Subject: [Tweeters] more ptarmigans at Mt. Fremont
Date: Aug 26 15:44:43 2013
From: kelsberg at u.washington.edu - kelsberg at u.washington.edu


I went with my wife, Sarah Safranek, and several members of her rowing team up from Sunrise, Mt. Rainier, to the Mt. Fremont observatory tower in hopes of showing them some of this year's bounty of White-tailed Ptarmigan. We encountered Shep Thorp, Andy McCormick, and Andy and Ellen Stepnievsky along the way, with their flock of Western Field Ornithology conference attendees. They told us where they'd located the birds and we were able to find them easily with their advice. Along the trail we encountered Gray-crowned Rosy-finches, and about 3 dozen mountain goats. In the woods behind the visitor center we saw a very large accipiter accompanied by a chorus of Clark's Nutcrackers. I couldn't see it well enough myself to tell if it was a huge Cooper's Hawk or an immature Northern Goshawk, but one of the WFO attendees told me that an immature NOGO was in that area being serenaded by Clark's Nutcrackers, so it very well could have been the same bird.
Along the way we had all kinds of weather, starting with hot, clear, and sunny, and moving to overcast, cold, and raining, but we enjoyed the flowers that we could still see when we couldn't see birds.

Gary Kelsberg
kelsberg at yew dot washington dot edu