Field Notes
Birding Destinations
Regions worth a trip — what each one holds, when to come, and how the access works.
Missoula, MT
Western Montana: Where the Refuge Is Free and the Land Around It Is Not
Western Montana runs from the Bitterroot to Glacier through the Mission Valley, and the birding is excellent. It is also a complicated access map, with a national wildlife refuge sitting on tribal trust land where the rules for the refuge and the ground around it are different.
Haines, AK
Southeast Alaska: The Eagle Count Is Lower Than the Brochure Says
The Chilkat River near Haines hosts the world's largest gathering of bald eagles, and the survey numbers have been falling for thirty years while the marketing numbers have not. Southeast Alaska is still extraordinary birding. It is worth arriving with the real figures.
Newport, OR
The Oregon Coast: Every Rock You Can See Is Closed, and That Is the Point
Nearly every offshore rock and island along the Oregon coast is national wildlife refuge, closed to landing, and holding seabird colonies you watch from the mainland. Add estuaries, headlands and a seawatch tradition, and you have one of the best coastal birding runs in the country.
Lihue, HI
Kauai Birding: Seabirds You Can Book, Forest Birds You Might Not See Again
Kauai has the most accessible seabird colony in Hawaii and one of the most desperate forest bird situations on Earth, about forty minutes apart. One requires a reservation on Recreation.gov. The other requires you to understand what you are looking at.
Willows, CA
Central Valley Waterfowl: Millions of Birds on Five Percent of the Wetland
California's Central Valley lost roughly 95 percent of its wetlands and still winters an enormous share of the Pacific Flyway's waterfowl, on a patchwork of refuges, state wildlife areas and flooded rice. The auto tours are excellent, cheap, and busiest exactly when the birds are.