On Saturday, August 28, I ventured to the high Uintas for my first time in that specific area. I arrived there at about 11:30, and found the weather to be delightful. Not a cloud in the sky and temperatures were probably in the mid-60's. Just why all those other people had jackets on is a mystery to me. I only birded the trailhead at Mirror Lake, following the one path where there are four (?) different destinations marked. It is located on the far left corner as you enter the parking lot for the trailhead.
I mainly went to see if I could find the Gray Jay. It was fairly quiet there, bird wise. I found the farther I went up the trail, the less people and people related noise there was. I had not seen anything very remarkable until I had ventured about 540 paces (I later counted in case some could use the information) from the parking lot. I heard the "tap, tap, tap" of a probable woodpecker. I had to journey upslope about 60 yards, almost to the camping ground (I could see the campers from where I was and they did stare at me trying to figure out what I was doing). I finally was able to locate it, and it was a THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. While this was exciting enough, much to my pleasure and surprise, it was a female and it had a juvenile in tow. The juvenile was demonstrating the same foraging behavior, but every so often the female would stop and feed the young. This young cannot be too long for going off on its own. The adult never made a sound, but the young one gave off a number of young type of sounds. Hard to describe the sounds. True to their nature, they flew from dead tree to dead tree. I was able to track them through about five dead trees. The female must have been so intent on her feeding the young one that she let me approach amazingly close. I was able to get within about 10-12 feet of them. Each time they started on a different tree, they would start off about 4-8 feet from the base and work their way up. When I was so close to them, I did have pieces of bark falling on me. If you look for this bird, if you get to where the trail splits off and one trail back tracks to the campground which is higher, then you have gone too far. There is a nice size pond about where the trail splits. This was about 12:30 when I first spotted them. If you would like to see pictures, go here: http://www.pbase.com/image/33127735. I posted t! hese for my study, and the second one is where you can count the toes. This was a life bird for me, so it was very rewarding.
In this same area I also saw:
Wilson's Warbler, Mountain Chickadee, Hairy Woodpecker (male) and Brown Creeper.
I continued up the trail, past the pond I described above and saw: Hermit Thrush, Clark's Nutcracker, Hairy Woodpecker (female), Dark-eyed Junco (Gray-headed race). I thought my quest for the Gray Jay was going to be a bust, but the TT Woodpecker more than made up for it. Then when I heard what I thought to be the Gray Jay, I started off in that direction (I went off the trail several times, most of these sightings are within 50 yards of the trail). All of a sudden I saw a shadow fly over me, but it did not continue so I knew it was in the tree just above me. I was almost at the base of the tree, so I tried to peer around each side to find whatever it was. No luck. Then my eyes focused in closer to me. Have you ever seen a surprised Gray Jay? This one was about 3 feet almost above my head, and he looked very surprised. He quickly flew about 6 feet away, and then about 50 feet away. All around success.
On the way back, at about 2:15 at the same area of the trail as I mentioned above, I again saw a female Three-toed Woodpecker. I would imagine it was the same one, but the young one was no where in sight if it was the same one.
I did not spend much time at the actual lake, but there was a fall juvenile Spotted Sandpiper there.
Brian