Sandhill Spring

by Claire Voris I cannot see the cranes this morning, but I can hear them. They are somewhere in the basin of the valley where the yellow, cow-cropped grasses end and the thicket around the water begins. The Sandhills arrived the night before as a wild flurry of...

Who’s Been Walking Here?

Winter is a great time to practice your tracking skills. How well do you know your Montana wildlife? Brush up on your knowledge here, and then take an amble in the snow for a real-life test! Coyote Canis latrans Tracks have four toes, with inside toes a little larger....

Winter Scavenger Hunt

The next time you go on a wintry exploration, take along this list and see what you can find! { } birds fluffed up against the cold { } frost patterns on a window or windshield { } the longest icicle you can find { } wildlife scat of any kind { } snowshoe hare tracks...

Weight of a Billion Years: Exploring the Beartooths’ Rocky Heart

By Sarah Capdeville The stone slab had dried from the afternoon’s rain and pressed roughly against my palms and bare feet. I peered up the steep face of the boulder I was attempting to summit and hesitated, my toes curled into a subtle ledge of rock. Wind rushed...

Learning to Read: A Migration Story

by Brian Williams One February afternoon in Missoula’s North Hills, I walked into a big flock of robins. They moved through the sere grass in abrupt, unsynchronized movements, like actors in a silent movie—three steps, head cock; three steps, head cock—each in its own...