
Speed on the Prairie
I drive the dirt roads that stretch for miles across the grasslands. I drive slowly as the roads are rutted and rough and cross open cattle...
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Nature notes and inquiry from the Montana Natural History Center.
Listen to Field Notes from the Montana Natural History Center, a Science & Medicine podcast by Montana Public Radio. Stream 28 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.
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I drive the dirt roads that stretch for miles across the grasslands. I drive slowly as the roads are rutted and rough and cross open cattle...

That first night, I tried to remember all I had learned but the details were lost. What I do remember is the gnarled, gray twisted bark of t...

Squoosh. Squoosh. My feet, encased in calf-high rubber boots, sank into the thick sphagnum moss, and water crept up to my ankles. I pulled o...

It was an unseasonably warm first week of January. One late afternoon, as golden sunlight hid behind grey stratocumulus clouds hanging over...

I can’t stop staring at them. Their beauty seems otherworldly; they’re radiantly fluorescent against the snow. It’s almost scandalous, that...

At twilight, from my house in the sage, I hear the underdogs singing outto each other. Sometimes, I swear, it almost sounds like laughter.

The first oceans I explored as a child were those of eastern Montana. I spent nearly three decades of my life in ancient oceans before I eve...

Missoula phlox, or Phlox missoulensis; A species named after a town named after a beloved waterway the Salish call nmesuletkʷ, roughly trans...

I have chosen Montana as my home and embrace her seasonal night sounds, from silent snowfall on a barn roof to owls, nighthawks, and everyth...

Sometimes the ordinary would be broken when my mother pointed out the window and exclaimed, "Oh, look. A meadowlark!" She believed that seei...

It is February and still these branches are dressed in a flutter of leaves. Golden brown with a dark midrib and branching pinnate veins.

The first archaeological evidence we have that points to organized observances of the winter solstice come from the Neolithic period—that er...

Seasonal camouflage and the consequences of transitioning color phase too early

Near Čmʔomʔotúlexʷ (Place of Smokey Land) or Yellowstone National Park, in -5-degree weather, I kneeled on my freshly skinned bison hide,...

I like to talk to the crows, though I don’t know what we’re talking about. Researching the subject, I learned that they have over 250 differ...

Summer brings more than blue skies and hot days to Montana. It’s during this time of the year that white-tailed deer fawns are born.

It was too soon for swirls of cascading autumn leaves, and the formation of this sudden dispatch had a certain energy to it. This orange bla...

Harriet the Osprey knew what was coming.

There is a pine needle on my kitchen table. There is a pine needle in my soul. If I could only put that on paper.

As the days grow shorter and nights turn cooler, I find myself drawn outdoors at sunset.