Post by kastern on Jul 17, 2006 13:52:25 GMT -8
Would have loved to do the Cheam Ridge trip but haven't done any real hiking for a couple of years and knew I wasn't in any shape to attempt it , so instead, since my husband had Friday off, making a 3 day weekend, we headed up to Manning Park with a couple of fellow 'birders'.
The birding wasn't great but the wildflowers were spectacular. We did the Heather Loop in the alpine meadows, checked out the Beaver Pond and 20 min. Lake, walked the Canyon Trail from the Coldsprings Campground and finished up at
Strawberry flats.
Here is our bird list.
Raven
Dark Eyed Junco
Yellow Rumped Warblers
Townsends Solitaire
Western Tanager
Robins
Red Naped Sapsucker
Cedar Waxwings - lots!!
Chipping Sparrow
Clark's Nutcracker
Blue Grouse - female **a lifer for all of us
Tree Swallows
Mallards - 3 different females with ducklings, right down to little guys
Song Sparrow
Warbling Vireo
Spotted Sandpiper
Common Merganser - we think a young female
Olive Sided Flycatcher
Red Tail Hawk
Gray Jay - we had searched everywhere and couldn't figure out why we weren't seeing any Gray Jay - finally the last morning, a family showed up in our campsite with this youngster.
Steller's Jay
Heard Chickadees but could never spot any so don't know if Boreal or Mountain as am not familiar enough with the calls of those two species.
Of course also saw/heard a number of birds that couldn't identify and saw one young bird up in the meadows that appeared to be a good sized Thrush type but didn't manage a picture.
Was surprised to see your picture of the Avalanche Lily in snow - the meadows up there were way past the first wave of flowers as you can see from the photo.
Kathy
Female Blue Grouse (we heard a male drumming as well)
Very Young Gray Jay
Flowers in the meadows (don't know what happened to this picture - didn't download completely to Photobucket)
The birding wasn't great but the wildflowers were spectacular. We did the Heather Loop in the alpine meadows, checked out the Beaver Pond and 20 min. Lake, walked the Canyon Trail from the Coldsprings Campground and finished up at
Strawberry flats.
Here is our bird list.
Raven
Dark Eyed Junco
Yellow Rumped Warblers
Townsends Solitaire
Western Tanager
Robins
Red Naped Sapsucker
Cedar Waxwings - lots!!
Chipping Sparrow
Clark's Nutcracker
Blue Grouse - female **a lifer for all of us
Tree Swallows
Mallards - 3 different females with ducklings, right down to little guys
Song Sparrow
Warbling Vireo
Spotted Sandpiper
Common Merganser - we think a young female
Olive Sided Flycatcher
Red Tail Hawk
Gray Jay - we had searched everywhere and couldn't figure out why we weren't seeing any Gray Jay - finally the last morning, a family showed up in our campsite with this youngster.
Steller's Jay
Heard Chickadees but could never spot any so don't know if Boreal or Mountain as am not familiar enough with the calls of those two species.
Of course also saw/heard a number of birds that couldn't identify and saw one young bird up in the meadows that appeared to be a good sized Thrush type but didn't manage a picture.
Was surprised to see your picture of the Avalanche Lily in snow - the meadows up there were way past the first wave of flowers as you can see from the photo.
Kathy
Female Blue Grouse (we heard a male drumming as well)
Very Young Gray Jay
Flowers in the meadows (don't know what happened to this picture - didn't download completely to Photobucket)