up finlayson in the snow

Cool day to hike up the back of finlayson. About 3 inches of snow on the ground. pretty quiet on the way up, not many birds, some interesting tracks in the snow, raccoon, deer, and what we thougth might be a cougar, with blood on the ground too. but it turned out to be bleeding on the foot somewhere and it was all over the top of the mountain too. A mink trail was also up on the top. 
Lots of birds, almost all Robins were feeding on the Arbutus berries, with about 20 or so Varied Thrush

There were about 200 Robins feeding on the berries. Something spooked them and they all flew off to the south, returning a few minutes later from the north and settling back down to their gorging .








I turn around to look out the front and notice a grey bird sitting in the top of a fir tree. A Solitaire.

 There ended up to be two of the solitaires up there.  A Sharp-shinned Hawk stirred up all the birds again and startled the solitaires enough to have them fly off and circle around the top not to be seen again. The hawk drifted off toward the south ledge. On the way down the hill I tried for the Pygmy Owl, but no luck with that today.