Subject: Pine Grosbeaks - Mount Rainier NP, Reflection Lake
Date: Mar 14 13:02:48 2004
From: Marcus.D.Roening at gsk.com - Marcus.D.Roening at gsk.com


Hi Tweets,

On Saturday, March 13, 2004, Heather and I took advantage of some fine
spring cross-country skiing weather on Mount Rainier and encountered
perfect snow conditions and a bonus of 4 Pine Grosbeaks.

This is our number one destination of places to hike and ski in and of
over 10 years up on the mountain, this is our first encounter with Pine
Grosbeaks. Reflection Lake can be reached from either Paradise or Narada
Falls on cross-country skis or snow shoes. Snow shoes are definitely more
forgiving as to the quality of the snow and the hike out to Reflection Lake
is only of moderate difficulty.

When I first heard the bird, they were on the East end of Reflection Lake
and fortunately, the bird kept singing while I skied over a few minor hills
to get the right set of trees. While I've seen and heard Pine Grosbeaks
before in the Blue & Salmo Mountains, I had a heck of a time determining
what this large gray singing bird was, at first. Since my ski trips rarely
stir up anything besides a few chickadees and gray jays, I didn't have even
my compact binoculars with me on this trip -bummer. Fortunately, the birds
are very abiding and responded quite dramatically to a Pygmy-Owl toot.
Instead of one singing bird, I suddenly had 4 birds flying around my head
at the top of the sub-Alpine Fir and Mountain Hemlock trees.

I kept looking for some pink to confirm a Pine Grosbeak, but it was notably
absent. What I saw was a large gray bird, bigger than a Townsend's
Solitaire with two white wing bars and the most amazing russet brown cap.
I finally worked my way further up the hillside up-sun and managed to see
pink rumps on two of the birds as they chased each other in circles through
the trees. I watched the group for about 15 minutes while #1 bird kept
singing, #2 bird chased #3 bird and #4 bird sat at the top of the tree and
just watched the activity. All of them were of the gray body and russet
capped plumage. I took a look in Sibley once I got back home, which he
labels as a Russet adult - a new plumage for me. Evidently, the birds I
saw could have either been a female or and first year male. Sibley's
painting also shows the russet coming below the eye onto the face. Since I
could only get good color of them when they tipped their heads towards me,
it is possible that the color continued below, but was impossible to tell
without a pair of binoculars.

It was a beautiful day to be on the mountain!

Good birding,



Marcus Roening
Tacoma, WA
marcus.d.roening at gsk.com