Subject: [Tweeters] Montana/general US visiting advice
Date: Jun 28 13:29:13 2010
From: Evan Houston - evanghouston at yahoo.com
Hi Blair and Tweeters,
I don't have any specific places, not having been to that part of Montana, but here are a couple of suggestions that have served me well whenever I decide to visit a new place for me in the US.
Read their local listserv, you can see where people are posting birds of interest from, and also get their e-mails and contact them. This is the link for MT, but if you delete MONT.html, you'll be presented with a list of many of the listservs across the US.
http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/MONT.html
Check out ebird and look for where birds that "catch your interest" have been seen recently, this link is for Montana as a whole for 2010, but for a more concentrated search, you can restrict the location to the counties you'll be in. You don't need an eBird account to view this information.
http://tinyurl.com/24ptzs2
Find the local Audubon chapter and look for field trips and see if they have a birding hotspots map. Here is the national audubon link, from here go to Montana, and then it will list all of the local chapters.
http://www.audubon.org/states/index.php
And you can check out www.birdingpal.org to see if you can hook up with a local birder.
Good birding,
Evan Houston
Seattle, WA