Final tally: 35 birds: Osprey Bald eagle Red tailed hawk Spotted sandpiper Ring billed gull Vaux’s swift Yellow bellied sapsucker American three toed woodpecker Northern flicker Pileated woodpecker Western woodpewee Willow flycatcher Hammond’s flycatcher Blue jay American crow Common raven Violet green swallow Cliff swallow Black capped chickadee Mountain chickadee Red breasted nuthatch American robin Cedar waxwing Orange crowned warbler Yellow rumped warbler Townsend’s warbler American redstart Western tanager Chipping sparrow Dark eyed junco Yellow headed blackbird Cassin’s finch Pine siskin Evening grosbeak
We liked north
So we went more. Highway 93 North in Montana. Changed some currency in Whitefish. Easy border crossing at Roosville. Continued north on Highway 93 in British Columbia. Turned east and crossed the Continental Divide into Alberta. Banff National Park.
A long way from Port Aransas. 3,025 miles so far.
Rocky Point Nature Trail, Glacier National Park
A moment of tranquility.
Beauty, bugs, and birds
Rocky Point Nature Trail. A lakeside trail in Glacier wandering the edge of McDonald Lake on the Fish Creek side until it loops back up over the ridge. Pines, firs, cedars, hemlock, streams. Cool calm morning. The bugs were a problem at first. We forgot about the bugs when we got into the birds. Juncos, flycatchers, warblers, and woodpeckers. Saw a northern flicker. Heard a pileated. And saw a new woodpecker for us: three toed. A swath of forest along the trail burned out six years ago. Three toed woodpeckers like that. Several of them, males and females both, flaking the burned bark off standing trees. We watched and watched and finally walked away. That’s a pretty good look at a life bird, when you finally give up and walk away while he’s still there.
