Blog #3. Montana – Bentonite Road

14-16 May 2020

I drove from Lake City, South Dakota, northward into North Dakota, searching and finding wetlands with Hudsonian Godwit flocks. The highlight was a flock of 35 HUGOs west of Verona, ND. The wetland also included nesting Avocets, as well as Black Terns and Stilt Sandpipers. After getting my fill of Hudsonian Godwits, I decided to make a break for eastern Montana, where I would spend a couple of mornings driving the Bentonite Road, famous for its high prairie birdlife, and that other godwit of interest--the Marbled. Also there are two other special shorebirds out there that I wanted to spend time with.

I called ahead to the Trails West Campground in Glasgow, Montana, and booked the only available tent site. The Campground is mainly long-term RV residents (very common for private sites that combine trailers with camping). Many Americans live essentially off the grid by inhabiting trailer parks permanently, because this is the cheapest way to live.

I saw this throughout my trip, because for me staying in private campground/RV sites offered the best of services (the state and national parks were either closed or their amenities were shut down—no hot shower, not much of anything). The virus shut down most of camping across my route, so I spent a lot of timing trying to figure where I could camp near to the birds.

I arrived in Glasgow at 7:30PM and set up camp and made a late dinner as the sky darkened. I was now in Mountain Time. Glasgow is west of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and north of the Fort Peck Reservoir of the Missouri. This is high plains.

    Shoveler drake

The next morning I rose before dawn and headed out on the gravel Bentonite Road, which travels west and south into a mass of dry upland prairie, mainly BLM land. It is well-featured on eBird—that’s how I found out about it. The road is named for a now-defunct plant that extracted bentonite from a deposit here. Bentonite is essentially a type of clay that has many industrial and agricultural and food-product uses. Go figure!

    Western Meadowlark

The Western Meadowlarks sang lustily from every corner of the prairie and the Horned Larks danced on the gravel road. 

I was here for three shorebirds—Long-billed Curlew, Marbled Godwit, and Mountain Plover. All three breed in the spare and dry habitat transected by the road. 

There also were quite a few prairie ponds along the way, which hosted Wilson’s Phalaropes and many ducks.

    Lek display of Sharp-tailed Grouse

I stopped periodically to listen for the sounds of curlews or Sprague’s Pipits. At one stop I glassed the grassland and I came upon a roadside lek of Sharp-tailed Grouse. What a surprise. I had forgotten this species was here. 

There were fourteen birds at the lek (mainly males?). I watched the males do their dance and occasionally do battle with each other.

At one point a single curious individual came over to check me out. That was a surprise for these wary birds.

    Marbled Godwit    

Next I came upon a pair of Marbled Godwits in a wet meadow in a low spot in the prairie. These are the larger cousin of the Hudsonian, and they breed here rather than in the tundra. They are a big handsome bird with plumage much like that of the Long-billed Curlew—the main bird I was here to encounter.

In another twenty minutes I was out of the car photographing a Curlew. This is a grand bird, with a bill that challenges reality. Pairs of these birds breed across the high plains where the prairie is intact.

    Long-billed Curlew checking out my wheels

The loss of original habitat has substantially impacted the species across its breeding zone in the western US. The American Bird Conservancy is working on the species with private ranchers to counter the decline of the species.

For birders who like shorebirds, the Long-billed Curlew sits at the top of the list (along with Hudsonian Godwit) for desirability. I never tire of seeing the species. It is most easily seen while it winters along the Western and Gulf Coasts of the US. Seeing the bird on the breeding habitat was one of the objectives of this field trip.

Mountain Plover was the next treat of the morning. I glimpsed a pair of birds up a dry wash behind where I had been studying a Curlew. They disappeared as I hiked up to see them. They are both shy and difficult to pick out of the habitat.

Over the two mornings out on the Road, I encounter the Plover five times. It was initially a will-o-the-wisp but once I got the hang of the species’ habits I had more luck finding them. I was surprised to find that both Mountain Plovers and Killdeers were scattered up and down the road. 

Of course, the Killdeer also occurs in just about every open habitat in the US, whereas the Mountain Plover’s range is highly restricted to very dry plains from Montana and Colorado southward to northern Mexico in the winter.

    Brewer's Sparrow

Songbirds are featured along the Bentonite Road… Many sparrows are here during spring: Chipping, Clay-colored, Brewer’s, Lark, and more. Brewer’s was a species of the far west that I had not seen since 1975, so I was pleased to reacquaint myself with this retiring little creature of the sagebrush.

    Lark Bunting male

Lark Buntings were in full force, the black males with their white wing patch were doing their display flights and singing their rollicking songs.

    Chestnut-collared Longspur male

Chestnut-collared Longspurs were quite common, but difficult to photograph. I never really got close to this species.

    McCown's Longspur male (this and following)

I was eager to photograph the Chestnut-collared’s cousin—McCown’s Longspur. This is another dry plains specialist, found in the same places where one finds Mountain Plover.

McCown’s started showing up by Mile 15 on the long and winding road. I found them in clusters, and the males liked to spend time on the roadbed itself, for some reason (not so for the Chestnut-collared). I saw males displaying on the ground to females and also doing song flights.

Yes, the high plains is also a place for Pronghorn, which were rather commonplace here.

I also encountered a few Mule Deer. But the Horned Larks (below) were everywhere...

I drove out 24 miles into the heart of this vast rolling prairie landscape. It was awe-inspiring. Difficult to capture in a photograph—truly Big Sky Country.