Bruce Labar and I hiked the Grand Park trail again yesterday with a few differences from our last trip. By far the biggest difference was that yesterday was a sunny, warm and clear fall day, unlike the overcast and drizzly day we chose last week. Second was that we had no need to get back early, so had plenty of time to get to the “park” itself.
Our primary goal again was to look for the American Three-toed and Black-backed woodpeckers that had been previously reported from this area. We started up the trail and shortly after entering Mt. Rainier National Park, maybe 1/3 mile from the trailhead I heard a woodpecker tapping. We looked for some time and I managed only a very brief look at a woodpecker that I think was black-backed, but the look was so unsatisfactory that I just couldn’t list it as such. We also had a N. Pygmi owl far away tooting.
Later, well past the lake, we had a woodpecker drilling off to the right of the trail, and we were able after a bit of searching to locate an American Three-toed woodpecker very close and only about 20 feet up a tree. As we watched the bird and tried to get photos and a video, a second bird joined it and they squabbled and chased each other around for several minutes. We rejoiced and continued up the hill. Both of these birds we took as juveniles, lacking any yellow in the head. A bit farther up the hill we located an adult make ATTW, with yellow on the back of the head. It had feeding and tapping behavior as expected with some bark peeling noted.
A bit farther yet we heard a much louder and more emphatic tapping, in the same area we had identified a drumming BBWO on our last hike on this trail. We located an adult female Black-Backed woodpecker working up a tree just beside the trail. We had great views and felt confirmed in our prior ID, and blessed with such good fortune.
From here we continued up the trail, finding the Grand Park meadow itself, with great Mt. Rainier views and lots of Mountain Bluebirds. It was really fun to see several Rufous-type females, as neither Bruce nor I were familiar with this color morph. We spent nearly 2 hours relaxing there, primarily on a raptor watch. It paid off with distant looks at two eagles, an adult Bald and an adult Golden eagle. The tail and head differences were the primary way we IDed the GOEA. Bruce’s great eyes found a soaring Prairie falcon and a fast-passing Merlin, in addition to a Red-tailed hawk.
We almost danced down the trail after such a terrific morning of birding Pierce County. Here are a few phone photos from the trip:
