Sounds like Andy, Mike and Scott had a great time on the Okanagan Big Day
Challenge. About 10 other teams took part on the Canadian side of the
border, including one which spent half the day in Okanogan County as well.
My team, the Deflated Dippers, appears to have won (now that I know what
Scott's team got) with 163 species. Keith Riding, Christoph Rohner,
Fredrik von Euler and myself started at White Lake near Okanagan Falls,
calling for screech owls. We got the screech owl, but were first attacked
by a Long-eared. The early morning hours (0000-0230) were beautiful in
the moonlight, with many species (especially Yellow-breasted Chats) in
full song. Our major disappointment was missing Flammulated Owl
(especially since most other teams had to kick them out of the way) east
of Vaseux Lake, compounded by having a 2 1/2" nail go into our left rear
tire at 0300. We had to give up on trying for Boreal Owl we were so far
behind our schedule. The Venner Meadows road had Black-backed Woodpecker
and Williamson's Sapsucker. A late Trumpeter Swan at Vaseux Lake was
nice, and we got a bonus at the Nighthawk border crossing when we slipped
into the US to try for Grasshopper Sparrow and instead picked up Sage
Thrasher, which we had missed at Chopaka. Way behind time, we raced north
to Kelowna for avocets at Robert Lake and a Glaucous-winged Gull at the
dump. Vernon had the usual Clay-colored and Grasshopper Sparrows,
Bonaparte's Gulls, Swainson's Hawks and the final bonus, a Clark's Grebe
with the Westerns at the north end of Okanagan Lake. We tried to find
Flammulated Owls after dark, but the best habitat in that area is along a
road which is very busy on a holiday weekend (which it was in Canada).
My brother Syd's team (with Andrew Harcombe, George Clulow and
Durrell Kapan) tied with the Washingtonians for second with 159 species.
Bird of the day honours went to Chris Charlesworth for seeing a very late
Rough-legged Hawk, a species also reported (somewhat later in the day) by
Laurie Rockwell in the Molson, WA area. Chris and his team also goth the
Sour Grapes award for worst miss of the day for failing to find Steller's
Jay. The combined species total for all teams reporting at the Monday
brunch was 190; Scott, Andy and Mike will undoubtedly add three or four to
that. About $5000 was raised through pledges to the Nature Trust of
British Columbia to help them with their program of habitat acquisition
and private stewardship of lands in the Okanagan Valley.

If any tweeters are interested in getting involved next year, please drop
me a line!

Richard J. Cannings cannings at bcu.ubc.ca
Cowan Vertebrate Museum vertmus at bcu.ubc.ca
Department of Zoology, (604)822-4665
University of British Columbia (604)822-2416 (FAX)
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 CANADA