On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
It’s Albatrossity Monday, and as a bonus we get to share some great personal news from the birder himself.
Then we are treated to the first 4 posts from Captain C from his trip to the Netherlands. Or is Netherlands like Ukraine, and we don’t say “the” anymore?
Albatrossity
We headed to Bozeman MT the morning after our excursion to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, to visit my daughter, see some sights, and pick up some stuff to haul back to Flyover Country for her. She has accepted a tenure-track job at KSU, in the department where I spent 37 years teaching and researching, starting in the fall. It will be great to have her back here in Manhattan!
She has been in Bozeman for three years, working as a research ecologist for the Smithsonian, and we visited her field sites in the high plains of eastern MT in 2022. But we had never spent time with her in Bozeman, so this was an opportunity to do that. She took us to some of her favorite places in the area, and a couple of them are shown on this map. Click here for larger image.
Hyalite Canyon is on US Forest Service land, about 15 miles south of Bozeman, It is apparently the most heavily-visited recreation area of all the Forest Service sites in the state, but that does not mean that it is over-crowded. Montana is a very very unpopulated state! There was still some snow on the ridgelines above the reservoir, and lots of that clear blue Montana Big Sky. Click here for larger image.
The snow at lower elevations had melted enough that ww were greeted with expanses of Yellow Avalanche Lilies (Erythronium grandiflorum, aka Fawn Lily or Dogtooth Violet). We were happy to see them, but I bet the local pollinators were even happier! Click here for larger image.
The bright red anthers on the Avalanche Lilies decorated the bumblebee’s leggy pollen baskets as well. Click here for larger image.
Other pollinators were busy working on other plants. This is a Hoary Comma (Polygona gracilis), a common high altitude butterfly in the American West, on a willow that was growing along Hyalite Creek. I believe that this is Diamondleaf Willow (Salix planifolia, aka Tea-leaved Willow), based on what I could see in the early spring barely-leafed-out stage, but perhaps others more knowledgeable than I can chime in with a correction or confirmation. Click here for larger image.
My daughter the entomologist pointed out a large pile of vegetation, which is the product of the intense activity of the Western Thatch Ant (Formica obscuripes). I had seen these heaps before but never paid much attention to them. The nests are large mounds of plant detritus (twigs, pine needles, etc.); in this case they had built the nest around a tree stumo, but generally they are free-standing. According to a 1986 account: “When a colony was disturbed the surface of the mound was soon covered with workers. Many assumed the defensive position: head up and mandibles widely spread; gaster turned forward under the thorax and ready to spray formic acid into any wound made by the mandibles. Many workers started spraying at the beginning of the disturbance and soon there was an invisible cloud of formic acid vapor above the nest that was irritating to human eyes and noses. The bites of the workers were also annoying.” I’m glad we didn’t disturb them! Click here for larger image.
The streamside willows were also great habitat for Yellow Warblers (Setophaga petechia), an abundant and loquacious resident of these mountains. In fact, places with lots of willows will generally have lots of these warblers, even in parts of the country (e.g., the Southwest) where willows are more infrequent. Click here for larger image.
The next day, after visiting a delicious and authentic French bakery for breakfast, we headed to a much less mountainous part of the Bozeman area, the Missouri Headwaters State Park. The access to both plains and mountains is, to me at least, a large part of the allure of Montana, and the American West generally. I guess I agree with Georgia O’Keeffe: “A week ago it was the mountains I thought the most wonderful, and today it’s the plains. I guess it’s the feeling of bigness in both that carries me away.” This is a view back west toward the confluence of the Madison and Jefferson Rivers, with the Tobacco Root Mountains (featuring Hollowtop Mountain) in the distance. Click here for larger image.
Here the montane Avalanche Lilies were replaced by patches of Rocky Mountain Iris (Iris missouriensis, aka Western Blue Flag). The purple and yellow lines on the petals function as nectar guides, helping pollinators (some of which are visible in this picture) find the nectar reward while bringing them into contact with the pollen as well. Click here for larger image.
Ramalama
Cool that your daughter has not been doged. Loved the ant nest (from afar), and the fact you’re from the same place as the characters in the tv series Somebody Somewhere.
The photos were terrific, too.
topclimber
Thanks for such a nice way to start the week.
SteveinPHX
Thank you for the tour. And the photographs!
MagdaInBlack
Well! Thank you for this memory too. As a child, my parents and I camped at the headwaters at Three Forks, Montana.
I am really enjoying your trip =-)
stinger
You and your photography, man oh man. Those bumblebee shots especially.
Here’s something I’ve long wondered: When a birder spots a bird, does he whisper excitedly to his fellow birders, or his spouse or child, “Look! A setophaga petechia!”?
I ask because my mother, who graduated from San Jacinto High School in Houston back when the “Grades” dial only went to 11, and then took a few months of business college, was a birder in her later years, and the giant chart she kept named the birds in English. I don’t know if she knew or ever used the Latin names. She was strictly an amateur and didn’t hang with other birders, just tracked what she saw.
Congratulations on your own chick returning to the nest!
lowtechcyclist
Congrats to your daughter, who will be leaving Bozeman behind for the bright lights of Manhattan…Kansas! Getting that tenure-track job is a BFD, and it’s especially sweet when it’s a place she’d really like to be.
Princess
The Netherlands is like The United States — both grew out of a collection of smaller independent places. So keep the The.
Albatrossity
@stinger: I’ve not heard birders in the USA use the scientific binomials in the field; it’s all been common names in my experience.
I have heard guides and others in other countries use those binomials, especially in situations where the bird in question has lots of common or unpronounceable names in the native languages, or a name that is shared by another species in another geographic area. And there are a few birds where the genus name is also the common name (e.g. Picathartes, Donacobius).
stinger
@Albatrossity: Thanks!
zhena gogolia
I never looked into the eyes of a bumblebee before!
MCat
So happy for your daughter. And for your family. Thanks for the marvelous photos. You really make a difference in the start of the week.
Madeleine
Congratulations to your daughter. Though not an insect fancier myself, I appreciate the bee close-ups. And, after yesterday’s irises, my eye is sensitized to the delicate details of today’s beauty. Thanks!
ronno2018
great photos! thanks!
opiejeanne
Beautiful photos. Thanks for sharing them with us.
We visited Bozeman on July 4, 2017, on our way to Longmire Days in Wyoming. There was a fireworks show and concert within walking distance of our hotel which we appreciated very much. Great concert with fine musicians who played lots of familiar pieces including music from Star Wars and Frozen, but also some serious pieces I’d never heard before. The concert ended with the 1812 Overture, complete with cannons. It was a grand night and Bozeman seems to be a special place.