Our gamble paid off. We changed plans and detoured south to this campground at 6,000 feet elevation in the Flint Creek Range of the Rocky Mountains. The location is idyllic, a pine grove along a lakeshore. The weather has been much cooler, and the bird guide we joined helped us find four new life species including yes, the great gray owl. The only distraction here has been smoke from various forest fires that plague this mountain state in dry years. The drive took us into a more arid land of green treed mountains and grassy valleys turning from green to straw. Fat cattle wander through the parkland. Flathead Lake stretches for almost fifty miles and mountain streams bring plenty of water for livestock and irrigation. Sweet cherries are ripening at the many orchards around the lake. We bought a bag and enjoyed this treasure. We didn’t stop at Missoula but paused to glance at a fire in the pass east of town. The mountainside burned with flame and smoke. Fire trucks hosed down the roofs of a few houses along side the interstate. Business as usual. Georgetown Lake is smaller and situate within the Deer Lodge National Forest. A few businesses, camps, and houses line a small part of the shore, but the area is largely undeveloped. The forest service operates a few campgrounds there. We settled here at Piney Camp. The lake water is clear and populated by red-necked grebes and a few kinds of ducks. All have broods now, and it is fun seeing mama grebe with chicks on her back and mommy duck with a trail of black and yellow ducklings. Two of our neighbors are flying model seaplanes, but they seem to have to spend more time on maintenance than on flying. Fun to talk about it with them. The cell phones were out on our arrival so we had to drive to a bar on the opposite side of the lake to call Gary Swant, our guide. We had communicated only by e-mail, and he asked us to call on our arrival. We exchanged greetings and agreed on a time and place to meet in the morning. The time was 6 a.m. The dawn was gray, largely with smoke, but we heard yellow warblers and willow flycatchers at our meeting place. Then we began an early morning drive through pasture and forest roads looking for our great gray nemesis bird. We hesitated to guess the odds of finding it, but after only fifteen minutes Anne cried out that she saw an owl. Gary stopped and Chuck confirmed that it was a great gray owl perched on a tree in a field. To the naked eye it looked like a jumble of sticks. Then it dropped off its perch and flew to about fifty yards from our car and landed on a fence post. We could not believe our luck. Exiting quietly we set up the scope and watched as the bird variously perched and flew about the rangeland. We followed it once up a lane but then let it be. It had blessed us with grand views of America’s largest owl. Our expedition continued and led to another three life birds. The second was the Cordilleran flycatcher, a small yellow bird of the western mountains. One perched on a treetop then flew into the woods. A brief play of a recording brought a second bird to alongside the road. We watched until it also retreated. A ride into a mountain range on a private ranch led to a grove where Gary knew of a colony of Williamson’s sapsuckers. They were there and we saw both males and females of this dimorphic species. Finally, we hiked along the edge of the woods on a south-facing rocky slope where swarms of grasshoppers rose at our feet. The morning was now late and it was warm. After twenty minutes, we were not sure of success, but we continued our trek spread out in a row side-by-side until a bird flushed. It was a female. Anne and Gary saw it, but Chuck to the left had to be signaled in for a view of the bird, now in a tree. Coming around he flushed a second bird. We had found a hen and brood. Returning, we found a cock and enjoyed views of him too before retreating to the car. We found other birds too making it a great birding day. There will not be too many more days when we find four life birds in the ABA “North America Area.” Chuck now has 612 species and Anne is at 599. There just are not that many birds left to find.