MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The sky above the town of Choteau, Montana, comes alive every spring. Huge flocks of migrating geese, swans and other birds swoop in during their long migration to the Arctic from as far south as Mexico. Montana Public Radio's Ellis Juhlin takes us there.
ELLIS JUHLIN, BYLINE: It's before dawn and hundreds of people stand in reverent silence in the dark on the shores of Freezeout Lake. It's cold, and a strong wind whips across the water. As the sun creeps along the horizon line, it throws pale hues of orange and pink. The squawking of birds fills the air.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS SQUAWKING)
JUHLIN: Lisa Hudnutt, a retired local teacher, quickly sets up a spotting scope. Colors reflect off the white blur of tens of thousands of geese and swans like a thin layer of snow on the water's surface.
LISA HUDNUTT: Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
JUHLIN: Suddenly, following some signal known only to the geese, they begin to take flight.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS SQUAWKING)
JUHLIN: The white birds look like washed out flamingos for just a moment before the sunrise color extends onto the snow of the rocky mountain peaks in the distance, cotton candy snow echoing the sherbet sky.
HUDNUTT: Wow, look what we get. Look at that.
JUHLIN: The flock undulates overhead, rising rapidly and growing quieter as it does, like a cloud coming to life. Hudnutt, a devout birder, volunteers for this migration event every year, enthusiastically taking groups of people out to see the spectacle.
Does it ever get old?
HUDNUTT: (Laughter) No, it never gets old.
JUHLIN: Yesterday, they counted over 30,000 geese. Smaller flocks of half a dozen or so tundra swans flank the geese, their own honking adding to the cacophony.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS HONKING)
JUHLIN: Hudnutt knows the best bird viewing spot because she's got a woman on the inside. It's her friend Nancy Milewski's job to count the birds every morning for the state wildlife agency.
NANCY MILEWSKI: Always a surprise how many are there. The birds move around quite a lot. We think we know what they have on their little bird minds, but no, the birds decide everything (laughter).
JUHLIN: Milewski has counted the birds here at Freezeout Lake every year for over a decade. It sits on the high plains where they sweep up to meet the mountains, walls of stone rising into the clouds. In the other direction, prairie, what's called the Golden Triangle, rolling hills of wheat and barley as far as the eye can see. If you've had a beer from Coors or Anheuser-Busch, you've sampled some of this region's grains. The flocks come to feast on what's left over from last fall's harvest. At night, they sleep on the lake, safe from predators. Maggie Carr, a local wilderness outfitter, volunteers to drive a van full of tourists following the birds around.
MAGGIE CARR: This is the one that's fun, that's like road warriors, like, oh - like chasing them, like twister chasing.
HUDNUTT: I want everyone to remember...
CARR: Bird chasing.
HUDNUTT: ...That we scored here, OK?
CARR: Yeah.
JUHLIN: Scored because we caught the amazing takeoff of the flocks at dawn. These women helped start the Wild Wings festival in 2018. It's a labor of love celebrating Choteau and the birds. Volunteers cycle through roles on the committee each year, and this year is Carr's turn as chair.
CARR: The festival has a really low barrier to entry. It doesn't matter your age or your physical ability. That's what makes it great.
JUHLIN: In Montana, it's often said - sometimes as a jab, sometimes as a point of pride - that there are more cows than people. But for the next few weeks, it's the geese that will outnumber the human population, at least in this county.
For NPR News, I'm Ellis Juhlin.
(SOUNDBITE OF WYATT ELLIS' "GRASSY COVE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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