Subject: Boreal Owls at Sunrise, Mt.Rainier
Date: Sep 28 18:55:44 2000
From: Ruth Sullivan - godwit at worldnet.att.net


Hello Tweets,

Yesterday evening my mother and I attempted at Sunrise in search for BOREAL
OWL, with great succes at three locations, with 7 birds. We started early at
Sunrise on a hike to Frozen Lake from the upper parking lot(6400ft.elev.) at
Sunrise from 3pm-6:45pm in daylight for any migrants raptors. The birding
was quite slow, possibly due to the time of day, but a few birds of note
included:

1 PRAIRIE FALCON
1 NORTHERN HARRIER
1 COOPER'S HAWK
7 Red-tailed Hawks
150+ AM.PIPITS
2 TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE
4 CLARK'S NUTCRACKERS
1 HERMIT THRUSH
8 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
7 Golden-crowned Kinglets
34 Yellow-rumped Warblers
7 GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROWS
4 CASSIN'S FINCHES

After returning from the hike, we waited until dusk, before we headed out on
the Wonderland Trail, accessed from the SW corner of the upper parking lot,
but after .5 miles continues west towards the walk-in Sunrise Campground,
which we did not walk to, but almost the enire way, as it began to get dark.
We turned around at .7 miles from the upper parking lot, and encountered a
silent GREAT HORNED OWL, possibly a migrant at this location, as we
attempted for BOREAL OWL, with limited light available.When we arrived back
at the upper parking lot at 7:45pm, when I had our first BOREAL OWL, as it
gave the "skew" call note three times, then was observed flying in the faint
light from the sunset from tree to tree at eye level, but was never fully
seen, as we waited for another hour trying to haer another or the same owl,
but NO luck, as began to get quite cold, with mainly clear skies, a few high
clouds, and NO wind! On the way down to the lower parking lot, a SHORT-EARED
OWL(migrant), was encountered flying in the outer headlight beams, before we
arrived at 9pm at the lower parking lot(6100 ft.elev.), and noted a family
of BOREAL OWLS, and seeing one adult extremely well, but unfortunately NO
photographes, as it , and another adult gave the clear, loud"skew" call, as
noted earlier, and three young BOREAL OWLS, which gave a fainter,lower toned
, and more muffled "skew" call. The birds called throughout our entire
visit, when we finally headed down at 12:30am, where we encountered 2 more
adult BOREAL OWLS about .8 miles down from the lower parking lot, but didn't
try very hard, as we were tired. 2 NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWLS were also
encountered at the lower parking lot also during our stay in the near
distance.

Good Birding,

Patrick Sullivan
GODWIT at worldnet.att.net