Wilson's Phalarope Ring Necked Pheasant Native (original) Prairie grass
Day 15- Monday, June 20, 2011 Almost the summer solstice!
Bowdoin NWR (‘Beau-dun)
We are in Malta, Montana in wheat and cattle country. It is much quieter! The day shines bright with a very promising sunny day . Ruth and I set out for another NWR , this one being the Bowdoin N W Refuge located just some 4 miles east of Malta. The refuge contains some 6, 616 acres of wetlands and 8,935 acres of uplands (mostly restored prairie). A large lake is the center of it and the Auto tour circles the Refuge in a 15 mile route. Jim started out on the wrong road and found himself driving 7 miles out of the way on “Old US 2” , still a gravel road. “It sure looked like the right road”, said Jim to Ruth. The bonus was however, that we saw more than 2/3 of the total bird count today on that stretch of road. It too, had ponds, groves of Russian Olive trees and grasslands that had the bird and wildlife we were looking for. After returning to the start and getting reoriented, we began the tour anew on the right road.
Bowdoin was named after a small RR siding town located just at the edge of the Dry Lake unit of the Refuge. The lake was once an Oxbow (there’s that word again) of the Pre-Glacial Missouri River when it flowed north to Hudson Bay. The Missouri R. is now some 70 miles south of Bowdoin. The water for this managed Refuge comes from the MIlk River (which flows by our campground), and with an agreement from the Bureau of Reclamation, maintains water levels to assist the migratory birds and other wildlife on the Refuge. We saw some wildlife today in the person of a large Raccoon, some Richardson’s ground squirrels (very small), and more than a dozen deer up close (white tailed). Ring Necked Pheasant were abundant and more than a dozen came our way. The habitat consists of both saline and freshwater wetlands, native prairie (see pic) planted, dense nesting cover and shrubs. These assist the more than 263 bird species and 26 variety of mammals and other fish and amphibians. (There is no sport fishing on the lake and no motorized vessels.) The endangered Piping Plover nests here along with many other species.
We did see on our gravel road tour some new species for the trip. The Cinnamon Teal, the Black Necked Stilt and the White Faced Ibis along with some 48 other species. The rolling prairie and the wetlands interspersed made a very enjoyable day in the sun and sometimes clouds. A large colony of White Pelican (1,000?), Night Heron and gulls (both California and Ring Billed) was on a distant island so no pictures of them this day.
It is what the said it was a “Best” Refuge in the true sense of the word. Tomorrow we do a long drive to Glacier National Park still on US 2 all the way, passing through the Blackfoot Reservation as we enter the Park. Other towns along the way are Havre, where the “Buffalo Jump” (a cliff where the buffalo were killed jumping off) is now a tourist stop, and Shelby another stop on the Great Northern RR (now Amtrak) which had an oil boom in 1922 and the Dempsey/Gibbons prize fight in 1923 which almost bankrupt the town. So Rocky Mountains here we come!
SPECIAL NOTE!!!!
JIm is starting a contest that you can all join. Guess the total number of bird species that Ruth and Jim will see buy the time they return to Michigan on September 15th and win a new edition of a fine Eastern USA Bird Identification guide. (Sibley’s). You must submit your single entry to Jim by e mail by the day they cross back into the USA which will be August 16th. JIm’s email is crazy4birds@comcast.net. Good luck. So far the count is at 138 species identified, so that might help., We will be in ID, WA, B.C., AB, YK, AK, UT,AZ (barely), CO, KS, MO, and IL before reaching Michigan again.
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