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The Amazing Exploding Dove Meets Montana

10,000 Birds

With a hardiness that belies their delicate looks (but helps explain their phenomenal success), these pioneering pigeons are already sitting on eggs at at least one location in Montana. Hochachka noted that one had spent the winter “as far north as eastern Montana&#. But the story, and the birds, did not stop there.

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What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Jennifer Ackerman brings a sense of curiosity and wonder to her material, whether she’s interviewing evolutionary ecologist Christopher Clark about the mechanics of an owl’s silent flight or looking for Northern Pygmy Owl nests in Montana with a team from the Owl Research Institute.

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Noxious: Montana’s Battle With Spotted Knapweed, and What Birders Can Do

10,000 Birds

It’s bad enough to be an invasive species — the term shows a major fall in public esteem from the days when acclimatization was the rage. But as a descriptor, ‘invasive species’ doesn’t have a patch on ‘noxious weed’ Call something a noxious weed and there’s no doubt where you stand on it.

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Justified and Ancient

10,000 Birds

Sandhill Cranes , ancient and currently abundant – the most abundant species of crane in the world – are nevertheless almost miraculous to me every time I see them. The five subspecies – Greater, Lesser, Mississippi, Florida, Cuban – show the genetic marks of what the species has had to do to survive.

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The “Birds” in the Brush

10,000 Birds

When you move on to Montana, you discover that there are worse things that one species of tiny screaming mammal tricking you each year as you try to cope with an influx of songbirds and a winterized memory bank that contains only Black-capped Chickadees and Dark-eyed Juncos (and only about half their calls at that.)

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Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Osborn, a passionate field biologist who participates to the core of her being three re-introduction projects aimed at saving three very different, endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala)*, and California Condor. Sophie Osborn’s stories are personal and inspiring, but this is more than a personal memoir.

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A Nest for Every Swallow

10,000 Birds

The swallows here in Montana have an admirable ability to assort themselves into nesting niches. I had always seen them well over my head, in rocky canyons, and given that they are an exclusively Western species, I assumed this is why. Bank Swallows live in our many sandy banks. Tree Swallows live in trees — and nest boxes.

Montana 156