Spring season a good time for birding

It's springtime in Montana, a great time to be outdoors! Even walking out to the mailbox to pick up my morning Daily Inter Lake is more enjoyable because the robins, red-winged blackbirds and mourning doves are singing in our neighborhood.

My wife has been busy chasing away the flickers who like to hammer on the downspouts on our house. Apparently the lack of hollow trees in our residential neighborhood forces the flickers to use our metal downspouts as a man-made alternative to hollow trees. Their drumming is part of their spring mating ritual.

Last week I was prowling around north of McGregor Lake at a small irrigation reservoir called Pearson Reservoir. It's about two miles north of U.S. 2 on the west side of the Pleasant Valley road. That small reservoir had a few acres of open water which was chock-full of waterfowl including several species of ducks, geese and 20 white swans. I believe these were tundra swans, formerly called whistling swans, on their way to the Arctic coast tundra where they breed. It was a nice wildlife viewing experience.

Doing some birding in the spring - seeing how many species of ducks I can identify - is always a fun time. There are numerous small marshes in the south valley which are usually full of ducks this time of the year. Take a drive and bring your binoculars and bird identification book.

Speaking of wildlife viewing, last week I was in Eastern Montana, in the Lewistown, Winnett and Roy area. I have never seen so many antelope. Over three days, I must have seen at least three dozen herds of antelope totaling several hundred animals.

So based on that short three-day exposure to the prairie, it appears our antelope and deer herds had an easy winter. Hunting should be great next fall.

Speaking of hunting, the new 2006 game regulations for next fall are out - well, sort of. Hunting regulations are available on the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Web site, but no hard copies yet. I may be a little old-fashioned, but I find sorting through a 100-page booklet a frustrating experience on my computer screen. I much prefer the hard-copy version of the game regulations. They are suppose to be out later this week, perhaps by the time you read this.

Many hunters study these regulations for hours, especially the pages that provide the drawing odds for getting game tags in hunting districts with limited tags for some game species. Hunters are always looking for an overlooked opportunity for a special permit with great odds to get a treasured special tag.

A few years ago I received a moose tag in a hunting district with good odds for getting a permit. What I failed to do was check on the hunter success rate for that species in that district. The great odds for getting a hard-to-get moose tag was for a good reason: Hunting success was very low! That was a painful lesson learned in the school of hard knocks.

With spring fishing here, you may want to attend the next meeting of Flathead Wildlife, a local sportsmen club. It meets April 13 at Fish, Wildlife and Parks headquarters on Meridian. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. and is open to the general public. The guest speaker will be Jim Vashro, regional fishery manager. Vashro will review changes in the new fishing regulations; review the perch, bass and kokanee situation in Lake Mary Ronan; and review lake and steam access priorities in Northwest Montana.

Traditional access to our lakes, streams and forest lands is changing rapidly with the subdivision and development occurring in Northwest Montana. Fish, Wildlife and Parks budgets are totally inadequate to maintain reasonable access to our public lands and waters. Those budgets must be increased substantially.

Enjoy springtime in Montana!