Hello Everybody, 17 July 2006, from western Montana Most of the month of May was occupied with truck repairs at my home-base with my brother in Colorado. Just as I arrived at Cedaredge, the truck computer started saying my transmission was slipping, although it felt fine. The general 'expert' advice was that with 143,000 severe-duty miles on the transmission, it was about time to think of a rebuild anyway; I found a nearby shop that looked like they would do a really quick and good job and make it about twice as strong as the original, so I took the plunge. Afterwards, the computer still said slipping, which I did not believe. Then the alternator voltage started fluctuating and going low, and replacing the alternator fixed the supposed slipping problem the computer does not like electrical noise. Then one of the two 'standard grade' NAPA batteries I bought 23 months ago in British Columbia died, but NAPA treated me very well and gave me two 'premium grade' replacements at no cost, even though the original warranty was for 18 months. Also replaced most of the steering rods, some under NAPA warranty, which removed three inches of steering wheel slop and made the truck steer like new again. This was all time consuming, sometimes frustratingly puzzling, and expensive, but the truck is running perfectly now, and I don't have to drive along wondering when the transmission is going to die in the middle of nowhere, naturally and not only strand me, but put me at the mercy of a local repair shop. This summer I've 'stayed south', to have more time for bird photography and for less driving (the price for diesel fuel has doubled since my first drive to Alaska in 2004). In the past month I've visited 8 National Wildlife Refuges and two National Grasslands, as well as interesting BLM land and several National Forests for camping one can usually camp on the Grasslands, but not on the Refuges. Usually the Refuges have a 5-15 mile gravel 'loop road' to take you by the ponds and bushes and prairie, and often it seems better to use the truck as a blind and poke the camera out the window, than to get out and use the tripod -- the tripod is better for the camera, but often the birds are much more wary of a person than a vehicle and won't let you get as close. The Grasslands were great, with many miles of old dirt roads from ranching days, some nice scenery as well as birds, and camping permitted everywhere. I started at the Pawnee Grasslands on the prairie NE of Denver with my birding mentor friends Will & Linda Piper, and in a couple of days got lots of nice pictures and saw several new birds. (The Pawnee Buttes are James Michener's 'Rattlesnake Buttes' in CENTENNIAL). There's an organized campground there surrounded by large trees and lots of brush, excellent for birding. Hiking through the forest with them I was amazed how often they would hear a bird and know where to look for it and probably what kind of bird it was -- with my poor ears I usually would not even hear it at all, and if I did would have no idea what or where it was. Makes it a bit more of a challenge when I am solo. I next swung up over the mountains NW of Denver to the Arapaho NWR, still sticking close enough to 'home' so if the truck's new repairs caused trouble I could easily return, fortunately not necessary. My goal for the summer is to explore the Hells Canyon area on the border between Idaho and Oregon, and then eastern Oregon, and on the way to visit northeast Montana where I have never been at all. Going up through Wyoming and across Montana took me through a nice sprinkling of Refuges and Grasslands, all worthwhile to visit. I spent three days in Wyoming's Thunder Basin Grassland, and on the first night discovered why it's named that: it was thundery all night long, especially around 0200-0300 when the blasts were so close they were practically lifting me out of bed. Wow! Both of the next nights were just 'normal' thunderstormy. I spotted a huge Ferruginous Hawk with a beautiful snowy white front sitting near the road on a wooden fence, and stopped after I had gone by it -- then the dilemma, to try to back up so I could photograph at close range out the side window, but probably scare it away altogether before any shot at all, or to get out, put the camera on the tripod, and try to creep up on foot while at least getting more distant shots. I chose the latter, and sure enough, got only poor quality distant shots. In the view looking up at the hawk in flight, it looks like one of his tail feathers had gotten folded forward. Part of the fun of birding is growing a 'lifelist' and identifying the birds you see -- the juvenile Bluebird shown was the worst yet -- who would suspect this speckled tan bird will turn blue? -- and only one of my six books shows a helpful drawing. And I had a secondary interest too, to visit the Ft. Peck dam on the Missouri River: the building of the dam in the 1930s is the background of my favorite author Ivan Doig's book BUCKING THE SUN (which I re- read as I was driving north). The dam is the largest hydraulically filled earth dam in the world, four miles long, and interesting to see after reading about it (and about the huge earth slide which occurred during the construction). Will and Linda are also Doig fans, and I got a kick out of calling them with my cellphone while standing on the dam. Ft. Peck lake is surrounded by the immense Charles M. Russell NWR (the 'CMR', locally), approximately 120 miles long and 10 miles wide. There is a great 2-day drive on the gravel '201' road which provides birding, scenery, and isolation -- I did not see another vehicle on the road the entire time. The road is mostly good and easy, but has several hair-raisingly steep hills which add some spice. I was looking for little birds alongside the road and was amazed to see instead a huge bull elk come running out of the trees and cross quite close in front of me -- I was not able to get a nice 'charging' picture and had to settle for a 'going away' shot. After exiting the CMR, I drove up in the 'Little Rocky Mountains' which had a nice shady nearly unoccupied campground, and lots of great bird pictures just wandering around the campground. And the shade was very welcome: it's been around 95 degrees (35 C) most days; the truck air-conditioner takes care of this while driving, but the camper is like an oven when in the sun at those air temperatures. When I first returned from Norwegian summers I could hardly stand that heat, but I seem to have gotten more used to it now. As I left the prairie part of Montana and headed southwest through the mountains to visit my friend Warren Guffin in the Bitterroot Valley, I was amused to pass a signpost for the coldest officially recorded temperature in the lower 48 states, a little hard to imagine in such heat. Here are the same old instructions for the slideshows: http://www.firestardesign.com/johna (Note that this is still 'johna' in spite of my email address change to be just 'john') The new slideshow is < 06 June July CO WY MT.exe > Most of you will be using Internet Explorer: you can either choose OPEN to view the show once, or choose SAVE TO DISK if you want to have it your hard drive for future re-viewing. I have used my updated PC-cillin to be sure the .exe file is virus free, and in this case you can safely ignore Windows's warning about 'dangerous <.exe> files'. Right-Arrow or Right-Click will advance to the next picture Left-Arrow or Left-Click will return to the previous picture Esc will end the show at any time; use Esc if the show seems stuck If you don't have a broadband Internet connection it's not realistic to download these large files -- please let me know, as it is very easy for me to send them to you on a CD. And if you would like any of the individual images, just let me know. I have limited space on firestardesign.com, so must sometimes remove older slideshows to put up new ones; let me know if you want me to send you a CD of any of the 'back issues', or all of them along with their accompanying eMails, on CD. And if you don't want to get any more eMails like this one in the future, just let me know. Regards, John Armitage