Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I ventured up to Paradise at Mt.Rainier in search for the recent positive reports of multiple numbers of White-tailed Ptarmigan near Panorama Point,which was very successful for us and other birders that we ran into during our visit. We were very fortunate to all the recent sightings made from others informing us about the exact locations where the birds were present,as it was definitely worth all the effort of hiking for this species along with great views of 4 main mountains(Mt.Rainier,Mt.Adams,Mt.St. Helens and Mt.Hood). We arrived at the main parking lot at Paradise at 8am and by 8:20 we were off onto the Skyline Trail uphill to Panorama Point at the elevation of 6800',of which the trail was paved most of the way. We arrived at Panorama Point at 9:45am,where we rested before continuing on to the location that Michael Donahue well described in his Tweeters posting yesterday along a seasonal spur trail east of Panorama Point. By 10 am we located our first two adult male White-tailed Ptarmigans immediately upon arriving to the location just past the first large snowfield feeding,resting and preening along a very rocky hillside partially covered by vegetation with water running through by presumed melting snow from the high ridgeline above the trail. Finally the long search for this species was over for my mother with 3 other personal records for myself(Patrick)in WA in three separate counties.This location was the exact location that Michael Donahue and Alan Grenon observed up to 4 birds yesterday and we ended up locating the 2 other adult males within 20 minutes on the south side of trail at the same location,then they joined the previous two birds allowing great views and photographs to be made. As the latter two adult males walked across the trail to join the other two males they came within inches of my mother's feet,as she was reloading her camera facing away from the birds. I observed the white underparts including the entirely white feathered feet and legs with the white covering the majority of the birds' plumage,except for the head and neck that were well mottled brown and white with red to reddish-orange area over the eyes(eye combs). We watched all four birds until 1:30pm,as we were joined by several other birders during our visit as we helped locate the birds for them,eventhough the 4 bird were observed further up the rocky hillside than we originally observed them possibly due to the activity from other hikers,etc. During the entire visit the birds preened,drank water from the melting snow,rested and foraged on the limited vegetation available. For most of the observers this sighting was a life bird,which made the sighting that much more special and we enjoyed watching them as long as we did before continuing on the spur trail back to the main Skyline Trail to the east and hiking back to Paradise via the Golden Gate Trail along with Kristin Stewart,who joined us. During our extensive visit watching the 4 ptarmigans in great detail, as well as their behavior we met other birders that observed additional males along the trail east of the location that we were at and one hiker that observed a female with 3-4 young. Overall birding was extremely slow,which can be very typical for high elevations and mountain birding,but we did locate a few notable species for the day with approxiatmetely 5 miles of hiking altogether. As others have posted in recent postings we too observed Gray-crowned Rosy Finches with up to 8 birds noted along the spur trail east of Panorama Point,specifically at the location the we observed the 4 ptarmigans with 1 bird noted north of the Golden Gate Trail along the Skyline Trail. Most views were of single birds foraging at often close range along the trail,as well as drinking water from the melting snow with some observations of single birds flying up along the ridge above the trail with one female observed flying into a deep crevice to a possible nestsite. Hopefully other birders visiting Paradise will report their sightings of White-tailed Ptarmigan,as they occur. Other highlights during our hike included the following:

1 Red-tailed Hawk
1 male Calliope Hummingbird
1 Townsend's Solitaire
3+ Am.Pipits
1 "Slate-colored"Fox Sparrow


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net