain, rain go away. And he got his wish. The sky cleared, the sun came out and in a few weeks it was dreadful; too much heat, everything dried up. We have been tempted to repeat the little boy's cry this past month as it seemed our soggy weather would never end. Lawns are out of control, picnics are ruined and rivers run muddy. The first two are inconveniences, stuff to...
