Hello Tweets,

Today Dave Hayden,and my mother and I hiked/birded the opening day of
Sunrise at Mt.Rainier with hiking conditions fairly good,despite many areas
and trailheads above the main Sunrise parking lot still snow-covered,but the
entire trail from Frozen Lake to the Fremont Lookout being completely free
of snow. The most snow-covered areas along the upper trail to Frozen Lake
persist immediately above the main Sunrise parking lot,which is the steepest
incline and more time is allowed to walk through the snow-covered areas. A
few additional areas are snow-covered in places further west to Frozen Lake
and it is possible the trail to Burroughs Mountain is snow-covered in
places. The overall weather today consisted of mostly cloudy skies,with low
clouds drifting in from the west over the Fremont Lookout trail at times and
windy conditions too. Hiking conditions were quite favorable,as we mainly
took it slow and allowed plenty of time to hike through the snow-covered
trail areas,as mentioned previously. Our day started out at the entrance of
the White River Campground at 9:30am,where we had to wait for the upper road
to Sunrise to open due to an earlier mudslide that was cleared before a 45
minute delay,probably due to the recent heavy rains overnight and yesterday.
We arrived at the upper Sunrise parking lot at 10:30am then proceeded north
then west towards Frozen Lake,then uphill to the Fremont Lookout with a
total of 5.2 miles of hiking within a 5 1/2 hour time period,with some
additional hiking made in around the main parking lot when we arrived back
from our main hiking trip.

Our main highlight of the day was an adult GOLDEN EAGLE seen on two
occasions during our visit to the Sunrise area,with probably our
best,closest look just above the main Sunrise parking lot as we hiked
towards Frozen Lake in the late morning. We observed the presumed same bird
again,after Dave spotted it when we arrived back to the parking lot,when it
was spotted circling 2 to 3 times south of the main parking lot at
Sunrise,before drifting off further south and east. This is my second record
of Golden Eagle for the general Sunrise area,which may be annual at this
location,especially in fall migration and may even breed in some of the more
remote areas within the upper portions of Mt.Rainier. Other notable species
among more common moutain species within the general Sunrise area included:

1 Red-tailed Hawk(along the White River)
2 Blue Grouse(1 seen along the road on our way to Sunrise and one bird heard
east of Sunrise)
2 Olive-sided Flycatchers
2 Hammond's Flycatchers(along the White River)
7+ Horned Larks
28+ Clark's Nutcrackers
3 Mountain Chickadees
7 Mountain Bluebirds
2 Townsend's Solitaires
9+ Am.Pipits
5 Townsend's Warblers(along the White River and road to Sunrise)
12+ Chipping Sparrows
17+ "Slate-colored"Fox Sparrows
2 Gray-crowned Rosy Finches(south of the Mt.Fremont Lookout)
5 Cassin's Finches

In addition to birds,we also noted good displays of flowering mountain
flowers, including Glacier Lillies,Western Pasqueflower,Pink Mountain
Heather and other mountain flower species. We also encountered relatively
good numbers of Hoary Marmots during our hike to the Fremont Lookout(mainly
from just west of Frozen Lake to the Mt.Fremont),Yellow-pine
Chipmunk,Cascade Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel,and our only Roosevelt Elk
of the trip observed along Hwy.410 north of FR 7166(Crystal Mountain Rd.)

Despite missing our main target bird the White-tailed Ptarmigan and having
to hike through many snow-covered areas we all had an enjoyable time,being
our first time on opening day to Sunrise.


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
GODWIT at worldnet.att.net