Manning Park Road Trip

[bandj]

We had a car stop birding trip through Manning Park yesterday - short on hiking and long on listening and watching. Lightning Lake is still frozen, but most of the pullouts before Allison Pass were snow free, as were all the pullouts from the Lodge to East Gate. Park employees were busy raising enormous dust clouds at the entrance to the Cascade Parking Lot (leaf-blowing winter sand off the highway edges), so the process of opening the park for trail use is in progress!

Birding highlights were:

Our first Ruffed Grouse ever (we must have missed these before!), and our first Band-tailed Pigeon this year, amazingly calm on a regular perch at Cascade Parking Lot in spite of the tornadoes of dust and sound!

A Say's Phoebe flycatching on the Similkameen at East Gate.



Nuthatches and Juncoes feeding off a carpet of fallen spruce and Douglas Fir cones in Hampton Campground (campground closed, we walked in to bird)



A Clark's Nutcracker at Lightning Lake - notice the broad pure white eye-ring - we'd never noticed that before



We saw an Osprey fly east over Lightning Lake. As we drove out we were relieved to see a nearby pond was unfrozen!

Here's our birding list:
Pine Siskin
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Mountain Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Winter Wren
American Robin
Varied Thrush
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's)
Dark-eyed Junco
White-crowned Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Say's Phoebe
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Flicker
Crow and Raven
Clark's Nutcracker
Gray Jay
Osprey
Turkey Vulture
Ruffed Grouse
Band-tailed Pigeon
Canada Goose
Barrow's Golden-eye
Rufous Hummingbird

We're looking forward to returning. Janet and Bryan

[Dave]

Great report and nice list, Janet and Bryan. Nice photo of the Say's Phoebe (good record) and a real sharp image of the nuthatch. Thanks for sharing,

Dave

[Chris]

I always look forward to your reports Janet and Bryan especially the Manning Park ones.

From what I understand, Ruffed Grouse are hard to find in Manning so that's a pretty good sighting. I have never seen/heard one in Manning. They like lower elevations so that could explain why they are not common.

Like Dave said, great picture and record of the Phoebe. This is probably one of the latest records for our checklist area.

Out of curiosity was Sumallo Grove open?

Thanks
Chris

[bandj]

Chris:

Thanks for the info re Ruffed Grouse. This bird was close to the road just inside the park from Eastgate. Unfortunately it snuck into the undergrowth before I could get a photo.

Sumallo gate was not open - but the road was clear of snow, and parks were busy finishing just up the hill at Cascade - so we suspect that Sumallo could well be open now.... Sorry - forgot to look on our drive back!

Bryan