Long days

I am starting to come around to enjoy the sunrises over the sunsets here in Montana.

Slowly I've been given more responsibilities. Monday I did my first bird count on my own, I didn't sleep that well the night before - out of nerves I'm sure. But it was a success heard a veery, saw bobolinks, and northern flickers even saw a fox. It had rained the weekend before, when it rains here it turns the ground into a sticky liquid, everyone calls it Gumbo. You cant drive in it so for a couple of the points I walked out to I had 2-3 inches of gumbo stuck to my boots, very heavy and hard to walk with.

Wednesday I was scheduled for another independent bird count. I get to where the map looks like I need to be, turn on the gps ask it to find the nearest point which should be this point 7 I think I'm near. Well it dosent show up, I have to call Josey and see if she can help me figure it out. So I wait bout an hour, still looking for this gps point 7. I realize Joanne didnt upload the points on to my gps. When Josey arrives she concludes the same thing. So instead of an independent adventure of bird counts, I hop in the truck with Josey and go with her on her points. This is the River josey and I have started a love affair with. Our work is based along the stretch of the Milk River, with all its species, and all its habitat.

We were quite blessed Thursday, in seeing something most people don't get to experience. There is a large Wildlife Refuge in Montana, one of the largest in the continental states - Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge. The land is in a state that is close to the way Lewis & Clark experienced it on their journey west. We were out there to do a Big Horn Sheep Survey, the group counted 50 sheep, our team of interns saw 34 of the 50. Team of good eyes. We also saw 2 rattlesnakes twice, elk. The biggest event was this heard of nine sheep being chased by a female elk and 3 male elk. It was quite a thing to see, I feel very lucky I don't think many people get to say that. That was a long day left at 4:30 am got back at 8:30pm, I was in bed by 9.Miss HurricaneGroup of Big Horn Sheep LadiesviewView of the refugeElk. you can click the picture and hold shift and it will open large in a new windowTeam Good Eyes

Friday after work I bought my fishing license went fishing and caught my first Northern Pike, I was pretty thrilled, very cool fish has teeth. Mine was kind of small for a pike, but an accomplishment for me none the less.

week 2

Earlier this week didn't have much going on. We've been doing night time frog call surveys, Josh our neighbor (very nice dude) has been going out with us - he is our protection out there - I think Josey and I both feel safer with him there. One really cool aspect about these night time surveys is at 10 pm the radio station starts playing these 15 minutes old time radio stories. So when we get in the pick up we hear short stories with sound effects - we heard one about two sisters one was disabled the healthy sister didn't treat her so good. The healthy sister left and married a man and it turns out he becomes disabled. Then we heard one revolving around a game of chess.

Josh took us fishing - we dont have our permits so we just watched him fish. After fishing he took us around the Ft Peck dam, saw the spillgate. The lake looks like an ocean it is 119 miles long.good old boy Josh

fishing lakemeneighbor joshspillgatespilgate

Here is a classic image of Montana for you - One morning while doing bird surveys this older lady drives by in her GMC, she had her hair curlers in and her leather work gloves on, wish I had a picture of that for yall.

Lewis and clark and miss Sacageweafound in cottonwood bottom land.

Friday night we went to the Catfish Calcata - for those of you like me who dont know what that was, I'lll explain. Saturday there is the Catfish Classic a fishing tournement. So the night before the whole town gathers at a bar and bets on the team they think will win, some people won 4,000 - 2,000 bucks. SO friday night was fun,Ii payed for one $2 dollar beer, and all the other drinks were bought on rounds - I was pretty pumped about that.The Montana Bar serivng the drunks of Glasgow for 110 years (seriously)

This barber shop is connected to the Montana Bar. I really think my papa would get his hair cut here.

It was suppose to snow the night of the tournament but it didnt- I have mixed feelings about that - I would have both liked and not liked to see the snow.

Saturday Josh and I went to the town's Pioneer Museum - I loved it, tons of junk old timey stuff of cowboys and Indians, railroads, hunting, homestead kind of things, western paintings, dinosaurs, old doctor stuff. For dinner one of the girls at the office Mikey had us over for dinner - fried chicken, mac and cheese, collard greens, pinto beans and blueberry colber - very good. We watched young guns - new all time favorite and then went over to the catfish weigh in. The two best fish were 10.7 lbs.

Pioneer Museum

Im waiting on a care package from mitch - cant wait. besides that everything is good.
Love yall

maling address

if any of you wanted to send me something:
Hannah Willingham
C/O Joanne Stewart
Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks
54078 U.S. Hwy 2 west Glasgow Montana 59230

that would be the place to send it.

Why it is blue - I dont know.

We set out to Havre and had much success. We had 9 GPS points to find, neither of us had been to all of them so after a quick eat and stop at walmart. We started out on these dirt roads with a map and the points. I was the navigator and Josey the driver (she is a great driver - trust her completley). We saw about 6 people out there. These point were about a hours drive in between each one. We found the first one and were feeling pretty good about ourselfs. We got to the last point by sunset, 5 miles from Canada. Slept longways in the truck, woke up at sunrise, got out of the truck and began our point counts. First thing we see is Northern Harrier chasing a coyote that's chasing something - good morning Montana. We got done at 11:30, drove the 3.5 hrs back to Glasgow - pretty dirty and tired by this point. At 7 we help set up mist nets for bird banding in the morning. Saturday is another 5am wake up. We band about 24 birds lots of house wrens, least flycatchers, a warbling viero, downy woodpecker, black capped chicadee - some others. Josey and I sleep that afternoon, wake about 4pm and head over to the Bonnie City Blues and Brews Fest. Basically ribs, shrimp, music, and a bunch of Montana micro brewerys. Woke up a little hungover this morning. Monday we get our first aid training.

Cotton tail, was very close and didnt move

I cant tell you how these sunsets make you feel, extremly humbling, very beautiful and peacfull.

fox
Pronghorn

Josey at the Milk River

Those might be the Rockies

Sunrise Thursday morning

Miss Josey

Big Sky, Big Country

We helped the kids today - Pretty comical, its nice to get them fishing at 8 years old. All at once there were two kids crying, This one girl had gotten the hook snagged on the back of her arm. Right when I went to go help her, Jeff tells me to go help the Johnson kid. I thought they just had their lines tangled but then I see he is crying, sure enough he has the hook in his hand. It was rich.
We drove around today pretty close to Canada. Saw a lot of birds I have never seen before, and prairie dogs!Tomorrow Josey and I wake at 4:30 to bird point counts, then we leave after lunch for Haver, which is like 3.5hrs away we are camping out and doing point counts in the morning. Haver has a walmart - going to get me a coffee pot and a pillow.

SO I've arrived

After some painful plain rides (there were only 4 people on this plane including pilot and stewardess), I am here in Montana. Its great weather, and the people are sweethearts. Tomorrow I'm helping 72 1st graders fish, so that will be interesting not really part of the job description but I'm happy to get the experience. I've had two BBQ's with the Biologist here. Turns out (very lucky) that just Josey and I will be staying in the trailer, so I've got the bunks to my self. A lot of our work will be outside of Glasgow, so I'm pretty fortunate to be able to see a lot of the state (good chance for good photos).
There are a lot of pretty sunsets, and you can see for miles on the prairie. I saw a pronghorn, loon, white pelican, black billed magpie, cotton tail, western meadowlark. I'll post more later.

Pre arrival update

I found out I will have a bike to use, this is a plus.
I also know now where the RV will be parked. Here is the link http://visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=1935&siteid=1