Hoary Marmot

On our walk up the Sunrise Trail in Mount Rainier National Park, we saw marmots. These giant squirrels did not look right. We remembered marmots that were much more uniformly brown. These animals seemed to be silver-haired, hence their name. This species is found in western Canada, Alaska, and in our Pacific Northwest.

Not surprisingly, we saw several marmots along the trail. They live in colonies consisting of up to 36 individuals. The colony includes an adult male, perhaps three adult females, and various young marmots. Colony size is limited by food availability.

Hoary Marmots hibernate for seven or eight months a year. In the summer, they often sun themselves on rocks. About half their day is spent this way. The remainder of their time is spent foraging for various plant materials.

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels ran up the Sunrise Tail in Mount Rainier National Park on 21 September 2016. This rodents are common in the Rocky Mountain West. I am surprised this post is my first for the species.

These ground squirrels lack the facial stripes of chipmunks. They hyburnate in burrows during the winter. They collect seeds and other vegetation in cheeck pouches, storing some of their food in their burrows. They have litters of four to six young in the summer. Ground squirrels are imported prey items for hawks and various larger mammals (Wikipedia).

Merlin

Yesterday, 9 November 2016, John Holden and I photographed a Merlin near the 180th Street Marsh in nearby Dakota County. John was with me when I last captured a Merlin image in Rice County on 27 November 2012. Compare the two birds in this post. The first is yesterday’s falcon, the bottom is the Rice County bird.

When I wrote about the Rice County Merlin, I explained that three races of Merlin are described. I hesitantly concluded that our bird was a taiga race due to its overall dark coloration, creamy eye-stripe, and buffy breast. Our more recent individual seems clearly to be a Prairie Merlin. Note the very pale sides of the face, the white stripe above the eye, and the non-buffy, white breast markings.

Sooty Grouse

On 21 September, we began our journey home. Our first stop was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This destination promised us a short day, but we both know that, no matter how many miles we have to cover, our days always seem to take 11 hours—especially if you detour and go by way of Mount Rainier National Park. We found ourselves with a little over an hour at the park. We walked a short distance up Skyline Trail, which runs towards the peak from the park headquarters. The morning was breath-takingly beautiful.

The trail was relatively crowded. We can’t imagine what a zoo it must be in season. We came upon the bend in the trail in the first photograph. To our surprise, a flock of seven Sooty Grouse fed along the edge of the trail. The grouse were completely unperturbed by our presence. In fact, the birds appeared to defend their territory from us. Because they are often quite tame, grouse are often called Fool's Hen or Trail Chicken.

Grouse systematics are confusing. Until very recently, Blue Grouse were considered a single species. DNA research confirms what some ornithologists suspected. Blue Grouse are actually two species, the darker, coastal Sooty Grouse, and an interior Dusky Grouse. I had never seen a Blue Grouse or either of the two newly described species. One of the joys of birding is the serendipity of being at the right place at the right time. Twenty minutes later, on our return down the trail, not a grouse was to be found.

Pacific Tree Frog

Apparently the Pacific Tree Frog is Washington’s only chorus frog and Washington’s State Amphibian. It is found from Northern California to southern Alaska (where they may have been introduced). Most active at night, this frog is often common and is found in a variety of aquatic habitats. They can change color, ranging from green to brown. They are identified by the black line from their noses to their shoulders. We found this tree frog at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.

Paddle-tailed Darner and Eight-spotted Skimmer.

Actually the “best” critter we listed during our 20 September 2016 Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge hike was this Paddle-tailed Darner. Not that this dragonfly is rare. This species is the common, late-season darner in western Washington. But it was a new one for my list. Paddle-tailed Darners are found from Alaska to southern California, east to South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Eight-spotted Skimmer has a similar, although less northern range.  The skimmer, also common, usually flies earlier in the season. Dennis Paulson, who wrote Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West, wrote me that his last one this year was in Seattle two days later.  Erika and I previously listed this dragonfly last July, also in Nisqually, and elsewhere in the West. 

Mew Gull

As I hustled down the tidal-flat boardwalk at Nisqually National Wildliufe Refuge, I paid scant attention to the many Ring-billed Gulls—except to take a this photo. As I glanced at another bird to my left, the bird alarm rang in my brain. The field marks did not add up. No ring or other markings on the bill. The bird seemed slightly small. The head seemed, rounder, more delicate than that of the Ring-billed Gull. “This could be an adult Mew Gull,” I thought as I began taking pictures.

Mew Gulls breed in the Canadian northwest and in Alaska. They also breed across much of much of northern Eurasia. Our birds winter off the Pacific coast of the United States. They are common in Puget sound from August until early May. Thus my September record is not exceptional. These are, however, my first photos of this species.

Whimbrel

Birders we met at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge were atwitter over several Whimbrel at the end of a long boardwalk over the tidal flats. “Hightail it out to the end now, and you will probably see them—but go quickly because the tide is going out,” said one birder. I hurried the family along, although I was not sure why they birders were so excited about Whimbrels. Turns out, while these birds are fairly common migrants along Pacific shores, they are uncommon in Puget Sound.

The Whimbrels were not hard to find at the end of the boardwalk. My photograph is not fabulous, since the birds fed some distance from us. We watched them probe the deep mud with their long bills. Their bill shape matches the shape of some species of fiddler crabs. Whimbrels also eat other crustaceans, worms, mollusks, and fish. 

Least Sandpiper

Least Sandpipers are common migrants across Washington. A few can be found at any time of year in Puget Sound (Bird Web). Most, however, winter in northeastern South America. They walk slowly while eating amphipods and other small arthropods. This sandpiper uses “surface tension transport,” using water surface tension to deliver prey to its mouth. Opening and closing its bill, the sandpiper moves drops of water containing the prey to its mouth (Prakash et al. 2008). The downside to this feeding technique is that it leaves the birds vulnerable to surface pollutants.

The species can usually be identified by its yellow legs and small size. We saw this individual in the tidal flats at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on 20 September 2016.

Bushtit

Bushtits are foliage-gleaning specialists, as they hunt for insects and spiders. They usually travel in flocks. Unlike this individual in the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge near Olympia, Bushtits more often forage in foliage rather than on stems or branches (Sloane 2001).

Genetic studies reveal that Bushtits are the only New World member of the family Aegithalidae (long-tailed tits). The research further suggests that Bushtit ancestors arrived in North America by way of the Bering land bridge 10-12 million years ago. They are now found in western Canada, United States, and in the mountains of Mexico and Central America.