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Bird Notes from Western Montana

Caroline Wells

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In “A Distributional List of Birds of Montana”, by Aretas A. Saunders, the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias herodias) is listed as a common summer resident east of the continental divide in Montana, but only as a migrant west of the divide. It was reported to me that there were heron nests east of Missoula near Drummond; so, on June 13, 1931, a friend and I drove to this place to investigate. About sixty miles east of Missoula, on the banks of the Missoula River (farther west called Clark's Fork of the Columbia River), we found a heronry. The nests were located near the tops of tall living cottonwood trees. As the foliage was quite dense in places and as our observations were made from the opposite bank of the river, it was difficult to tell at this time just how many nests were there. From one position, however, we counted ten or eleven nests, a total of nine adults (sometimes two to a nest), and could see several young moving about in the nests. This would seem to establish a nesting record for the Great Blue Heron in western Montana.

As we drove along the road looking for the heron colony our attention was first attracted by a nest with a large bird sitting on it. Later we found this to be the nest of a Western Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo borealis calurus), located near the center of the heronry. We saw the hawk carry food to the nest and could see young moving about therein. The herons seemed to pay no attention to this neighbor. Saunders’ records would seem to indicate that in western Montana most nests of the Red-tail are found on rock-cliffs rather than in trees.

Missoula, Montana, June 17, 1931

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