Baird's Sandpipers top of South Sister

On Thursday August 16 my daughter Lisa and I climbed South Sister, elevation 10, 358 ft.  On arrival at the summit, we found the summit crater (0.25 mile in diameter) filled with snow with only a small pool of water at one spot, named Teardrop Pool.  We were very surprised to find 2 birds walking around on the snow feeding.  We were able to walk on the snow and on closer look, it was obvious they were shorebirds and eventually we got close enough to see they were Baird's Sandpipers.  Apparently spiders often disperse this time of year, and some get caught in updrafts and wind up in snow banks, and a few species of shorebirds capitalize on this.  Though I had heard of this occurring, it still was quite amazing to find a shorebird on snow at over 10,000 feet altitude.

 

Arctic Tern, Franklin's Gull

 

Dave Irons reported Arctic Tern and Franklin's Gull on Smith Lake this morning and so I got on my bike and found both birds being watched by several other viewers.  The tern nicely flew relatively close to us several times.

Mountain Chickadee

Photographed 8/17/12 at Sunriver.