Hi Tweets,

Last Saturday Janet and I hiked up Rock Mountain, on the east side of
Stevens Pass right off the highway. We had some nice sightings. A fairly
close view of a GOSHAWK on the ridge, several KESTRELs higher up, one
attempting to chase off a RED-TAILED HAWK. In addition we saw GRAY and
STELLER'S JAYs, CLARK'S NUTCTACKER, some WAXWINGs flying, RAVENs soaring,
CHESTNUT-BACKED and MOUNTAIN CHICKADEEs, RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHes,
DARK-EYED JUNCOs, and a MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER.

It was a hot, sunny day and we were catching a breather in the shade of a
few trees at about 5000' near some blue berry fields below Rock Lake.
Janet noticed a bear approaching. It was coming right towards us as we
were hidden by the trees. Following it were two young ones. It was
getting so close we were afraid it might have to charge to protect the
young. I made some noise by clicking a few pictures. The mother(?)
reared up to look around, growled and then retreated, staying between us
and the cubs. The cubs scrambled up a tree and appeared near the top in a
open area. The adult bear was brown, while the two young were black. They
looked healthy. I would estimate the young weighed about 100 lbs. The
trail would have taken us closer to them, so we went off trail to move
away. Anyway, it was quite a thrill. Only our second bear sighting in
about 20 years of hiking.

Good birding,

Dan Victor, Seattle, WA <dvictor at u.washington.edu>
Web = http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dvictor/dan.html