The 1,160-acre ranch, home to grizzly, elk, and other animals held in reverence by the Blackfeet, was purchased in 2000 by the Nature Conservancy (before that it was owned by some famous western sculptor whose name I will have to ask again). Ownership was then transferred to the first Indian land trust in the nation: the Blackfeet Indian Land Conservation Trust. The ranch is also being used as an education center, where Indians and non-Indians can come to learn about the biological and cultural heritage of the land. The ranch hosts camps for young people to learn about native plants, water quality, the land’s natural history and the culture of the Blackfeet (taken from page 11 of http://www.insightcced.org/uploads/assets/Stainbrook_Chris/LIT_ILTF.pdf). I could very happily live there.
This is the old chicken house but what I'm really wanting you to notice is that it is SNOWING
The group
My fellow “trainees” were from other state and tribal wetland programs.
Soon upon our arrival, our group was “adopted” by this very nice, friendly, but in serious need of rescue pooch:
She was very skinny, couldn’t hear, and was so wooly in the back end that she could hardly walk (looked like someone had attempted to do a rough shear job on her leaving her back kinda scabby). We fed her well for two days, let her sleep in the main building with us out of the wet and cold even though she stunk to high heavens, and collected over $100 toward getting her shots and sheared. One of the Natural Heritage biologist is taking her back to live with her and her other pets in Helena. Pretty sure she would have soon been a dead doggy if left to fend for herself.
UPDATE: “Poochy” turns out to be female, almost completely deaf, and about 7-8 yrs old. She is now very happily living in Helena and enjoying her new look and her new fellow pets. She is currently trying out new names before she selects one. Being deaf she isn’t too chosey….
All cleaned up and lovin life!
I accidently stuck the following pictures too close together to write under each one so will have to improvise. The next picture is off some moose scat (poop) that was thick in the fen outside the main building. I was disapointed that we did not see the actual moose though. We also found what we are sure was bear scat. The second picture is of some mountain flowers and the last picture in this group is of me standing next to a mountain creek whose name I do not know.
From here I went to Red Rocks Nat’l Wildlife Refuge over in the general Yellowstone area (by Lima MT) to help count white-faced ibis nests. Mariah joined me for this part of the trip. On the LONG drive we snapped a few pics of some wildlife that I haven’t already shown you in previous posts:
Twin fawns
Elk
The elk were THICK! Our first sighting was of herd of that had to be close to 25 animal–we were sure it was an elk farm but nope, just good habitat. Pretend this picture is of better quality than it is:
More elk...
We finally arrived at Red Rock NWR about 10:30pm after driving down 27 miles of gravel in the dark. It was great! I could happily live here too.
We spent 3 nights “camping” in this cool retro trailer that came with a mountian view and babbling creek right outside the door. It was hooked up for electricity and had water/bathroom capabilities although they weren’t hooked up. We were just down the road from the bunkhouse though so we cooked and used the facilities (including washer/dryer–very nice!) there.
I want one of these when I grow up!
We saw this cow moose and calf out our camper window one evening:
Moose and calf
The bunkhouse was very nice. Along with the usual living room and kitchen it boasted 5 bedrooms with bunkbeds, 2 closet sized shower rooms, 2 bathrooms (1 with a shower), laundry “room”, and 2 mudrooms/porches. I think they said that there were a total of 10 interns living IN the bunkhouse with several other people living in assorted trailers and houses surounding the bunkhouse and using the facitilities. It was a very cool group of students all with VERY interesting projects that center around cool animals such as beavers or shorebirds. I wish I had a complete list of the projects to share with you but just take my word–they are very very cool projects. Friday afternoons they all get together for bunk house cleaning while Jeff, the refuge biologist, bakes a big batch of his special chocolate chip/peanutbutter cookies or brownies, then they have project presentations while enjoying the fruits of Jeff’s baking. The Friday we were there the presentations were about the success rate of trumpter swan relocation and how to band white-faced ibis chicks–educational and entertaining! Jeff was also generous enough to gift Mariah and I with a package of elk steak which we feasted on for the next 3 meals.
Ok, back to what Mariah and I were doing there. Jeff was nice enough to invite me to come over and help with their white-faced ibis and Franklin’s gull nest counts. I have these same birds on my refuge but have had a heck of a time trying to figure out the best way to do the counts due to the thickness of the vegetation in our nesting colony. Plus you have to time the counts JUST right as if you go to early you risk distrubing incubation or causing too young of chicks to jump in the water (they can swim but not always find their way back if still too young). If you’re too late in the nesting season you run the risk of the water being too low to canoe out to the colony and the bullrush being too high for easy access and the mud too deep, or that the nesting platforms will be too decomposed to be able to locate. These gulls are considered species of concern in Montana and there are only 5 known nesting colonies in the state. My trusty intern Marly took the following pics at our project site while dodging poop bombs (don’t tell her but one those bombs got her with a direct hit!):
Franklin's gull colony, Manning Lake Tribal Wildlife Refuge
Franklin's gull close up
Franklin's gull chick
Back to Red Rocks though. Due the weather being cold and nasty, which makes it hard to paddle a canoe, we did not get to survey the Frankin’s colony. However, we did spend 2 afternoons in the white-faced ibis colony, also a species of concern in Montana. We counted about 60 nests here compared to our 3 or 4 nests back in our neck of the prairie.
White-faced ibis (standing), Frankin's gull (flying), yellow-headed black bird (perched)
One of the volunteers got a couple shots of ibis chicks. She has promised to send me a copy so I’ll put that in here when I get it. Probably it would speed things up a little if I actually got around to sending her the pictures that I promised too.
~ white-faced ibis chick pic to go here~
Volunteers Pat and Kathy, Red Rocks biologist Jeff
Red Rocks biologist Jeff, princess volunteer Mariah-hontas, and intern Chris
Ahhh, this is the life!
While doing the ibis nest counts we also ran across American coot and various duck nests. The duck nests are hard to find and hard to tell apart as they hid them well and keep them covered to boot. Here is a picture of Gina (Red Rocks’ summer intern) candleing an egg to check for fertility and incubation stage:
- Gina candleing a duck egg
We also checked a trumpeter swan nest for egg shells, feathers, and vegetation. The samples will be used in a study to determine which habitat is most important to swan reproductive health/condition: winter feeding grounds or nesting grounds. Currently it is looking like perhaps winter feeding grounds have a bigger impact than the nesting grounds, meaning that if a bird is not in good condition when it arrives at the nesting/breeding grounds then it will not be able to get up to good enough condition fast enough to be able to breed succesfully.
Mariah collecting trumpter swan feather and egg shell samples
