Hello Tweets,
I climbed the brief but steep trail to the top of Evergreen Mountain,
north of Skykomish, this morning in hopes of finding something
interesting. I try to do this hike every fall, but this is the latest
I've ever done it and things were much quieter than other times I've
been up there. When I reached the meadow that surrounds the top of the
mountain I thought I heard a Lapland Longspur, but couldn't be
certain. I walked the ridge past the fire lookout and on my return I
scanned the numerous groups of pipits for anything unusual since I've
had Horned Lark here in the past. Eventually a bird passed me giving
what sounded like a very light rattle call and landed about 40ft away.
I grabbed my camera and inched towards it and got great looks to
confirm my suspicions that it was a Lapland Longspur. Previous to this
my only Lapland Longspur "sightings" have been horrible looks at birds
flying away or over me, so I really savored my looks.

On the way down a had a Pine Grosbeak calling just above the parking
lot, but it apparently moved on very fast. While I was wandering
around the parking area looking for anything interesting, a Golden
Eagle circled for a minute or two directly above allowing me to
confirm all the relevant field marks.

On my way down the long gravel road I had a Black Bear run down the
road. The folks who had stayed the night in the fire lookout had seen
at least one Mountain Goat from there the day before.

There's a couple Longspur photos and a complete list of species found
in my eBird checklist.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31707279

Josh Adams
Cathcart, WA