Pine grosbeaks

pine grosbeak 2

One of my favorite birds in Glacier is the pine grosbeak. Beautiful song and the males are bright red. This is a female, eating mountain ash berries. Every home west of the Divide should have one of these trees in their yard. In Glacier, they're more of a bush, but for your yard, you buy them as a tree. It was a very good berry year in the Park, which was good for the bears and the birds. Grosbeaks can be difficult to photograph because they spend most of their time in the canopy of conifers. They're found on both sides of the Divide, but I see them more on the east side. This one was photographed in Two Medicine. I took a nice post-election hike in the snow. It was very pleasant. I think I'm up to about 220 miles this season lugging that big ol' camera-lens combo however. My knees are getting sore, but my legs are like rocks and my back is in pretty good shape, all things considered.