Lake County, Montana
Summer 2020
Sitting here at my desk I look five miles to the southwest and see the rising hills of the National Bison Range, lightly ribbed by the Pleistocene shorelines of Glacial Lake Missoula. I feel a deep sense of kinship with those hills, prairies, and floodplains and the plants and animals within them. This past summer, I had the privilege of roaming the Bison Range to survey for milkweeds and monarch butterflies under a scientific use permit. My wanderings brought many encounters with wildlife and many moments of distraction admiring a fragile wildflower, a fleeting dragonfly, or a breathtaking landscape. As we edge toward the winter solstice, I hope you’ll indulge me in a nostalgic look back at a warm, enchanting summer in the company of nature. This Bucket will focus on the native plants, invertebrates, and mammals of the Bison Range. I wrote about the birdlife there in a diary back in October: Birds of the National Bison Range. Now let’s go where the buffalo roam.
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The National Bison Range (NBR) is an 18,000-acre refuge at the south end of the scenic Mission Valley in northwest Montana. President Teddy Roosevelt established the refuge in 1908 for the conservation of bison. The refuge supports a diverse ecosystem of native Palouse prairie (one of the most endangered ecosystems in the U.S.), Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine forests, mountain shrubs, and lowland riparian areas of black cottonwood, quaking aspen, and Rocky Mountain juniper.
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My project started in early June, peak bloom for wildflowers and mountain shrubs in the Rocky Mountains. Only the arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) was on the wane. Abundant flowers attracted a diversity of pollinators, including bees, butterflies, ants, beetles, and more.
As you’d expect, the premier animal of NBR is its namesake, the American bison (Bison bison). The 300-400 bison that roam the refuge are the “plains” subspecies, vs the “wood” subspecies native to the boreal forests of far-northwest North America. The NBR bison are impressive beasts; bulls weight up to 2,000 lbs. and stand 6 ft. tall; cows weigh up to 1,000 lbs. and reach 4-5 ft. And they’re fast: they can run up to 35 mph and they’re extremely agile. I kept an eye out for them at all times.
Here’s a video I pieced together of a bull at a dust wallow. Bison love a roll in the dirt to deter biting flies and help shed fur. Male bison, like this bull, also wallow during the rut to mark their territory and display their strength. If you want to hear the bellows, grunts, and roars of bull bison in the rut, click here.
With its diverse habitats, NBR supports many other mammal species, including elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn. I never did see any bighorn sheep, but regularly spotted these other ungulates, as well as a few other charismatic mammals.
And finally, some photos of the rich invertebrate life on the NBR. For dragonfly fans, this place is a hotspot! For monarch butterfly fans — because of the historically low numbers for the western population, I did not expect to see any monarchs at 47° N latitude in 2020. But monarchs….they surprise you.
I hope you'll consider visiting the National Bison Range! The flora and fauna viewing is spectacular, especially in May and June, though the bison rut in late July is hard to beat. The refuge is open year-round, dawn to dusk, weather permitting. Thanks for roaming along with me!
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