Cheam Peak

[b1schmor]

Hello birders,

I managed another trip up Cheam today with some non-birding friends. I did manage to see a few birds, but the area was really quite quiet.

The sighting of the day was a Gord, binoculars in hand, searching for Ptarmigan. Nice to finally meet you Gord. In the bird category, I had a Northern Goshawk fly right over us at the peak, a flock of Rosy Finches flying around most of the day, and what I thought were a small flock of Snow Buntings, but unfortunately, I had very short looks. The only other two birds were a Steller's Jay and a Northern Harrier. One black bear feeding on the ridge.
Not many birds but what a fantastic day to be in the mountains.

Cheers,
Brent Schmor
Abbotsford

[Gord]

Hey Brent! It was great to meet you too at last. Pardon my look of surprise at first when you asked me about ptarmigan. That was the first question of the day that I had that wasnt about how much further to the top, are there bears around ("yeah, you just walked past three!!!) and so forth. ;D

Nice work on the goshawk! I forgot to ask if it was an adult or juv.

My day's story.

I got there in the morning and started up. It was very quiet bird wise, but there were three bears on the hill at Spoon Valley! All were feeding on blueberries. One took exception to another and sent it on its way.

The upper bear is the one moving off to find its own blueberry patch.


The first birds I saw after a varied thrush was what turned out to be two lapland longspurs right at the lake. I managed a couple shots as they snuck around in the grass.






Also here was a pair of pine grosbeaks flying overhead.

Between the lake and past the 'landing' between Lady and Cheam peak, it was pretty quiet.

As I was nearing the top, a helicopter flew in low, and landed right near the top. It scared three Townsend's solitares past me, but also probably scared everything else away too. They were dropping off hang-gliders (para-gliders?). Between the helicopter these big 'hawks' flying around (the guy who was obviously taken up on his first flight if his frightened cussing was any clue) I was sure any ptarmigan would be long gone. Happily (sorta), Brent had made it to the top before the helicopter had come and didnt find any so I didnt have to be too annoyed at the helicopter's arrival.

Around here were grey-crowned rosy finches and another lapland longspur overhead. On the way back down, I encountered another good sized maurading flock of bohemian waxwings, a golden eagle over Lady Peak and a rough-legged hawk flying over fairly high in a southerly direction.

That was the end of my outing. Beautiful day and the scenery was awesome as always. Nice to have met you too, Brent!



The list from the day:

Northern harrier 1 (juv)
Red-tailed hawk 2
Rough-legged hawk 1
Golden eagle 1 (adult)
Common raven 1
Mountain chickadee 1
Townsend's solitare 3
Varied thrush 4
American pipit 2
Bohemian waxwing 30-40
Dark-eyed junco 5
Lapland longspur 3
Grey-crowned rosy finch 40-50
Pine sisken 6
Pine grosbeak 2

[b1schmor]

Gord, the Goshawk was an adult. That's a good list of birds for Cheam. I was hoping to see the Bohemian Waxwings, but no luck. After seeing you I didn't see another bird.

Brent

[Gord]

It was dead up there. I can only imagine with the snow that the area's receiving it will only get even more quiet until the snow starts to thin.

I saw very little on the way down as well. After the golden eagle I just had the two pipits fly overhead down in Spoon Valley.

Hope to get up one more time, and by the weather forecast of 40mm-60mm of rain in the next 36 hours, it may not happen.

Thanks for the info on the goshawk. Would like to have spotted it as Ive only seen Juv to date.