CHOTEAU, Mont. – Each spring, near the tiny town of Choteau, Mont., population 2,000, the sky comes alive. Huge flocks of migrating geese, swans and other birds swoop in for a rest on their long migration from as far south as Mexico to summer and nest in the Arctic Circle.
One recent morning before dawn, hundreds of people stand in reverent silence in the dark, on the shores of Freezeout Lake. It's cold, and the infamous Montana wind whips across the water.
The sun throws pale hues of orange and pink, creeping along the horizon line. The squawking of birds begins to fill the air.
Lisa Hudnutt, a retired local teacher, rushes to set up a spotting scope. She excitedly narrates the whole drive from Choteau to the lake in with a van full of birders.
Her blue eyes light up as she shares bird identification techniques, and the lists of species she sees at the lake each year. Her enthusiasm is infectious, everyone chatters in the van about the different birds we'd see, and how many geese would be part of the morning takeoff.
Fixing the scope towards the center of the lake, Hudnutt watches the sun's first colors reflect off a white blur of tens of thousands of geese and swans, bobbing like a thin layer of snow on the water's surface.
"Uh oh! Uh oh!" She suddenly exclaims, as a few birds fly up, their anxious energy almost palpable in the air.
Spectacle of flight
Then, like a domino effect following some signal known only to geese, they all begin to take flight, wingbeats thudding like a thousand heartbeats.
Everyone stares, as a living wall of geese erupts into the air.
The white birds look like washed out flamingos for just a moment before the sunrise color extended on to the snow of Rocky Mountain peaks in the distance. Cotton candy snow echoing the sherbet sky.
"Wow, look at that," says Hudnutt.
The flock undulates overhead, rising rapidly and growing quieter, like a cloud coming to life.
Hudnutt is a devout birder and volunteers for this migration event every year. She's there most mornings before sunrise, watching the flocks of these geese, and other waterfowl species, for the few weeks they call Freezeout home.
For one weekend in late March, right at peak migration, she enthusiastically takes groups of people out to see this spectacle.
"Does it ever get old?" I asked her.
"No, it never gets old." she laughed, looking up at the birds passing above our heads.
On a recent day, they counted over thirty thousand snow geese and Ross's geese. It's difficult to tell the two species apart, especially in these kinds of numbers.
Inside edge
Smaller flocks of a half dozen or so tundra swans flanked the geese in the morning's first flight, their own honking added to the cacophony. Hudnutt knows the best bird viewing spot because she's got a woman on the inside. Her friend Nancy Milewski counts the birds every morning for the state wildlife agency.
"It's 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," Milewski chuckled.
We talked at the town community center after the morning flights, there's a lull in the late afternoon before the birds return to the lake for the night. This is her 12th year counting the geese and swans during spring migration. She was happy to share what area has the most birds each morning. But her tricks for counting tens of thousands of birds at a time?
"That," Milewski said with a smirk, "is a state secret."
Freezout Lake sits on the high plains, where they sweep up to meet the mountains, walls of stone rising into the clouds.
In the other direction is the prairie. Choteau is the start of what's called the Golden Triangle, Montana's bread basket, or rather, beer basket. East of Freezeout Lake stretch 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 the 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. It's the only lake of its kind in this region, and it's a crucial stopover point for these birds on their thousands-of miles long migration.
Maggie Carr, a local wilderness outfitter, drove the van while Hudnutt was narrating. With the morning takeoff done, she gathered our group back into the van to follow the birds to the fields.
"This is the one that's fun, that's road warriors like, oh, I like chasing them, like, twister-chasing. But bird-chasing," Carr said.
Low barrier festival
Hudnutt reminded us that regardless of what we do or don't see in the fields, the day is already a win.
"I want everyone to remember that we scored here," she said as we climbed back into the van. 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, this year is Carr's turn as chair. It's been one of their best attended yet, with over 200 people gathering in Choteau's community center at one point.
Carr loves getting to connect people from across Montana with this natural wonder.
"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," Carr said.
Once the events have wrapped up and the birds are settled back on the lake, Carr gathers her other committee members for a group photo. After some convincing, they all don their "bird buffs," neck gaiters they designed that cover your nose to your neck with a cartoon bird beak and face.
In Montana, it is 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 is geese that will outnumber the human population, at least in this county.
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