What a difference a day can make!

Paul Webster had White-tailed Ptarmigan on the Skyline Trail on Friday... when I was working on a deadline.

Deadline met, I went up to Rainier today. I drove through the clouds on the way up to Paradise, started hiking up the Skyline Trail only to have the clouds catch up with me... By the time I reached Panorama Point, it's not only that Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, etc., were invisible -- the only thing I could see was a silhouetted row of spruce trees about 40 meters distant.

Plugging away, I went on up the High Skyline Trail, then back down... east of the High Skyline/Skyline juncture, I went across the talus slopes to the lush flower-filled area with rivulets of water, where other Tweeters have reported the Ptarmigans on several occasions. I waited... and waited... but no Ptarmigans. There was wind, and fog, and it was cold, so I moved on.

This was my first trip to Mt. Rainier, first try for Ptarmigans, so -- strike one.

But it was a great birding trip nonetheless. Where the Ptarmigans should've been, there were American Pipits; and a bit farther east, near a snowfield, a flock of Grey-crowned Rosy-Finches made a brief appearance for me. Also, just as I was starting out from the upper Paradise parking lot, I had a family of Blue Grouse feeding right alongside the trail, for a best-ever view of the species.

Other birds (in order seen):
Common Raven
Dark-eyed (Oregon) Junco
Orange-crowned Warbler
Mountain Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
American Robin
Rufous Hummingbird
Red-shafted Flicker
Grey Jay
Steller's Jay

David White
mailto:drmwhite at nets.com
Santa Fe NM/Auburn WA

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