Meet Mary Geis, the Montana Biologist Who Spent 30 Years Studying Bluebirds
By Jewel Alston, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
In the foothills outside Bozeman, Montana, there’s a winding path known as the Mountain Bluebird Trail. For more than 50 years it’s been a breeding ground for intellectual curiosity and bluebirds alike. On cool summer mornings, sky-blue Mountain Bluebirds twitter from fence lines, bringing food to little chicks thriving in more than 300 wooden nest boxes.
The trail has come a long way since 1969, when it sported just 12 nest boxes fashioned from cans and milk jugs. It began its transformation in 1975, thanks to the work of Mary Geis, a biologist who transcended social norms of the day and blazed a trail through male-dominated graduate school. Over the course of nearly 30 years, Geis collected detailed records of nearly 1,500 Mountain Bluebird nests.
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Students at the Yosemite School of Field Natural History. Mary Geis is in the top row, second from right. She graduated in the top of her class, in 1951 at age 25. Photo by Ralph Anderson/Yosemite Online Library.
One of the many bluebird boxes being monitored in Gallatin Co., Montana. Photo by Lou Ann Harris
