After seeing Dennis's and Lonnie's posts about Manning Provincial Park
my friend Robert and I decided to head up there to look for those
elusive boreal species. We parked at the Strawberry flats trail head,
(which is at the end of the road which runs behind the Manning Park
resort) and walked along the three falls trail. We encountered several
small mixed flocks which included Boreal Chick-a-dee's. They mostly
stayed fairly high up but some did obligingly drop down a bit and
afforded us some excellent views.
Finding the Spruce grouse took some time but we did find a female
with 2 chicks in shrubs along the north side of the road going from the
trail head back towards the resort.
On the other side of Hwy 3 from the resort is a road which takes you
up to about 6,500" to some truly lovely alpine meadows. We drove early
in the morning before it got to busy and found 4 Dusky Grouse gritting
up at the side of the road.
We decided to stop at Mount Baker on the way back to check out
Ptarmigan ridge but the road up to artist point is still under snow.

Tina Klein-Lebbink
Bellevue, Wa