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Seeing any new birds??

5K views 22 replies 12 participants last post by  Force Fetch 
#1 ·
With my planned trip to red rocks cancelled last weekend (and this) stuck around the valley and explored. Had a friend in town so went out thurs to sat looking for birds to hunt. Last Thursday the snow kept the birds low but not working great. Got a couple at my place. Explored upstream in the afternoon. Had new birds on warm springs ponds but they already knew to sit in the middle of the big ponds. The big ponds were black with the tens of thousands of coots that migrated in. Odd bird of the week was blue wing teal. We got 8 of them thurs-sat. 6 of them right off the river at my place. Would come out of the trailer to see some sitting right on the opposite bank. Plenty of other birds migrating. Thursday the fences were blue with all the bluebirds coming thru. Clouds of thousands of red wing blackbirds up by the warm springs hospital. Even new bald eagles around and many raptors I haven't seen since last spring migration. Friday we found over 100 geese to set up on Saturday morning. Too bad Friday night most of them migrated south. Only 20 came in the saturday. Thankfully we got three of them. We even watched a couple loons that have been around lift off Sunday gain elevation and head due south. Lets hope some new birds begin to show. Will be out wednesday to get some work done and if some new birds are around will head out to the blind for an evening hunt. Hope others are seeing new birds and having some good hunts.
 
#3 ·
Came through Winnet on my way back from bow hunting and saw 2-3 thousand geese sitting in a wheat field. Been through there several times week last couple months and havent seen more then 20-30 together before this weekend. Lot more geese in the air around Billings this week as well.
 
#4 ·
Not one goose spotted. But some ducks around. Not much flying but walked out to the blind anyways. Surprised to push about 20-30 ducks off the sloughs. A couple were dumb enough to fly back to never leave again. Drakes are starting to fill in. This morning dropped a big northern greenhead. First I have seen this year. Looked like a bird I would get in December. Big and full four curls. So hopefully this is a sign that some new birds are showing. Still some teal around. But mostly mallards this morning. Every bird on my place was feeding hard. Any bird on the water was feeding. Grass seed is thick and water plants green so ducks are filling up for further flights south. So calm this morning you could hear a duck call hundreds of yards away. Could hear the hoots of three separate owls it was so quite. Will be back out over the weekend to give it another shot. Nothing epic but 2-4 ducks in 1-2hrs isnt too bad.
 
#5 ·
Over on the Jefferson side of the hill there is not much going on at all. I think our little Blue Wing Teal migration is over...I shot a few the other day, they are a ton of fun. I live right on the Jefferson river and I think most of our geese have headed to Dillon, its loaded up down there with honkers. Red Rocks would kick major butt right now! PM me if you head over to this side of the hill and want to chat or hunt. I may do the same to you as Ive never hunted deer lodge country before. Laters.......cody
 
#6 ·
Seeing a few birds, not a many as normal.

I think most of those bwt are probably actually cinnamon teal, they are very easily confused this time of years. I've shot quite a number this year, which isn't abnormal until about the end of this week when almost all of them are gone. I believe most the bwt are gone before our season even starts.
 
#7 ·
Could be some of em. I had a Cinnamon hen and a brood raised right behind the house here. It was cool to watch them parade around. The birds I shot were definetly BWT only reason Im sure is because of the plumage on the head of the drake and the speculum on the wings are just a little different. After I shot them I thought the same, that they were CWT, but after a close exam Im goin with BWT. Shoulda took some pics I suppose! Oh well!
 
#8 ·
I'd bet they are bwt since montana is a production state for them. I used to shoot cinnamon's in Nevada and they seemed a bit larger than the teal I'm shooting here, but idk for sure because I've only shot a couple for sure drake btw this year and last.
 
#9 ·
huntfishnv said:
I'd bet they are bwt since montana is a production state for them. I used to shoot cinnamon's in Nevada and they seemed a bit larger than the teal I'm shooting here, but idk for sure because I've only shot a couple for sure drake btw this year and last.
They might be bwt, I don't really know, but MT is a very large production state for cinnamon's too. If you look around in the spring, you'll see a ton of cinnamons. My hunch is that most of the bwt people think they are shooting in MT are actually cinnamons, but that doesn't mean we don't shoot some bwt also. I just wish our cinnamons didn't take off before they had plummage. I've only seen a few plummed cinns when hunting MT.
 
#10 ·
I was in the Peace river country (4hrs NNW of Edmonton AB) in alberta for a week after moose hunting . The locals up there said a little push came thru but the big numbers havent come thru yet, the field hunting was just picking up. Lots of birds around Red Deer (between edmonton and Calgary) not much below calgary. Should be a good gadwal/widgeon year saw lots and lots of them.
 
#11 ·
phutch30 said:
I was in the Peace river country (4hrs NNW of Edmonton AB) in alberta for a week after moose hunting . The locals up there said a little push came thru but the big numbers havent come thru yet, the field hunting was just picking up. Lots of birds around Red Deer (between edmonton and Calgary) not much below calgary. Should be a good gadwal/widgeon year saw lots and lots of them.
So where's the moose pic?
 
#13 ·
Just made a trip to Townsend......boy the bird count on the WMA is pretty rough unless I'm missing where they are rafting. A few geese around hitting some fields but pretty weak. Anyone north seeing any movement?
 
#18 ·
Seeing lots of ducks around SW montana. Shot a band the other day. Mallard drake from Yellowknife, NW territory. 1400 mile flight give or take. First Band in MT!
 
#21 ·
In the past two days GF has had a large increase in both ducks and geese. I did some scouting this morning for a place to launch my sled with not much luck all the slack water launch sites are thick with ice. With all the new birds tomorrow is going to be a scouting hunting trip for sure.
Damn works gets in the way of having fun.
 
#23 ·
Scouted Sat evening N of GF and made contact with with a few friends that live in that area. No one is reporting seeing large #'s of geese or ducks. I gathered up permission to hunt quite a few fields when they do get here. Sunday was spent scouting, with all my equipment, from Ulm to Pelican Point. Man that river is low, someone even put a road construction marker on one half hidden gravel bar that used to be in the channel, Thank You. There are a few birds around but not much to write home about, nice day for a boat ride. It is still a little early for the great hunting. Riverdale Bend which is usually a goose mecca only held about 40 birds instead of thousands.
 
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