Subject: Finally, after 43 years-- PTARMIGAN!!
Date: Jul 27 08:33:22 2003
From: Wayne C. Weber - contopus at telus.net


Tweeters,

On Friday, July 25, I decided to follow up Ryan Merrill's message and
look for WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN on the Skyline Trail above Paradise on
Mount Rainier. About 11:30 AM, I hit the jackpot-- a female PTARMIGAN
with 4 actively feeding chicks. Based on Ryan's quite detailed
directions, I am quite sure this is the same brood that he saw on the
19th, but 2 chicks had disappeared in the intervening 6 days. (Life as
a young ptarmigan is undoubtedly hazardous!) When I found the birds,
they were only about 100 feet from where Ryan saw them, but farther
down the slope from the trail-- beyond where the steep slope changes
to a much more gradual slope. In the hour or so that I watched the
ptarmigan family, they moved upslope toward the Skyline Trail. By the
time that I left about 12:30, they were much closer to the trail (on
and near the small snowpatch just below the trail) and easily visible
from the trail.

To anyone else that wants to see these birds-- if you can't see them
from the Skyline Trail, it may be worth doing as I did, leaving the
trail and searching the rocky area below the snowpatch. (I was careful
to step only on rocks and not on vegetation, which was not hard,
because the vegetation is thin and scattered in this area.) I first
found the birds, as I have done on previous occasions with ptarmigan,
by hearing them before I saw them. Listen for the clucking of the
female and the high-pitched peeping of the young-- they were fairly
vocal while I was there.

To repeat Ryan's instructions, the birds were along the Skyline Trail
a few hundred yards east of Panorama Point. The location is easily
found by noting a large patch of dense vegetation (including some red
Mimulus flowers) on a steep slope just below the trail, above a small
snowpatch with a stream issuing from it. It was about halfway between
Panorama Point and the junction of the Skyline and Golden Gate Trails,
or perhaps a bit closer to Panorama Point, at an altitude of about
6600 feet. From the Paradise parking lot, this is most easily reached
by taking the east side of the Skyline loop trail and using the Golden
Gate Trail as a shortcut, and rejoining the Skyline Trail at about to
the 6300 or 6400 feet altitude, then continuing on to the snowpatch.
This is shorter than climbing the west side of the Skyline Trail to
Panorama Point, and avoids the necessity of crossing the very large
snowpatch just east of the point.

Also present around the small snowpatch were 3 GRAY-CROWNED ROSY
FINCHES, which were feeding on the snowpatch and in the vegetation
just above it for the entire hour that I was there. They appeared to
be one adult and two recently-fledged young ( heads much browner, not
so gray) which pestered the adult frequently for food, although they
also were foraging on their own. I also saw several AMERICAN PIPITS on
the Golden Gate trail on the way up, one of which sang briefly.

I've seen White-tailed Ptarmigan a number of times previously in B.C.,
Alberta, and Montana, but this was my first sighting in Washington,
despite having birded the state at frequent intervals since 1960. I've
searched for them a number of times before in Washington, usually on
and near Ptarmigan Ridge on Mount Baker (which ought to be renamed
"Ptarmiganless Ridge", in my humble opinion). It was also my first
visit to Mount Rainier since 1964, when I visited as a teenager with
my parents. YA-HOOOO!! What a gorgeous place!

Ryan, THANK YOU for posting your ptarmigan sighting, and for giving
such detailed directions. TWEETERS is a great resource-- I hope a few
more of you will be able to find the ptarmigan and Rosy Finches over
the next few days.

Good luck and good birding,

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net