Subject: [Tweeters] Chinook Pass
Date: Sep 26 07:09:22 2010
From: bill shelmerdine - georn1 at hotmail.com



Greetings Tweeters,
Yesterday my wife and I took advantage of the good mountain weather forecast to visit the area around Chinook Pass. We arrived rather late, around 1100 or so, and hiked the PCT south to about Sourdough Gap. Nothing too unusual to report, but clearly hawks were on the move. This area has a lot of potential for viewing raptor movements in the fall. We observed 20 raptors moving south over the ridgelines over about a 2 hour period, much of which was spent hiking and not looking up. 26 Common Raven, and 6 Clarks Nutcrakers also seemed to be on the move, but some of that movement could have been more local in nature. With no scope and much time spent well below the level of the ridges, many hawks went unidentified. A list of raptors included the following: Red Tail (4); Buteo sp. (3); Northern Harrier (1); Accepitor sp. (3, 1 probable Goshawk); Coopers Hawk (3); Sharp-shinned Hawk (4); Golden Eagle (1), and Bald Eagle (1). It was a great day to be up high, and this is clearly a place to check for hawks moving through in the fall. Three Mountain Goats also added to the experience.
Cheers and good birding,
Bill Shelmerdine, Olympia
mailto: georn1 at hotmail.com