In Many Glacier we are often blessed to be able to watch moose do their own thing. We get to watch them graze the bottoms of lake beds and watch them bring their baby calves down to explore…
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Tag Archives: Wildlife
Yellow-rumped Warbler
WE had the pleasure of being by Fishercap Lake waiting for moose to come out when this handsome guy starting flying around. I wasn’t sure what he was up to until I took the following pictures of him feeding a spider to… I am not sure if it’s a fledgling or a female or ?? But he was pretty entertaining watching him flutter about and pick spiders out of their webs in the trees…
Cool Facts
- The Yellow-rumped Warbler is the only warbler able to digest the waxes found in bayberries and wax myrtles. Its ability to use these fruits allows it to winter farther north than other warblers, sometimes as far north as Newfoundland.
- Male Yellow-rumped Warblers tend to forage higher in trees than females do.
- Yellow-rumped Warblers are perhaps the most versatile foragers of all warblers. They’re the warbler you’re most likely to see fluttering out from a tree to catch a flying insect, and they’re also quick to switch over to eating berries in fall. Other places Yellow-rumped Warblers have been spotted foraging include picking at insects on washed-up seaweed at the beach, skimming insects from the surface of rivers and the ocean, picking them out of spiderwebs, and grabbing them off piles of manure.
- When Yellow-rumped Warblers find themselves foraging with other warbler species, they typically let Palm, Magnolia and Black-throated Green warblers do as they wish, but they assert themselves over Pine and Blackburnian warblers.
- The oldest known Yellow-rumped Warbler of the myrtle race was 8 years 9 months old. The oldest known individual of the “Audubon’s” race was 10 years old.
For more information please visit HERE
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Immature Bald Eagle…
Cool Facts
- Rather than do their own fishing, Bald Eagles often go after other creatures’ catches. A Bald Eagle will harass a hunting Osprey until the smaller raptor drops its prey in midair, where the eagle swoops it up. A Bald Eagle may even snatch a fish directly out of an Osprey’s talons. Fishing mammals (even people sometimes) can also lose prey to Bald Eagle piracy. See an example here.
- Had Benjamin Franklin prevailed, the U.S. emblem might have been the Wild Turkey. In 1784, Franklin disparaged the national bird’s thieving tendencies and its vulnerability to harassment by small birds. “For my own part,” he wrote, “I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. … Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District.”
- Sometimes even the national bird has to cut loose. Bald Eagles have been known to play with plastic bottles and other objects pressed into service as toys. One observer witnessed six Bald Eagles passing sticks to each other in midair.
- The largest Bald Eagle nest on record, in St. Petersburg, Florida, was 2.9 meters in diameter and 6.1 meters tall. Another famous nest—in Vermilion, Ohio—was shaped like a wine glass and weighed almost two metric tons. It was used for 34 years until the tree blew down.
- Immature Bald Eagles spend the first four years of their lives in nomadic exploration of vast territories and can fly hundreds of miles per day. Some young birds from Florida have wandered north as far as Michigan, and birds from California have reached Alaska.
- Bald Eagles can live a long time, with a longevity record of 28 years in the wild and 36 years in captivity.
- Bald Eagles occasionally hunt cooperatively, with one individual flushing prey towards another.
- For more info please visit here…
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Barrow’s Goldeneye…
On a hike by Fishercap Lake in Many Glaciers…
We spotted a few female (what we believe to be ) Barrow’s Goldeneye…
They ended up getting a bit too close together and duck decided she didn’t want the other around…
And chased the other one away!
Cool Facts
- The Barrow’s Goldeneye is rather long-lived for a duck, with one individual reaching 18 years of age. Most females do not breed until they are three years old.
- Like the Common Goldeneye, the Barrow’s Goldeneye is not too particular about holding on to its own offspring. A female may lay eggs in the nest of another goldeneye or other species of cavity-nesting duck. Once the ducklings come out of the nest, the broods of different females often come together and are taken care of by a single female. The young ducklings are highly independent, feeding on their own, and require little parental care.
- For a species with such widely separated populations, it is perhaps surprising that the Barrow’s Goldeneye shows little variation from place to place. Those breeding in North America are essentially identical on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Female Barrow’s Goldeneyes breeding in Iceland do not get as extensively yellow bills as the North American birds, but have only a yellow or orangish band on the outer third of the otherwise dusky bill.
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The Crossing…
Stormy Sunset at the Pond…
Sunday Out…
Our crew headed to Many Glaciers this past weekend. We ended up hitting a pointy rock, popping a tire and having a flat, then after changing the tire and making it the rest of the way to Many Glacier it started to pour buckets and didn’t see any wildlife and couldn’t even get out of the car without getting soaked, so no hikes. We decided we would head back home and then the kids ended up getting hungry, so we stopped a ways away in Two Medicine. It was just cloudy there and we were able to enjoy a nice little picnic and do a little hiking and spotted many wildflowers and even a black bear.
At Two Medicine Lake, Glacier National Park…
On our little walk we discovered these gems. A lot of these I’m not sure what they are… …
A big, fat Bumbler…
A Fairy Slipper, Calypso bulbosa…
Western Virgin’s Bower… Clematis occidentalis 
At the end of the hike was Running Eagle Falls, running at full bore. Normally it’s just pouring out the cave in the middle of the falls…
Crossing the bridge…
Holding daddy’s hand…
The kids showing off their heart-shaped rocks…
We also spotted a Black Bear…
Dancing Aspens…
Lots of Shooting Stars..
More Blue wildflowers…
Cheers to long spring days spent in beautiful places…
Wood Duck Reflection…
Red-winged Blackbird…
Cool Facts
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Different populations and subspecies of Red-winged Blackbirds vary markedly in size and proportions. An experiment was conducted that moved nestlings between populations and found that the chicks grew up to resemble their foster parents. This study indicated that much of the difference seen between populations is the result of different environments rather than different genetic makeups.
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The Red-winged Blackbird is a highly polygynous species, meaning males have many female mates – up to 15 in some cases. In some populations 90 percent of territorial males have more than one female nesting on their territories. But all is not as it seems: one-quarter to one-half of nestlings turn out to have been sired by someone other than the territorial male.
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Male Red-winged Blackbirds fiercely defend their territories during the breeding season, spending more than a quarter of daylight hours in territory defense. He chases other males out of the territory and attacks nest predators, sometimes going after much larger animals, including horses and people.
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Red-winged Blackbirds roost in flocks in all months of the year. In summer small numbers roost in the wetlands where the birds breed. Winter flocks can be congregations of several million birds, including other blackbird species and starlings. Each morning the roosts spread out, traveling as far as 50 miles to feed, then re-forming at night.
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One California subspecies of the Red-winged Blackbird lacks the yellow borders to the red shoulders (epaulets) and has been dubbed the “bicolored blackbird.” Some scientists think this plumage difference may help Red-winged Blackbirds recognize each other where their range overlaps with the similar Tricolored Blackbird.
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The oldest recorded Red-winged Blackbird was 15 years 9 months old.
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In Anticipation of Spring…
This week has been a bit overcast and with some rain, cold at night but warming up to sweatshirt weather by mid-morning.
The birds are starting to appear…
Some definite spring signs are the Robins…
Bluebirds, both female and male…
Lambs arriving…
We’ll soon have Icelandic lambs arriving too!
We are still waiting on green grass, flowers and bees though!
Dancing Aspens Farm Blog 