Subject: Okanagan Valley birding - Nov 7
Date: Nov 7 18:03:37 2003
From: Chris Charlesworth - c_charlesworth23 at hotmail.com


Birders,

Today I led a day tour for Susan Goods, of Ottawa, Ont. She'd never birded
W. of Ontario so that made my work pretty easy and enjoyable. We spent the
day in the South Okanagan and enjoyed wonderful birds and spectacular
weather.

Our Day:

We met at 6:30 AM in Kelowna in the dark and drove S. to Summerland, where
as dawn broke we easily found the resident LEWIS'S WOODPECKER at Trout Ck
Point. The bird was feeding on a birch tree along May St.

A quick check of the Penticton waterfront was very "gully". There were more
gulls here than I've ever seen. Most were CALIFORNIA GULLS (lifer for
Susan), but there were also some HERRING and RING-BILLED GULLS and a half a
dozen GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULLS (lifer for Susan). The best bird was a first
winter ICELAND GULL. I photographed the bird, which showed very white clean
primaries, mostly white tertials and the other classic marks of a first
winter Iceland.

Our next stop produced another lifer for Susan, AMERICAN DIPPERS. There were
about 5 of them feeding in the rapids at Okanagan Falls. Also on the river
were many BARROW'S GOLDENEYE.

A walk along the boardwalk at Vaseux Lake was very productive. From the
blind we got our target bird, a male EURASIAN WIGEON. He was feeding with a
large flock of AMERICAN WIGEON in amongst a mixed group of TUNDRA and
TRUMPETER SWANS. We enjoyed very close views of large rafts of CANVASBACKS,
RING-NECKED DUCKS, GREATER SCAUP, HOODED MERGANSER and AMERICAN COOTS. An
EARED GREBE was with a PIED-BILLED GREBE off the Vaseux Lk Campsite. Three
KILLDEER were on the sandbar at the N. end of the lake. A short drive up
Irrigation Ck Rd produced very little, but we did get our one target bird,
CANYON WREN. This was another lifer for Susan. We first heard the bird, then
after a lengthy search finally saw it too. As we drove past the S. end of
Vaseux we pulled into a little pull-off and scanned through some loons...two
of which turned into classic imm. PACIFIC LOONS.

After a pit-stop in Oliver we drove through the orchards on the W. side of
town and found a flock of approx. 40 CEDAR WAXWINGS with 1 BOHEMIAN WAXWING
mixed in. Our next goal was to locate "western" forest birds along McKinney
Road. This was harder than I expected and it took us numerous stops to
finally locate PYGMY NUTHATCH, MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE, STELLER'S JAY, CLARK'S
NUTCRACKER, of which we found all in the end. Also in the woods were RED
CROSSBILLS, WINTER WREN, WHITE-BREASTED and RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHES, a
RUFFED GROUSE and GRAY JAYS.

We hurried S. towards Rd. 22, stopping briefly at Southern Plus Feedlots to
get Susan her lifer BREWER'S BLACKBIRD. Along the way we found another
LEWIS'S WOODPECKER perched on a telephone wire on Black Sage Rd. In a
vineyard we bumped into another nice lifer for Sue, a flock of WESTERN
BLUEBIRDS. In the Rd. 22 area we got NORTHERN SHRIKE, RED-TAILED HAWK, AM.
KESTREL, NORTHERN HARRIER and GREAT BLUE HERONS. The adult breeding plumage
PACIFIC LOON was obliginly swimming and feeding along the river on the E.
Dyke S. of Road 22, making for a great lunch stop. A VIRGINIA RAIL let out a
few calls here also.

We then drove over the Richter Pass, stopping at Elkink Ranch. Right beside
the road a dozen CHUKAR were heading in to the hay bails to spend the night!
Susan was quite impressed with these exotic looking birds. Once in Cawston
we made a quick detour and saw about 30 EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES on Ferko
Road. That was the end of a great day of birding.

The List:

PACIFIC LOON
Common Loon
Pied-billed Grebe
Eared Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
Tundra Swan
Gadwall
EURASIAN WIGEON
American Wigeon
Mallard
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Merlin
Chukar
Ruffed Grouse
California Quail
Virginia Rail
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
ICELAND GULL
Glaucous-winged Gull
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
LEWIS'S WOODPECKER
Downy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Northern Shrike
Gray Jay
Steller's Jay
Clark's Nutcracker
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Pygmy Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Canyon Wren
Winter Wren
Marsh Wren
American Dipper
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Western Bluebird
American Robin
European Starling
Bohemian Waxwing
Cedar Waxwing
Song Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird
House Finch
Red Crossbill
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

78 Species!


Good birding,

Chris Charlesworth
Avocet Tours
725 Richards Road
Kelowna, BC
V1X 2X5
(250) 718-0335
c_charlesworth at avocettours.com
www.avocettours.com

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