Hi

Just got back from a week at Pine Butte, a Nature Conservancy preserve in
eastern Montana just north and east of Great Falls along the east front of
the Rockies. We spent the week looking for grizzly bears and just
incidently did some birding. Saw 83 species of birds, including two life
birds that had been eluding me for several years - clay colored sparrow and
gray partridge. Also saw sandhill cranes in breeding plumage for the first
time, and watched some great territorial interactions between golden eagles
and norther harriers - it appeared the harriers won chasing the eagles away.
Watched a pair of eagles stooping and soaring together for no apparent
reason several minutes - sure looked like they were having fun to me.

It was great to be in wide open spaces - no cars, hiking in trailess back
country areas, seeing wildlife sign everywhere we went. We observed a
female grizzly bear and two cubs - a blonde and dark one for about three
hours. The female was foraging - we watched her dispatching very large
rocks with ease as she tried to dig out a marmot. Meanwhile the cubs were
chasing and pouncing on each other with sustained energy. The area was a
mammal paradise - mountain goats, big horn sheep, pronghorn antelope, elk,
moose with calf, mule deer, white-tailed deer, coyote, 5 fox cubs at a den,
marmots, skunks, rabbits, chipmonks, ground squirrels and pocket gophers.
We also saw wolf scat and badger holes, but no badgers. The fox cubs were
so much fun to watch, although we were concerned that their den was pretty
close to the road. As we watched for about a half hour, no adult showed up.
The cubs were very active, alternatively playing with a very dead rodent,
tumbling with each other, and watching us.

There was great concern about a large lot, 14 home subdivision that was
going in down the road. Can you even image a subdivision that small around
here? Well, of course, that subdivision is right in the heart of the best
remaining grizzly bear country in Montana (and probably in the lower 48
states). There will soon be conflicts with the bears and you know who loses.



Janet Carroll
jrc at jrc.seanet.com
Everett WA
"The frog never drinks up the pond in which it lives."