Field Notes

Just the name – Wild Horse Island – sends the imagination soaring. The short boat trip to this island on the west side of Flathead Lake about ten miles north of Polson is magical. This is certainly not an area where humans have left nothing but footprints. Even the name suggests a story.

Once the turkeys had returned to the trees, a dance began. They leaped from branch to branch and sometimes switched trees, trying to get higher and higher—or so I thought. I began to wonder if the social hierarchy, so well-established for turkeys while on the ground, carries to the roost. Was it possible that the ideal vertical place in a tree could be the middle, high enough from land-based predators, yet far enough below flying threats from the night skies?

The difference in temperature between the crust, mantle and core creates an effect where hot molten rock, called magma, slowly moves toward the surface in plumes, much like the wax of a lava lamp. This phenomenon, called convection, slowly moves the plates of the earth’s crust, grinding them against each other, causing volcanoes, earthquakes -- and mountains.

Fall is a hectic time of year in Montana. There are a thousand things to do before the first snow, and not nearly enough time. The days shorten, tourists leave, seasonal shops close, kids romp at the playground one last time, flower beds are mulched, snow tires put on the car, storm windows polished and mounted. You can feel the change in season just walking down the street: people hurry from building to building, head down and quiet, bundled up and hunched against the cold, looking for warmth,

When I first moved out West, I was impressed by the large black-and-white bird I noticed strutting around my yard and campsites, its long black tail dragging on the ground behind it. The bird’s loud “mag-mag-mag” calls slowly became a familiar sound. Now the black-billed magpie has become an important symbol of the West to me, and whenever I see or hear it, I’m reminded how lucky I am to call the Rocky Mountains home.

Lichens don’t even need liquid water sources like rain or melting snow. They can absorb moisture directly from the air. You might think of them as natural weather instruments, because their ever-changing water content reflects the humidity of the air. Oddly enough, some lichens are completely unable to absorb liquid water; if you submerged them, they would remain dry.

... for Hairy Woodpeckers, “woodpecker” isn’t just a description, it’s a lifestyle. They get about 45 percent of their food from drilling into trees. A male Hairy Woodpecker can peck up to 190 strikes per minute when excavating a nest. That’s about 1/7 the speed of a jackhammer, which operates at about 1,300 strikes per minute.

There is an ant and she is next to my foot, dragging a fly up the same hill that I have just stopped trying to drag myself up. All worker ants are females and this particular female has a black fly in her mandibles, but she’s having a hard time keeping it there because she is negotiating her way backwards through lichen, and the uncooperative (i.e., dead) fly keeps getting hung up.

As my dog starts to circle, the porcupine turns its rear end to my dog and begins to back into him, thrashing its tail back and forth. Lunging at the porcupine, my dog comes up with a face full of quills. As he winces back to my side, I begin to wonder what type of animal has the ability to prey upon a porcupine without receiving a penalty for its meal.

The bottom of this shallow stream is covered with a complex community of algae, comprising many different species. Probably most abundant of all are the diatoms, many of which secrete a slippery mucus as they travel, leaving the rocks very slick.