>Hi Tweeters,

> for me, B.C. north of Vancouver is still a vast, unknown (and sparsely
>birded) continent. All the more exciting is it to find that another data
>point was collected at Green Lake/Cache Creek, 'only' 150km E of our weekend
>destination, Cerise Creek (30km E of Pemberton, 50km SW of Lilloet,
>altitude 1200 to 1900m). Spring tempereatures meant spring skiing/
>snowshoeing and singing (or calling) birds.

Lucky you!! A minor quibble: your location is nowhere near central B.C.
geographically a la your renaming of the thread. However, you will and did
encounter many species more typical of farther north and east in B.C.

>Highlights were singing Townsend's Solitaires (I wouldn't have associated
>them with a habitat at the edge of a glacier), a (1 or several?) Western
>Screech Owl calling in the mild night, and yellow-rumped Warbler. The
>question whether Clark's Nutcracker occur up there resolved itself, too.

Townsend's Solitaire's are one bird with which most people only have a
passing acquaintance. More is the pity since they are an extremely cool bird.
I bet you all the tea in China that there was a juniper patch somehwere near
to where you heard that bird singing (and what a song!!). I have seen
solitaires try to keep chipmunks from raiding berries from "their" juniper
bushes on Black Knight Mt. near Kelowna. And more than one birder has been
flummoxed trying to figure out what this bird, obviously from another
continent due to its being covered so completely with spots, was in their
binocular field. Only when they have exhausted all possibilities in the field
guides do they twig on it being a young bird... and then they find the plate
for a Townsend's Solitaire in juvenal plumage!

>(List by Geoff & David Cattrall and me - 20/21/4/96. Observations at
>the higher elevation are marked as 'h')
>Blue Grouse
>W.Screech Owl 1 h
>Pileated Woodpecker 1 h
>Gray Jay h
>Clark's Nutcracker
>Mountain Chickadee h
>Red-breasted Nuthatch h
>Winter Wren
>Am. Robin
>Varied Thrush h
>Townsend's Solitaire h
>Yellow-rumped Warbler h
>Song Sparrow
>Dark-eyed Junco h

This species list is interesting in that it would be typical of a moister
environment in the dry southern interior of the province. This fits with the
Pemberton area as being a transition to the drier interior. I must say,
though, that the given elevation range seems a tad high for you to be
encountering W. Screech-Owl which is usually a valley-bottom bird. Not to
question your abilities, Reto, but is there any possibility that it was a
Boreal Owl, a species for which there is a general lack of useful information
in the province?

- Jack




***************************
*Jack Bowling *
*Prince George, BC *
*jcbowling at mindlink.bc.ca *
***************************