Greetings All,

Tracey Norris and I joined in on the mass pilgramidge to Paradise on Mount
Rainier in hope of seeing some of the ptarmigan that everyone has been
reporting.

We left Tacoma at 4PM, arriving at the Paradise parking lot at 6PM, and
began to hike the western portion of the Skyline Trail. Roughly a 2 mile
trek and 1,400 foot elevation gain, we arrived at Panorama Point, and
continued on east of Panorama Point via the snowfield.

We were not dissapointed in our Ptarmigan search, Tracey spotting a male
bird taking a dustbath along the tallus slope near the waterfall just past
the snowfield. Then we saw another male about 10 feet away. These two
individuals began climbing up the ridge slowly, and then 2 more males
appeared! It was amazing, seeing 4 male birds in one small area. They all
began to climb the ridge slowly, putting on a show for us until they
dissapeared over the ridge line.

We were very happy with the effort we made. The ptarmigans being life birds
for Tracey, and the 2nd time I've ever seen them, the first being last July
on the other side of Mt Rainier at Sunrise.

We tried breifly to see if we could spot the female and chicks that have
been in the same area, with no luck.

Another good bird was a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch drinking from a small stream
along the skyline trail on the way back down.

A good way to end the evening.

Cheers and Good Birding

Ryan Shaw
Tacoma, WA
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com

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