Hey Tweeters,

Ryan Shaw, Tim Perkins, and I decided to try for ptarmigans at Mt
Rainier today. This bird has eluded all of us for years, and this trip was my
11th attempt at finding them. We headed up last night and camped at the
nearly full White River Campground. We began hiking up the trail from Sunrise
towards Burroughs Mountain just after sunrise. Everything was pretty slow
until the sun warmed the area enough for everything to become active. A
couple of flocks of EVENING GROSBEAKS were in the area, and a few
GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCHES and CASSIN'S FINCHES were also about. We continued
to hike up First Burroughs with little activity noted, other than a few
AMERICAN PIPITS and HORNED LARKS, and a number of RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRDS zinging
past.

We were all paying very close attention to the rocks and patches of
heather along the trail, desperately hoping for a chicken to pop up. As it
turns out, we needn't search hard at all. in the saddle between First and
Second Burroughs at 7:00am, a female WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN jumped up onto
the trail with a single chick chasing after! For the next 20 minutes we
observed, photographed, and videotaped the birds at very close range. It was
a life bird for all three of us, and it was Ryan's last Washington breeding
bird (I still have one left). As we continued, the chick noticed that it was
lagging behind a bit more than it wanted to, and flew up to where the female
was feeding. Several video captures taken by myself are at the following URL:

http://home.attbi.com/~shyalbatross/ptarmigan.html

After that, we decided to hike the short distance further to Second
Burroughs even though we had found our target species. Wonderful views of the
mountain, as we didn't see any clouds, haze, or fog of any kind the whole
day. On the way back, we noticed a herd of 18 MOUNTAIN GOATS on the trail to
the Mt Fremont Lookout, and a CALIFORNIA GULL flew by seemingly out of place.
Several butterflies were seen as it warmed up later in the morning; the
highlights were a female ACMON BLUE and a few ARCTIC (Titania) FRITTILARIES.
It was a very rewarding day at Mount Rainier.

Good birding,

Charlie Wright
Birdking88 at aol.com
Sumner, WA