Today Sherry and I did a nice loop hike out of Paradise. We started at the Nisqually Vista Trail, headed up Deadhorse Creek Trail, picked up the Skyline Trail, did a side trip on the Lower Skyline Trail, and came back down on the Golden Gate Trail. AMERICAN PIPITS were numerous throughout the day, and were just everywhere. We found two nice groups of WHITE-CROWNED, GOLDEN-CROWNED, and SAVANNAH SPARROWS. The first group was along the Deadhorse Creek Trail and the other half way down Golden Gate. We ran into a birder from Medford OR looking for the Ptarmigan, which would be a life bird for him, on the Skyline Trail near Panorama Point. At the point, we had a fly by MERLIN and 4 RAVENS. We ran into the Medford birder again and showed him where to look for Ptarmigan. We were on that course, so he gave our suggestion a try. We hiked the Lower Skyline Trail to the snow field. I checked all the usually areas and even up high but did not find any birds. We saw our birder friend coming down the trail, and I was just about to give up on the Ptarmigan when one popped out behind a rock. We waved him over, and he was able to add the WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN to his life list. We found a second bird a few minutes later about 15ft away from the first. This was just luck, since this bird is hit or miss. On our way down Golden Gate, we had a PRAIRIE FALCON fly directly over us. A list of birds seen for the day were;

Raven
Steller's Jay
Merlin - 1
Prairie Falcon - 1
White-tailed Ptarmigan - 2
Varied Thrush
Red-breasted Nuthatch
American Pipit
Pine Siskin
Dark-eyed Junco
Red Crossbill
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
Savannah Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow

Hoary Marmot - 23

Dave Hayden
dtvhm AT nwrain.com
Centralia, WA