Subject: [Tweeters] Mt. Adams: Boreal owl and Spruce grouse
Date: Nov 2 13:49:13 2008
From: Khanh Tran - fsprucegrouse at yahoo.com


Hi Tweeters,

George Neavoll (Portland, Oregon) and I had a successful whirlwind trip to Mt. Adams birding near Takhlakh and Horseshoe Lake Friday night and most of Saturday.

We couldn't ask for better owling conditions above 4500 ft near Mt. Adams; no wind, warm, and beautiful stars. It was not long before we had strong responses from at least one BOREAL OWL and a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL near Takh Takh Meadows.

Birding wise it was extremely slow the next day. We did have a fleeting look of an adult NORTHERN GOSHAWK, a COOPER'S HAWK, and one immature GOLDEN EAGLE in the area. Many Varied Thrushes were in the area with a couple of Gray Jays. We missed the PINE GROSBEAKS, A3 TOES and BLACK BACKED WOODPECKERS the weeks prior. Interestingly, no crossbills have been seen in this area the last several times I visited.

Another cool highlight of the trip was seeing two adult SPRUCE GROUSE along the roads leading to Horseshoe Lake. It is the 550th lifer for George and we had excellent extended views of this elusive, zen-like bird.

http://www.pbase.com/spruce_grouse/recent_photos

We ended the trip by visiting Mt. Rainier at Paradise. The visitor center is beautiful and quite different from the existing. The fall vegetation colors were quite vibrant this time of year.

Good birding,

Khanh Tran