Bob Danley

Western Meadowlark is a member of the New World Blackbird family: Icteridae. Measures nine and a half inches in length (Sibley 2025) that is chunky, neckless and short tailed in silhouette. Viewed from the back the mantle has dark feathers edged with tan color. Pattern and color extends to back of neck and lower cheek. Flight feathers and tail are barred tan instead. Legs pink. Front of bird a vivid yellow from chin, throat, chest and belly. Broken up by a dark "V"on the upper chest. Flanks are a dirty white streaked with brown.

Arriving in March: Western Meadowlark. Usually detected by rich, flute-like song from elevated perch that carries over distances. Listen here: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wester.... Distribution: west of the Mississippi River. Habitat: open grasslands. State bird of six states, includes Montana.

Columbian Ground Squirrel are 13.5 inches in total length; tail is 3.7 inches (Foresman 2012). Separated from other ground squirrel species by tan spotting on base gray/white fur. Face has red coloring on face. The chin, throat, chest and belly is a rich tan color. Distribution: Mountainous habitat (Rockies) of the Pacific Northwest.

Columbian Ground Squirrel sure is colorful exiting a 7 month underground hibernation. Saw first one of year today. Amazing they look this good; rely totally on body fat to make it through winter. Males first to emerge. Herbivores that forage early morning/late afternoon in radius around burrow.

Bulbous Woodland-star is an early spring perennial wildflower of the American West. Found in moist soils of early spring grasslands. Usually found in mats. Leaves (< half inch in size) recognized without flowers; they are mitt-like i.e. three lobed and hairy. Eventually send up a raspberry red stem topped off with one to six flowers (Lesica 2012). White/pink flower petals measure three-tenths of an inch. Pointed petals are five-lobed united with a red, hairy cup-shaped calyx.

Mild winter like w. MT? Start looking for Bulbous Woodland-star. This #wildflower perennial usually forms mats in grasslands moist in early spring. 3-lobed leaves kidney shaped, average .5 inch in size (left image). White/pink flowers 5-lobed, .3 inch petal (r. photo). Distribution: American West.

Milbert's Tortoiseshell overwinters as an adult. Given full sunshine and temps near 60F on a warm winter day this butterfly species can be active flying around. Retreats back to hibernation space after a couple of hours. Easy to identify. An older name for this species is Fire-rim Tortoise Shell (Pyle 2002). Yes, the entire length of the upper wing margins are a bright orange bordered by yellow! The shallow scalloped wing edges are colored a narrow dark brown with embedded with six small blue spots on the rear upperwing. The wing bases are dark brown. Overall wingspan approaches two inches.

A Milbert's Tortoiseshell zoomed past me on my morning MT neighborhood walk today. Photo below from couple of years ago. February 28 sighting is the earliest date by two weeks from my records. The conditions: about 50F and full sunshine. Not even March and this is the 2nd #butterfly sp. for 2026.

The original publication has been digitized and is readable as such by the Internet Archive. Robert John Thornton's work will educate and entertain botanists, plant lovers, historians, illustrators, taxonomists and poets. The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge. We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 30 years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 1,400+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages. As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains: 1 trillion web pages 56 million books and texts 13 million audio recordings (including 280,000 live concerts) 15 million videos (including 3.3 million Television News programs) 5.3 million images 1.3 million software programs Consider supporting this non-profit :-)

A natural history publication (1807) by Robert John Thornton, M.D. highlighting the "Dissertation on the Sexes of Plants" of Carolus Linneaus. His book "New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus" dedicated to the Queen of the United Kingdom (archive.org/details/mobo...). more info: Alt text

Alpine Bog Laurel spreads by rhizome. Leaves are opposite and without a pedicel. They measure about one inch in length. Their color is dark green above and whitish below. Five-lobed flowers are shaped like a deep saucer. Ten stamens and petals connect beneath a ovary. Flowers look to be about half inch in diameter.

Alpine Bog Laurel is a 12 inch tall evergreen shrub of lake, pond margins of high elevations in western Montana (Lesica 2014). Taxonomically placed in the Heath family. Easy to recognize with inflorescences of 2-10 bright pink flowers. Peak bloom in July.

Prairie Falcon (16 inches) is nearly twice the length of American Kestrel. Most mundane colored falcon, sandy is descriptive. Chest is mostly dingy white with sandy spotting. This color extends over belly and undertail coverts. Does have a facial mustache like kestrels and peregrines, but is sandy colored and less obvious. Mantle and wings are evenly colored sandy. In flight has dark wingpits, key field mark not pictured. If you find one, you're probably in a breathtaking landscape of buttes and grasslands of the American West. Poetic description of bird/behaviors in: Hawks in Flight; P. Dunne, D. Sibley & C. Sutton (1988).

Have yet to see Prairie Falcon for 2026. Usually all it takes is cruising gravel roads during winter in open habitat of meadows, pastures, native grasslands. Forgot to mention powerpoles as perch sites. In many cases these birds aren't skittish. Excellent photo opps possible :-) Just cool to find.

Photo above is from different time and place. However, it still resembles the bird I saw today while sitting in traffic from my car. I saw a "dark" bird with pointed, angled wings and little smaller than a Rock Pigeon which it was chasing. It "rode" the pigeon's back briefly before the pigeon rolled and escaped. By this time it clicked that I was viewing a Merlin. The bird settled on the 2 story roof of a nearby motel. I had my binoculars in the car and quickly got on the bird. Could clearly see the light brown back and lack of strong b/w pattern on face. Colors indicative of "Richardson's" subspecies. Typical falcon jizz perched, like a upside down water droplet. Reference: Birds of Prey of the West - A Field Guide, B. Wheeler, Princeton Press (2018).

Was waiting at left turn light. One of the busiest intersections in Missoula, MT. A small falcon streaked in front from right to left chasing a pigeon. It perched near atop a 2 story motel after fun. Had binos in car. Noted a brown-backed "Richardson's" Merlin like photo below. Lesson: be ready :-)

Well said.

Way to go Mervin!!! Real leadership and values 👍

Bristly Black Currant has spined branches. The inflorescence usually hangs with the presence of five to twenty flowers. Flowers (three to four mm long) are cupped with green to red colorations based with reddish glandular hairs. Leaves are shiny above measuring at most three inches in size. They are lobed five to seven times (Lesica 2012). Distributed across northern half of U.S. into southern Canada (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?subview=map&taxon_id=78858).

Flowers of shrubs can be overlooked because of small size. Come May/June Bristly Black Currant will be in bloom in "moist to wet forests...often along streams" (Lesica 2012). Additionally, Lesica describes this species as: "most common species of wet sites in coniferous forest". Beautiful blooms.

Beautiful image 👌

Beautiful work 👏

Arrowhead Blue has muted colors of white and grayish-brown. What it lacks in color makes up in pattern. The small arrowheads of the rear underwing are easily seen. The upperwing is blue just like several other "Blue" species. Just as well as it typically perches with wings folded vertically. Distributed across the American West. Find a good stand of lupine wildflowers and your chances of seeing this species are pretty high. Also worth checking are areas of moist soil where there may be a hundred or more of other butterflies of several species. The fun starts in May...get ready and review your favorite field guide :-)

Arrowhead Blue aptly named. The seven or so white arrowhead shapes on the brown background of the rear underwing are diagnostic. Compare with Silvery Blue of far right image. This #butterfly measures < 1.25" wingspan (Pyle 2002). Found on lupine sp. (host plant) also moist soil. Flight=peak in May.

Petalled Rocktripe Lichen is foliose in form. lIke other Umbilicaris this species is crudely round in shape, max measured diameter is 3.2 inches (McCune & Geiser 2009). Thallus lobes are really kind of 'petalled', the lobes are somewhat twisted and vertical. Uppersurface color is light to dark brown. Thallus surface is smooth with some wrinkling. The under surface is blackish and smooth, lacks rhizines.

Petalled Rocktripe Lichen is fairly common to find in western Montana on noncalcareous rock (McCune et al 2014). Concentrate your search on outcrops or talus slopes. Distribution: eastern and western North America and Europe ( www.inaturalist.org/observations...)

The "bushy" chartreuse colored lichen are Wolf Lichen (Letharia vulpina). Usnea is the genus of the light green lichen that resembles a thick "head of hair". The two other species: Hooded Tube Lichen (Hypogymnia physodes) and Netted Shield Lichen (Parmelia sulcata) are both bluish gray in color. Hooded Tube is "tube-like" with the tube end 'exploded' open and covered in soredia (small grain-like reproductive structures). Netted Shield is flat with cracks in the thallus that is filled with soredia that are powdery in form. All are common on wood and bark in the American West.

There are at least four macrolichen species on this fence post inside a mature stand of Ponderosa Pine. Can you identify any to genus? Even if you don't know identity, they are very cool by form and color. Take along a magnifying lens on your next nature walk...view a different world :-)

This a black and white photo taken in 1907 by U.S. Forest Service - Source US Library of Congress LC-USZ62-55630 DLCURL http://lcweb4.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/i?ammem/consrvbib:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28cph+3b03513%29%29:displayType=1:m856sd=cph:m856sf=3b03513, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34969784. Image captures President Roosevelt (left with the top hat) talking to Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the United States Forest Service. Both are dressed in what looks like black formal attire.

Pictured is President Theodore Roosevelt and U.S. Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot circa 1907. Roosevelt and Pinchot set aside great quantities of land for conservation during their Administration. Roosevelt also made the "square deal" (fair play/opportunity for all) a priority in his term.

Mormon Fritillary is the smallest greater fritillary in North America with a with a max wingspan of 2 3/8 inches (https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Speyeria-mormonia). Upperwing dominated by orange. The wing edges have heavy black encompassing small white triangles. Wing veins are marked with thin black lines. Other black markings are similarly narrow. Body is a greenish orange. The underwing is tannish with green tinged areas. The disc (central area) of rear wing is colored with darker brown smudges between the silver spots. Eyes are gray. Distribution restricted to the American West.

32 days to the start of spring :-) Am looking forward to seeing Mormon Fritillary in the high elevations come late summer. Pictured taking nectar from Spotted Knapweed (noxious weed), one of the few #wildflowers still in bloom in late August.

Man is definitely not fine...why the hate?

The iridescent purplish-tinged chestnut underwing is marked with a series of small, white-edged black dashes. These postmedian dashes are liined straight on the forewing. On the hindwing the dashes are offset from each other, kind of snakey in form. There is a small blue patch at the base of the tails, location referred to as "thecla". Reference: Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest by R. Pyle & C. LaBar (2018).

Pictured is an adult male, sexed by stubby tails, Hedgerow Hairstreak (Pyle & LaBar 2018). This #butterfly has only a 1.25" wingspan. Prefers to take nectar from numerous, densely packed flowers. Pictured taking nectar from Spreading Dogbane. Distribution: American West. Flight peak = July

Right on, Hillary

Racists are the real cowards.

Yep, Noem articulated straight from the authoritarian playbook. And the anti-democratic GOP (Guardians of Pedophiles) silently nod in agreement.

Awesome news Katharine, thanks 😊

Agree

Can't wait for accountability for this corrupt Administration when the midterm wave of Democrat Representatives become the House majority

More insider corruption from the Administration...in hopes of deporting innocent, law abiding immigrants.

Frosted Rock Tripe distributed throughout American West, upper Midwest, Northeast and Appalachians (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?subview=map&taxon_id=182508). Surface of foliose thallus is gray. Fastened to noncalcareous rock by central attachment. Usually lacks embedded apothecia. Solid ID confirmed by black granular covering of root-like rhizines. Preferred substrate usually covered with this lichen...very cool sight and target for photographs.

This #lichen is a feature of cliff faces of moist forest habitat at middle and low elevations in the Pacific Northwest (McCune & Geiser 2009). Crudely round and large, can approach diameter of 8 inches. ID via the all black rhizines (root-like structures) seen in right hand image.

Lesser Salted Rocktripe Lichen pretty distinct in color and form. Round thallus (about 1.5 inch in diameter) is a spectrum of gray with white, crystal-like ridges running outward to edges. Has dark apothecia that are stalked. Like other Umbilicaria is found on rock.

You know you are high (elevation wise) if you find Lesser Salted Rocktripe Lichen. Abundant in subalpine/alpine elevations, circumpolar distribution (McCune & Geiser 2009). Cool looking, white crystalline-like ridges set against a gray thallus. Compare with U. hyperborea, dark brown in left image.

"Wikiklaas" uploaded this scanned cover image of The Origin of Species book in 2011 to Wikipedia.

February 12, 1809 is the birthdate of Charles Darwin. He was of English descent and was curious of the world around him. As such, he became a naturalist, geologist and biologist. He eventually published groundbreaking "On the Origin of Species" (1859). Natural selection is foundation of evolution.