Subject: Sunrise birding
Date: Sep 28 07:53:45 2003
From: Ruth Sullivan - godwit at worldnet.att.net


Hello Tweets,

Yesterday(September 27th)my mother and I birded the Sunrise area of Mt.Rainier National Park. The weather was very nice,but quite windy during our entire visit with a near 6 mile hike made to Mt.Fremont and back to the upper Sunrise parking lot. Due to the constant windy conditions at times few bird species were noted away from raptors that seemed to take advantage of the strong winds that seemed to be coming from the south to southeast. We managed to observed 11 species of raptors including a single Northern Goshawk that was our last species of the day just east of the upper parking lot. The most common raptor species were Red-tailed Hawks and Sharp-shinned Hawks with others species noted in lesser numbers and a few individual birds that were not identified due to relative viewing distance. We encountered good numbers of both Golden Eagle with 5 birds observed and Prairie Falcon with a total of 6 birds observed,which was noteworthy. It seems that raptors were really on the move,but most likely due to the weather conditions and we kept careful scanning of the many ridges,where most species were encountered and felt we kept a very accurate list. Good numbers of both Gray Jays and Clark's Nutcrackers were observed,especially in the Sunrise Lodge area.A complete list of our raptor list from the general Sunrise area(including species noted from the lower parking lot at Sunrise Point)along with a few additional species that were noted of interest include the following:

2 Ospreys
1 Bald Eagle
6 Northern Harriers
14 Sharp-shinned Hawks
3 Cooper's Hawks
1 Northern Goshawk
35 Red-tailed Hawks
5 Golden Eagles
2 American Kestrels
2 Merlin
6 Prairie Falcons
6 Vaux's Swifts
42 Mountain Bluebirds
6 Townsend's Solitaires
1 Varied Thrush
27+ Am.Pipits
5 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Savannah Sparrow
1 Lincoln's Sparrow
26+ Golden-crowned Sparrows
7 White-crowned Sparrows


En route to Sunrise yesterday morning we observed a single Western Scrub Jay west of the Tacoma Mall in Pierce Co. and another single bird along Hwy.410 at Enumclaw in King Co.


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net