HAIRY OR DOWNY? By Jeannie Marcure This month’s feature birds are two of my favorites—partly I suspect, because like many of us, they are yearlong residents in the Flathead. Their frequent appearance at my suet feeders has brightened many cold, snowy days and in March their persistent drumming as they search for mates is often…
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Bohemian & Cedar Waxwings
By Gail Cleveland There is a chill in the air, the flowers are fading and the Mountain Ash berries, snowberries, rose hips and ornamental crab apples will soon be the “color” in my backyard. These berries will be the winter food for one of my favorite birds, the Waxwings. During the winter months, flocks of…
Read MoreBlack-backed Woodpecker
BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKERS DEPEND ON BURNED FORESTS By Jeannie Marcure As I write this article, the summer fires in our area have consumed more than 120,000 acres of timber in the Flathead and Glacier Park areas. For more than three weeks now our skies have been choked with smoke and our news reports filled with the…
Read MoreBlue Jay and Steller’s Jay
EAST MEETS WEST By Jeannie Marcure One cold, overcast day last fall when our feeders were mostly filled with the brown and gray winter birds common to the Flathead, we were treated to the arrival of a couple of new birds whose bright feathers and noisy calls were reminiscent of the more tropical birds of…
Read MoreLoon
LOOK OUT FOR LOONS! By Linda Winnie This time of year, large numbers of loons are migrating from their summer nesting grounds. You can contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon by watching for these birds and reporting any color-banded loons you see or any large flocks you observe. Sixty-nine loons have been captured and…
Read MorePeeps
THOSE PUZZLING PEEPS By Jeannie Marcure Last July when Bob Lee asked me to write a bird profile on “peeps” for the September newsletter, my first reaction was to wonder why he thought the Pileated Post readers would be interested in an article about the colored, marshmallow chickens that appear in the Valley every Easter!…
Read MoreMountain & Western Bluebirds
HARBINGERS OF SPRING By Jeannie Marcure The arrival of the first bluebirds is a welcome sign that spring has returned to the Flathead. This year that event took place for me on March 13 when a Saturday morning drive on Smith Lake Road provided us with the first bluebird sightings of the season. What birder’s…
Read MoreRedpoll
Hardy Winter Visitors: Redpolls By Karen Nichols Winter visitors to our forests and feeding stations, Common and Hoary Redpolls are among the hardiest of the songbirds. In fact, Audubon’s Encyclopedia of North American Birds says these small finches can survive colder temperatures than any other songbird. Both the Common Redpoll (Carduelis flammea) and the Hoary…
Read MoreRed-breasted, White-breasted, & Pygmy Nuthatches
BIRDS WHO CAN REALLY GET A GRIP! By Jeannie Marcure As members of the bird family SITTIDAE, nuthatches are described by this Greek word as birds that peck at the bark of trees. Additionally, the name nuthatch originated in Europe and refers to the foraging technique in which the birds take a seed, fly to…
Read MoreBarn Swallow
AS THE SWALLOWS RETURN TO ….. THE FLATHEAD Compiled by Linda deKort Selections from Cornell University Website Like the legendary cliff swallows who loyally return each year to the mission in Capistrano, California, the swallows of the Flathead are arriving back at their predictable times. We may not greet them with the ringing of church…
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