Saturday night two other birders met up with me to owl at Sunrise. When I
arrived at the top of Sunrise at 6:30 the cloud layer had just moved in, but
it dissipated shortly after sunset. The moon was near full, and the stars
were gorgeous. It was 42 degrees, and clear. I started owling shortly after
sunset, and had no responses for the first hour, which struck me as being
weird. There should have been saw-whets responding.



And then it hit. The noise was like a sonic boom, only it went on for four
or five seconds. Somewhat like rolling thunder, only it was at the same
pitch and intensity. And then for the next several seconds, it was utterly
quiet, followed by the avalanche of rocks and ice off the northeast side of
Mt. Rainier. By the moonlight, the avalanche scar could easily be seen.
The avalanche went on for what seemed like a minute, with the sounds of
breaking ice and rock.



Owling after that was equally unproductive. Eventually one Great Horned Owl
hooted several times, but that was it at the top. We probably walked two
miles on the trails at Sunrise. At 11:00 PM we aborted, as I wanted to make
the 2:10 ferry back to Bainbridge. On the way down, we made two stops. The
last stop at mile marker 11, at the hairpin turn, produced a Boreal Owl.
Initially the bird responded with a call that was similar to a Saw-whet
chirp, but different enough for me to wonder. I did catch it in the light
as it flew across the road, and it was indeed a Boreal Owl. It hung around,
high in a spruce tree, but out of sight, giving several calls that were
different, but similar to a saw-whet. I could not coax it to relocate, and
it eventually gave up on responding to me.



Weeks of intensive training on SR 305's nightly and early morning slalom
runs set up by the coneheads doing the repaving project paid off handsomely
as I drove down the mountain. There were rocks and boulders strewn across
the road at most of the turns and escarpments, and it was second nature to
dodge them and stay on the road. It wasn't until I got to the bottom of the
mountain and had cell phone coverage that I learned of the 4.5 earthquake,
and it wasn't until this morning that I learned we were only 4 miles or so
from the epicenter.



Looking back, I have to wonder if the wildlife in the area had a sense of
the upcoming earthquake. I had gone again last night expecting to hear elk
bugling, and anticipated a multitude of owls, particularly saw-whet, as the
migration is on. We did see two deer at the top, locals that were
accustomed to humans. On the way down, I saw one elk crossing the road, and
on SR 410 there was one deer and one large elk. But other than that, it was
most definitely not what I had expected.



I was also amazed by the number of people we encountered walking around in
the dark up there. We probably ran into four or five groups of hikers and
campers, well after dark.



J. Acker

Bainbridge Island, Washington

owler at sounddsl.com