by Scott Saunders
Birders: Scott Saunders, Julia Dolan, Tina Suda, Laurel Parshall, Ellen Cohen, Ken Zirinsky, and Sydney Rometsch.
We all met at the Roy Y Park-N-Ride at 5:30, figured out our car pooling arrangements and off we went, ‘The Mountain’ in sight.
Our first stop on the way to Paradise was Ohop Creek where we hoped to see a few Lazuli Bunting. There were plenty of Cedar Waxwing and swallows, but no Lazulis.
Our next stop was at the Elbe bridge where there are occasionally American Dippers, but again no luck. We got to see a Great Blue Heron take flight and a family of Common Mergansers.
On our way up the mountain a pair of Barred Owls flew over the lead car and landed on a big snag. Not realizing the owls had flown over us we kept going and Julia walkie-talkied us that we might want to turn around and come back. At least one of the owls was kind enough to stay put while we took pictures.
Upon reaching Longmire we ran across the road to view the meadow and within a minute Julia jumped on a MacGillivray’s Warbler flitting around. It took a bit of searching but we all got eyes on it. A couple of trees on the other side of the meadow were loaded with Band-tailed Pigeons with one sitting out on the end of a fallen snag. Life birds for some: Red-breasted Sapsucker.
Link to Longmire in the morning
Finally our main destination, Paradise, 9:00am. No rain, a little cool, hardly any wind. Crossed our fingers that the weather would hold.
One of our first treats was a flock of 14 Red Crossbills, they may have split up as we repeatedly had 2 flocks of 7 all day long.
We got on 6-7 purple finches, all appeared to be first year males with their streaky breasts.
Here and there a couple American Pipits showed themselves, a life bird for some which is always exciting. Laurel used her pipit whispering skills and got one to come right over to us as she took several hundred pictures 😉 right after this a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch flew over us, calling as it went, the only one of the day.
“But in the mountains did he feel his faith.
All things, responsive to the writing, there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,”
- Wordsworth
By now it was starting to lightly sprinkle and the wind was picking up just a little. Panorama Point beckoned. We continued to see Pippits and Marmots everywhere as we got onto the steeper trail. The wind started to pick up pretty strong, blowing in clouds, which drenched us even though at the most it still was only sprinkling. By the time we reached Panorama Point the wind was blowing us sideways, it was a little cold, and we had planned to eat lunch. We scarfed down a little of our food and then headed onwards to get to the rock face that blocked the wind almost entirely. Then we all sat and actually ate lunch. Without the wind we warmed up a bit, attempted to dry off and changed clothing. We learned later that shortly after continuing on it started to sleet – we were lucky to have missed it.
Continuing around the loop and starting down it took awhile to reach the tree line again.
A Hermit Thrush was spotted hopping around in the brush and actually came out and poised for us. A lifer for Sydney!
It was still sprinkling, the wind had slowed down a little, and it was still a little chilly. Coming around a corner we came upon a small meadow where Ellen pointed out a large dark bird. With all of our binoculars clouded over it was difficult to see. But then a laser pierced the fog to land on a male Sooty Grouse! Where’d that laser come from? Another lifer for several. A Varied Thrush took off from right next to the male grouse and landed right next to a female grouse about 30 feet away. As we watched three chicks, that appeared only a few weeks old, crept out of the scrub and ran over to her. We spent a good 10 minutes watching the family.
After passing Myrtle Falls we paused under some trees providing a nice dry spot. Ken put down his backpack and poles while he took pictures of some wildflowers nearby. A Hoary Marmot wandered through the group, completely ignoring us, and went straight for Ken’s poles. After sniffing them several times and determining them to not be edible he continued to wander in and out of the group.
After escaping the Hoary Marmot we came to a grove of evergreens that were a short way up slope and discovered a handful of Pine Grosbeaks making their way back and forth through the trees. Lifers for some!
The parking lot finally provided us with a couple of Canada Jays, they had been absent all day.
Paradise/Skyline Trail Checklist
Before heading back home we sat down in the visitor’s center for something warm to eat and drink and reflect on our day. Though cold and wet we all agreed that we had a great time, saw some birds (several lifers) and altogether enjoyed each other’s company. Looking forward to doing this at Sunrise in a few weeks.
One last stop at Longmire and we were ready to go home!
Longmire in the Early Evening Checklist
And so ends another birding adventure on ‘The Mountain’.
Le Fin